The only other person who took any notice of poor William Snodgrass was the one other who might have been supposed least likely to notice him. Pandolfini took the poor young fellow up. Notwithstanding the curate’s awkwardness and shyness, the kind Italian insisted upon making acquaintance with him. There is no one so kind as an Italian, endowed with that _cortesia_ which the old writers speak of as a quality of God. “The Lord of all Courtesy,” is not that a title which Dante gives to the Supreme? Pandolfini had this divine quality as much as any man, even an Italian, ever had; and his heart was touched by the most tender sympathy for this fellow-in-feeling, whom it was too absurd to think of as his rival. The poor curate was no one’s rival. He had given up his being to the most beautiful and noble creature, so far as he knew, who had ever crossed his horizon; and had not Pandolfini done so too? The sympathetic Italian gave himself up to the task of cultivating this dull but tender soul. He took him to private gems of pictures which the public saw only on rare occasions: he took him through everything that was most worth seeing: and having his eyes opened by the fact that the heavy young Englishman had set his affections upon the highest object within his firmament, saw other glimmers of perception in him which no one else had found out. “There, I can’t understand Pandolfini,” said Mr. Hunstanton; “the uncle, now, is a man of the world. He is a man that knows what he is about. He has read a little and observed a little--as much as you can expect from a clergyman. But Bill Snodgrass is a nonentity. He is as dull as ditch-water. You can’t get a sensible word out of him. The rector can talk and take his own part like any other man.” “I do not agree with you, my friend,” said the Italian, “there are some fine things in the Stupid: there are feelings: I do not mean feelings of the heart alone. He has nothing to say about it; but he will know a fine picture when he sees one.” “When you tell him it is fine--” “I never tell him anything; but there are things which Mr. Bill, if so you call him (I admire your monosyllables), can see--and a great many people cannot see,” said Pandolfini simply, yet with meaning, with a half-smile at his companion, who laughed, unabashed, and rubbed his hands. “He means me! Yes, I know him. The best fellow that ever breathed; but if he can give you a random cut round the corner! I refused to buy something once of a friend of his--and it turned out--what did it turn out, Pandolfini? an enormous prize, you know. How was a man to divine that? There was nobody to speak up for it, and I don’t pretend to be a connoisseur. By the way, if you have friends who want to sell anything, you had better send them to Diana. She is the person. She could buy us all up and never feel it. To see her so simple as she is, you would never suppose that she was such a great lady at home.” “Is she, then, a great lady at home?”