Eleanor | Page 9

fireplaces. Eleanor went to bed in one; I went to bed in the other. No carpets--no stoves--no proper beds even. Edward of course said it was all charming, and the climate balmy. Ah, well!--now we are really quite comfortable--except in that odious dining-room, which Edward will have left in its sins.'
Miss Manisty surveyed her work with a mild satisfaction. The table indeed had been carried away. The floor was covered with soft carpets. The rough uneven walls painted everywhere with the interlaced M's of the Malestrini were almost hidden by well-filled bookcases; and, in addition, a profusion of new books, mostly French and Italian, was heaped on all the tables. On the mantelpiece a large recent photograph stood propped against a marble head. It represented a soldier in a striking dress; and Lucy stopped to look at it.
'One of the Swiss Guards--at the Vatican'--said Mrs. Burgoyne kindly. 'You know the famous uniform--it was designed by Michael Angelo.'
'No--I didn't know'--said the girl, flushing again.--'And this head?'
'Ah, that is a treasure! Mr. Manisty bought it a few months ago from a Roman noble who has come to grief. He sold this and a few bits of furniture first of all. Then he tried to sell his pictures. But the Government came down upon him--you know your pictures are not your own in Italy. So the poor man must keep his pictures and go bankrupt. But isn't she beautiful? She is far finer than most of the things in the Vatican--real primitive Greek--not a copy. Do you know'--Mrs. Burgoyne stepped back, looked first at the bust, then at Miss Poster--'do you know you are really very like her--curiously like her!'
'Oh!'--cried Miss Foster in confusion--'I wish--'
'But it is quite true. Except for the hair. And that's only arrangement. Do you think--would you let me?--would you forgive me?--It's just this band of hair here, yours waves precisely in the same way. Would you really allow me--I won't make you untidy?'
And before Miss Poster could resist, Mrs. Burgoyne had put up her deft hands, and in a moment, with a pull here, and the alteration of a hairpin there, she had loosened the girl's black and silky hair, till it showed the beautiful waves above the ear in which it did indeed resemble the marble head with a curious closeness.
'I can put it back in a moment. But oh--that is so charming! Aunt Pattie!'
Miss Manisty looked up from a newspaper which had just arrived.
'My dear!--that was bold of you I But indeed it is charming! I think I would forgive you if I were Miss Foster.
The girl felt herself gently turned towards the mirror that rose behind the Greek head. With pink cheeks she too looked at herself for a moment. Then in a shyness beyond speech, she lifted her hands.
'Must you'--said Mrs. Burgoyne appealingly. 'I know one doesn't like to be untidy. But it isn't really the least untidy--It is only delightful--perfectly delightful!'
Her voice, her manner charmed the girl's annoyance.
'If you like it'--she said, hesitating--'But it will come down!'
'I like it terribly--and it will not think of coming down! Let me show you Mr. Manisty's latest purchase.'
And, slipping her arm inside Miss Foster's, Mrs. Burgoyne dexterously turned her away from the glass, and brought her to the large central table, where a vivid charcoal sketch, supported on a small easel, rose among the litter of books.
It represented an old old man carried in a chair on the shoulders of a crowd of attendants and guards. Soldiers in curved helmets, courtiers in short velvet cloaks and ruffs, priests in floating vestments pressed about him--a dim vast multitude stretched into the distance. The old man wore a high cap with three lines about it; his thin and shrunken form was enveloped in a gorgeous robe. The face, infinitely old, was concentrated in the sharply smiling eyes, the long, straight, secret mouth. His arm, supporting with difficulty the weight of the robe, was raised,--the hand blessed. On either side of him rose great fans of white ostrich feathers, and the old man among them was whiter than they, spectrally white from head to foot, save for the triple cap, and the devices on his robe. But into his emaciation, his weakness, the artist had thrown a triumph, a force that thrilled the spectator. The small figure, hovering above the crowd, seemed in truth to have nothing to do with it, to be alone with the huge spaces--arch on arch--dome on dome--of the vast church through which it was being borne.--
'Do you know who it is?' asked Mrs. Burgoyne, smiling.
'The--the Pope?' said Miss Foster, wondering.
'Isn't it clever? It is by one of your compatriots, an American artist in Rome. Isn't it wonderful too, the way in which it shows you, not the Pope--but the Papacy--not the man but the