“It is a new thing in art,” continued Luca, enthusiastically.  “Other sculptors, with a classical subject like mine, limit themselves to the ideal classical face, and never think of aiming at individual character.  Now I do precisely the reverse of that.  I get my handsome daughter, Maddalena, to sit for Minerva, and I make an exact likeness of her.  I may lose in ideal beauty, but I gain in individual character.  People may accuse me of disregarding established rules; but my answer is, that I make my own rules.  My daughter looks like a Minerva, and there she is exactly as she looks.”

“It is certainly a wonderful likeness,” said Father Rocco, approaching the statue.

“It the girl herself,” cried the other.  “Exactly her expression, and exactly her features.  Measure Maddalena, and measure Minerva, and from forehead to chin, you won’t find a hair-breadth of difference between them.”

“But how about the bust and arms of the figure, now the face is done?” asked the priest, returning, as he spoke, to his own work.

“I may have the very model I want for them to-morrow.  Little Nanina has just given me the strangest message.  What do you think of a mysterious lady admirer who offers to sit for the bust and arms of my Minerva?”

“Are you going to accept the offer?” inquired the priest.

“I am going to receive her to-morrow; and if I really find that she is the same height as Maddalena, and has a bust and arms worth modeling, of course I shall accept her offer; for she will be the very sitter I have been looking after for weeks past.  Who can she be?  That’s the mystery I want to find out.  Which do you say, Rocco—­an enthusiast or an adventuress?”

“I do not presume to say, for I have no means of knowing.”

“Ah, there you are with your moderation again.  Now, I do presume to assert that she must be either one or the other—­or she would not have forbidden Nanina to say anything about her in answer to all my first natural inquiries.  Where is Maddalena?  I thought she was here a minute ago.”

“She is in Fabio’s room,” answered Father Rocco, softly.  “Shall I call her?”

“No, no!” returned Luca.  He stopped, looked round at the workmen, who were chipping away mechanically at their bit of drapery; then advanced close to the priest, with a cunning smile, and continued in a whisper, “If Maddalena can only get from Fabio’s room here to Fabio’s palace over the way, on the Arno—­come, come, Rocco! don’t shake your head.  If I brought her up to your church door one of these days, as Fabio d’Ascoli’s betrothed, you would be glad enough to take the rest of the business off my hands, and make her Fabio d’Ascoli’s wife.  You are a very holy man, Rocco, but you know the difference between the clink of the money-bag and the clink of the chisel for all that!”

“I am sorry to find, Luca,” returned the priest, coldly, “that you allow yourself to talk of the most delicate subjects in the coarsest way.  This is one of the minor sins of the tongue which is growing on you.  When we are alone in the studio, I will endeavor to lead you into speaking of the young man in the room there, and of your daughter, in terms more becoming to you, to me, and to them.  Until that time, allow me to go on with my work.”