On the Friday morning--unlucky day!--Adeline sat to Mr. St. John for the first time. Her father and Miss Carr were with her. Afterwards he again went to dine at the château: the evening seemed dull now that did not bring them Mr. St. John. Truly the acquaintance was short enough to say this. On the following morning early, M. de Castella departed for Paris, and after breakfast Adeline and Mary Carr proceeded to the lodge with Madame de Castella. The sitting was long, and Madame de Castella could not conceal her weariness. To many, the opportunity of examining the paintings would have been pleasure sufficient, but not to her. In point of fact, she had no taste for the fine arts, and after Tuesday's cursory renewed view of them, the task proved irksome. She complained much, too, of the walk in the morning heat. The truth was--and it is as well to confess it--that during these periodical visits to the Château de Beaufoy, Madame de Castella lived in a chronic state of ennui. Young and good-looking still, fond of the world, the dulness of Beaufoy was a very penance to her. She went through it willingly as a duty: she loved her mother; but she could not help the weariness affecting her spirits. The sitting this first morning was long and weary: but for talking with Mr. St. John, she never could have sat through it. Their conversation turned upon Rome--a frequent theme. Mary Carr thought that were she to remain long with them she should become as well acquainted with the Eternal City as though she had visited it. St. John seemed wonderfully attached to it; as were the Castellas. He had a portfolio of drawings of it, from his own pencil: some of them highly-finished coloured specimens; others bare sketches, to be filled up from memory; the lines of genius apparent in all. The portefeuille was often referred to: even Madame de Castella had been content to look over it for a full hour. It was a motley collection. A sketch of the lovely Alban hills; the ruins of an aqueduct; a temple of Pæstum; the beauties of Tivoli; the ruins of the Cæsars' palaces; St. Peter's in its magnificence; a view from the Appian Way; a drawing of the Porta San Giovanni; an imaginative sketch of a gorgeous palace of Rome in its zenith; a drawing of one of its modern villas; a temple of Jupiter; Sallust's garden; and the tomb, still so perfect, of Cecilia Metella. There were fanciful moonlight views of the now almost uninhabited hills, Palatino, Celio, and Aventino. There was one masterly, gloomy painting of a grove of pines and cypress trees, overlooking a heap of ruins. Lying side by side with it, was one of a life-like garden, with its marble fountains, its colonnades, its glimpses of tinted flowers, its blooming orange and lemon trees, its cascades and pillars, its wreathing vines, its polished statues, and its baths of Alexandrian marble; and, over all, the bright blue of an Italian sky, and the glowing beams of an Italian sun.