“And what do you think of the divine Serafina?” he cried with fervour.

“It is certainly an excellent style of good looks!” I answered.

He eyed me an instant askance, and then seemed hurried along by the current of remembrance.  “You should have seen the mother and the child together, seen them as I first saw them—­the mother with her head draped in a shawl, a divine trouble in her face, and the bambino pressed to her bosom.  You would have said, I think, that Raphael had found his match in common chance.  I was coming in, one summer night, from a long walk in the country, when I met this apparition at the city gate.  The woman held out her hand.  I hardly knew whether to say, ‘What do you want?’ or to fall down and worship.  She asked for a little money.  I saw that she was beautiful and pale; she might have stepped out of the stable of Bethlehem!  I gave her money and helped her on her way into the town.  I had guessed her story.  She, too, was a maiden mother, and she had been turned out into the world in her shame.  I felt in all my pulses that here was my subject marvellously realised.  I felt like one of the old monkish artists who had had a vision.  I rescued the poor creatures, cherished them, watched them as I would have done some precious work of art, some lovely fragment of fresco discovered in a mouldering cloister.  In a month—­as if to deepen and sanctify the sadness and sweetness of it all—­the poor little child died.  When she felt that he was going she held him up to me for ten minutes, and I made that sketch.  You saw a feverish haste in it, I suppose; I wanted to spare the poor little mortal the pain of his position.  After that I doubly valued the mother.  She is the simplest, sweetest, most natural creature that ever bloomed in this brave old land of Italy.  She lives in the memory of her child, in her gratitude for the scanty kindness I have been able to show her, and in her simple religion!  She is not even conscious of her beauty; my admiration has never made her vain.  Heaven knows that I have made no secret of it.  You must have observed the singular transparency of her expression, the lovely modesty of her glance.  And was there ever such a truly virginal brow, such a natural classic elegance in the wave of the hair and the arch of the forehead?  I have studied her; I may say I know her.  I have absorbed her little by little; my mind is stamped and imbued, and I have determined now to clinch the impression; I shall at last invite her to sit for me!”

“’At last—­at last’?” I repeated, in much amazement.  “Do you mean that she has never done so yet?”

“I have not really had—­a—­a sitting,” said Theobald, speaking very slowly.  “I have taken notes, you know; I have got my grand fundamental impression.  That’s the great thing!  But I have not actually had her as a model, posed and draped and lighted, before my easel.”

What had become for the moment of my perception and my tact I am at a loss to say; in their absence I was unable to repress a headlong exclamation.  I was destined to regret it.  We had stopped at a turning, beneath a lamp.  “My poor friend,” I exclaimed, laying my hand on his shoulder, “you have dawdled!  She’s an old, old woman—­for a Madonna!”