In the middle-distance the ass was grazing, and Joseph, whose features the artist had borrowed from the well-chiselled head of an old peasant, stood leaning on his staff, like a faithful servant who has succeeded in rescuing from imminent peril the treasure intrusted to him. The picture was upright and on a large scale; the Madonna and Bambino were painted the size of life, and the rich colouring of the heads and draperies was finely relieved by the local tints and highly finished bark and leafage of the plane-tree, behind which the immense landscape receded in wide and brilliant perspective. My mother was inexpressibly delighted with this valuable token of his regard, and her affection for the highly-gifted painter became truly maternal. About this period I remarked a mysterious change in the looks and habits of Colonna. His prompt and flowing language gave place to a moody and oppressive silence; his deportment was occasionally more abrupt and impassioned; and his eloquent features betrayed some hidden source of grief and perplexity. The increased duration and frequency of his rambles from the villa excited at length my attention and remonstrance. In justification, he pleaded, as before, that he was a man of itinerant habits, and too mercurial in temperament to remain long in any place. This explanation had now, however, ceased to be satisfactory. Our intercourse was obviously less cordial and incessant. He had of late rarely sought my society in his excursions, and this circumstance, in connection with his altered look and manner, made me suspect some change in his feelings towards me. I determined to solve a mystery so painful and embarrassing, and succeeded ere long in obtaining his confession, during a still and beautiful night, a large portion of which we passed together in a myrtle arbour, which crowned a cool eminence in the villa gardens. We had passed some hours in this delicious solitude, enjoying the pure night-breeze, and admiring the soft and silver tints diffused by an Italian moon over the lake and landscape. Our spirits were elevated by wine, and song, and conversation; and our hearts communed together, and expanded into more than usual freedom and confidence. I described to him the fair objects of several fleeting attachments, and acknowledged that my experience of female excellence had never yet realised the expectations I had formed. "I anticipated from you, however," I continued, "some illustrations of that wayward thing, the human heart. A youth so ardent in feeling, and so adorned by nature and education, must necessarily have had no limited experience of the tender passion; and surely some of the beautiful heads in your portfolio have been sketched from life, and _con amore_."