The house of which we speak turned its windowless southern side toward a little yard, in which lay scattered marble and sandstone blocks of different sizes. The four studio-windows of the northern side looked into a carefully-tended, narrow garden, that sheltered them from all disagreeable reflected lights. Around a little, slender, drowsily-splashing fountain in the middle bloomed a glorious wealth of roses; and the neighboring flower-beds, filled with all kinds of garden-stuff, were enclosed in thick borders of mignonette. Here the smell of oil and turpentine just referred to could not penetrate, especially as only the two upper studios were those of painters; while in the lower story, as could be seen by the blocks of stone in the yard, a sculptor carried on his art. Artists--enjoying, as they do, a perpetual holiday mood over their work--are not wont to be supporters of a regular celebration of the Sabbath. Those who are so must be such as in the course of years have come to devote themselves--as not a few do in a so-called "art-city"--to the mere business-like manufacture of pictures for "art-clubs," or of parlor statuettes; and so are privileged to take their rest on the seventh day, among the other customs of solid citizens. They, "thank God, no longer feel obliged" to be industrious, and to work even on a holiday. But the dwellers in this little house were not of such a type. On the ground-floor all possible panes in the windows had been opened, to let as much as possible of the glowing air stream into the sunless room; and perhaps, too, to tempt in the fragrance of the flowers, or the notes of the flute that sounded from the window overhead. A flock of sparrows, that seemed accustomed to make themselves at home in the place, availed themselves of the opportunity to whirr in and out of the garden, to flutter, chattering and scolding, about among the ivy-vines with which one wall of the studio was thickly covered, and to hunt through every corner for neglected crusts of bread. With all this, however, they seemed well-bred enough to make no other trouble but their noise--though the busts and clay models, that stood about the room on boards and scaffoldings, showed many traces of their visits. On the damp cloth, in which a large group that stood in the middle of the great room was carefully wrapped, in order to keep the fresh clay from drying, sat an old and rather decrepit-looking sparrow, who still looked about him with an air of considerable dignity--evidently the chief of this wild army, to whom the pleasant coolness of his seat seemed to make it an agreeable one. He took no part in the fluttering and chatter of the younger company, but fixed his attention with critical gravity upon the artist in the gray blouse, who had moved his modeling-table close to the window, and was busy in finishing from a living model the statue of a dancing Bacchante.