"I went yesterday, after I had paid and received a few visits, to the Exhibition, and turned at once into the sculpture gallery. I had promised Guarnerio, Braga, and a few more of our friends in Milan and Rome, who had sent works there, to go at once and look after them, to see how they were placed, what impression they made, and whether the German sculptors bore comparison with them. They are wretchedly placed, and consequently produce little effect, and the German sculptors can quite hold their own with them. Your countrymen have progressed; they may boast of several talents of the very first order, such as Reinhold Begas, Siemering, and a third, whose name I read for the first time on a marvellous group of a Satyr, to whom a mischievous Cupid is holding a looking-glass--Justus Anders. I beg you will remember the name; it will appear again in my little history. "Close to it, in a window, a life-sized figure first attracted my attention, because it was one of the few that was in a really good light. Doubtless a masterpiece, I thought, of which they are specially proud. But I was mistaken, it was not at least a work of the highest rank; finely conceived, but not so well carried out; a certain want of freedom in the technical part, which betrayed the pupil who has not long left school, and has for the first time attempted a higher flight. The subject also was not one to excite my interest--a young shepherd boy of the Campagna, in the ordinary costume, saying his Ave Maria, with raised eyes and clasped hands; but nevertheless the statue attracted me in a remarkable degree. Dare I acknowledge it? I thought I saw myself five-and-twenty, thirty years ago, as I so often roved through the Campagna and dreamed dreams over which I now smile; and looked up ecstatically into the glowing sky, which in my thought was peopled by bands of angels, and offered up ardent prayers, which I believed would be heard. And more curious still, the next moment I saw, not myself, but you, as I saw you on that memorable day when I was presented to you and your Princess in the park--the two Leonoras as you were then jestingly called--and with the first glance into your eyes I knew that I had lost myself in you, without dreaming that at that moment you were already lost to me." He passed his hands over his downcast eyes, which he then, as if accidentally, raised to her. She also had drooped her eyelids; but a pink tinge was on her pale cheeks. Was it the reflection of the sunlight of that evening? Giraldi hoped so; he did not suspect how wonderfully mixed were the feelings that these memories awakened in the heart of the unhappy woman. He hoped also that her eyes would be raised to his with a glance in which might still gleam a ray of the old love: but her eyelids were not raised. He must touch a deeper chord.