The Marble Faun Volume 1 - Page 111/130

"Impossible!" cried Miriam, starting.

"Then did you not see her again?" inquired Kenyon, in some alarm.

"Not there," answered Miriam quietly; "indeed, I followed pretty closely

on the heels of the rest of the party. But do not be alarmed on Hilda's

account; the Virgin is bound to watch over the good child, for the sake

of the piety with which she keeps the lamp alight at her shrine. And

besides, I have always felt that Hilda is just as safe in these evil

streets of Rome as her white doves when they fly downwards from the

tower top, and run to and fro among the horses' feet. There is certainly

a providence on purpose for Hilda, if for no other human creature."

"I religiously believe it," rejoined the sculptor; "and yet my mind

would be the easier, if I knew that she had returned safely to her

tower."

"Then make yourself quite easy," answered Miriam. "I saw her (and it

is the last sweet sight that I remember) leaning from her window midway

between earth and sky!"

Kenyon now looked at Donatello.

"You seem out of spirits, my dear friend," he observed. "This languid

Roman atmosphere is not the airy wine that you were accustomed to

breathe at home. I have not forgotten your hospitable invitation to

meet you this summer at your castle among the Apennines. It is my fixed

purpose to come, I assure you. We shall both be the better for some deep

draughts of the mountain breezes."

"It may he," said Donatello, with unwonted sombreness; "the old house

seemed joyous when I was a child. But as I remember it now it was a grim

place, too."

The sculptor looked more attentively at the young man, and was surprised

and alarmed to observe how entirely the fine, fresh glow of animal

spirits had departed out of his face. Hitherto, moreover, even while he

was standing perfectly still, there had been a kind of possible gambol

indicated in his aspect. It was quite gone now. All his youthful gayety,

and with it his simplicity of manner, was eclipsed, if not utterly

extinct.

"You are surely ill, my dear fellow," exclaimed Kenyon.

"Am I? Perhaps so," said Donatello indifferently; "I never have been

ill, and know not what it may be."

"Do not make the poor lad fancy-sink," whispered Miriam, pulling the

sculptor's sleeve. "He is of a nature to lie down and die at once, if he

finds himself drawing such melancholy breaths as we ordinary people are

enforced to burden our lungs withal. But we must get him away from this

old, dreamy and dreary Rome, where nobody but himself ever thought of

being gay. Its influences are too heavy to sustain the life of such a

creature."

The above conversation had passed chiefly on the steps of the

Cappuccini; and, having said so much, Miriam lifted the leathern curtain

that hangs before all church-doors in italy. "Hilda has forgotten her

appointment," she observed, "or else her maiden slumbers are very sound

this morning. We will wait for her no longer."