THE PIRATES OF SEGXA. 311 



she hastily replaced, permitted a glimpse of her fea- 

 tures brief, indeed, but never to be forgotten. Yes, 

 father ! the face which surmounted that goddess-like 

 and splendid person was the horrid visage I have 

 sketched, lean and yellow, drawn up into innumer- 

 able wrinkles, and with black eyes of intolerable 

 brightness, blazing out of deep and faded sockets. 

 Staggered by this unearthly contrast, I fell back upon 

 the bench of the gondola, and gazed in silent horror 

 at the stranger, who answered not the blunt ques- 

 tions of Jacopo ; and, as if ashamed of her astound- 

 ing ugliness, sat motionless and shrouded from head 

 to foot in her capacious mantle. I followed her into 

 the church, but, unable to hold out during the Mass, 

 I left her there and hastily returned to sketch this 

 sublime example of the hideous before any of its points 

 had faded from my memory. Forgive me, father, 

 for yielding to an impulse so strong as to overwhelm 

 all power of resistance. Yet why should I abandon 

 this rare opportunity of displaying any skill I may 

 have gained from so gifted a teacher ? Pictures of 

 Madonnas and of lovely women so abound in all our 

 palaces, that a young artist can only rise above the 

 common level by representing something extraordi- 

 nary, something rarely or never seen in life." 



Contarini gazed with sorrowing and affectionate 

 interest upon the flushed features of his pupil, again 

 excited as before by his own description of the mys- 

 terious stranger. One less acquainted with human 



VOL. iv. x 



