the paper was already finished, and was so exactly like me that I was immensely pleased with it. The young man went on painting in the cool morning, singing as he worked, and sometimes looking from the open window at the glorious landscape. I, in the meantime, spread myself another piece of bread and butter, and walked up and down the room, looking at the pictures leaning against the wall. Two of them pleased me especially. "Did you paint these, too?" I asked the painter. "Not exactly," he replied. "They are by the famous masters Leonardo da Vinci and Guido Reni; but you know nothing about them." I was nettled by the conclusion of his remark. "Oh," I rejoined very composedly, "I know those two masters as well as I know myself." He opened his eyes at this. "How so?" he asked hastily. "Well," said I, "I traveled with them day and night, on horseback, on foot, and driving at a pace that made the wind whistle in my ears, and I lost them both at an inn, and then traveled post alone in their coach, which went bumping on two wheels over the rocks, and--" "Oho! oho!" the painter interrupted me, staring at me as if he thought me mad. Then he suddenly burst into a fit of laughter. "Ah," he cried, "now I begin to understand. You traveled with two painters called Guido and Lionardo?" When I assented, he sprang up and looked me all over from head to foot. "I verily believe," he said "that actually--Can you play the violin?" I struck the pocket of my coat so that my fiddle gave forth a tone, and the painter went on: "There was a Countess here lately from Germany, who made inquiries in every nook and corner of Rome for those two painters and a young musician with a fiddle." "A young Countess from Germany!" I cried in an ecstasy. "Was the Porter with her?" "Ah, that I do not know," replied the painter. "I saw her only once or twice at the house of one of her friends, who does not live in the city. Do you know this face?" he went on, suddenly lifting the covering from a large picture standing in a corner. In an instant I felt as we do when in a dark room the shutters are opened and the rising sun flashes in our eyes. It was--the lovely Lady fair! She was standing in the garden, in a black velvet gown, lifting her veil from her face with one hand, and looking abroad over a distant and beautiful landscape. The longer I looked the more vividly did it seem to be the castle garden, and the flowers and boughs waved in the wind, while in the depths of green I could see my little toll-house, and the high-road, and the Danube, and in the distance the blue mountains. "'Tis she! 'tis she!" I exclaimed at last, and, seizing my hat, I ran out of the door and down the long staircase, while the astonished painter called after me to come back toward evening, and we might perhaps learn something more. CHAPTER VIII