copying in the gallery.  The old woman, Orsola Steno, with whom she lived, was no relation to her, but had been the dear friend of her mother, and had taken the orphan to live with her out of pure charity.  They were very poor,—­very poor, indeed.  But Paolina was beginning to do something.  She had already sold one or two copies of small pictures.  The larger work, on which she was engaged, she had undertaken by the advice of the Director, in the hope of disposing of it when the following summer should bring with it the usual incoming tide of travellers.

The result was that the stranger, taking with him a little note from the Director, went again to the gallery the next day, and finding Signorina Paolina at her post as usual, then and there made his proposition to her.

He was glad, when in doing so he spoke face to face with the girl, that the matter had been settled in his mind before he had seen her.  For he was pleased to be sure that his judgment had not been warped in the matter by the irresistible prejudice in favour of a beautiful girl.  And had he seen Paolina first, he could have had no such assurance.  In truth, the poor Venetian painter’s orphan child was very beautiful.  It is little to the purpose to attempt a detailed description of her beauty; for such descriptions rarely, if ever, succeed in conveying to the imagination of a reader any accurate presentation of the picture, which the writer has in his mind’s eye.  She was dark.  Hair, brows, eyes, and complexion, were all dark; and the contour of the face was of the long or oval type of conformation—­very delicate—­transparently delicate—­more so, the Englishman thought, not without a pull at his heart-strings, than was quite compatible with a due daily supply of nourishment.  Still she did not look unhealthy.  At seventeen a good deal of pinching may be undergone without destroying the elastic vigour of youth.

But the chief and most striking charm of the beautiful face was unquestionably imparted to it from the moral and intellectual nature within.  There was a calm and quiet dignity in the expression of the pure and noble brow, which may often have been seen in women of similar character, and of some twenty-five years of age.  But it is rare to find such at seventeen.  Doubtless the having been left alone in the world at so tender an age, had done much towards producing the expression in question.  It was added to, moreover, by the singular grace of the girl’s figure and mode of standing there before the stranger, as she had risen from her easel on his presenting her with the Director’s note.

She was rather above the middle height, and very slender;—­more so, the Englishman thought again, than she ought to have been.  She was very poorly and even insufficiently clad.  But the little bit of quite plain linen around her slim throat was spotlessly clean; and her poor and totally unornamented chocolate-coloured stuff dress was in decently tidy condition, and was worn with that nameless and inexplicable grace which causes it to be said of similarly gifted women that they may wear anything.