“I have him here, miss,” said Crow, laying down his brush to take a small sketch-book from the pocket of his blouse. “I have him here; and there wouldn't have been a finer head in the canvas,--pale, stern-looking, but gentle withal; a fellow that would say, 'Lead them to the scaffold,' as easy as winking, and that would tremble and falter under the eye of a woman he loved. There he is, now,--the hair, you know, I put in myself, and the bit of beard, just for a little Titian effect; but the eyes are his own, and the mouth not as good as his own.” “It's a striking head, indeed,” said Mary, still contemplating it attentively. “That's exactly what it is; none of your common brain-boxes, but a grand specimen of the classic head, civilized down to a mediaeval period; the forty-first descendant of an Emperor or a Proconsul, living at the Pincian Hall, or at his villa on the Tiber, sitting for his likeness to Giordano.” “There's a painful expression in the features, too,” added she, slowly. “So there is; and I believe he 's in bad health.” “Indeed!” said Mary, starting. “I quite forgot there was an original all this time.” “He's alive; and what's more, he's not a mile from where we 're standing.” Mr. Crow looked cautiously about him as he spoke, ac if fearful of being overheard; and then approaching close to Miss Martin, and dropping his voice to a whisper, said, “I can venture to tell you what I dare n't tell my Lady; for I know well if she suspected who it was would be the Prince of Orange, begad, I might abdicate too, as well as the King. That young man there is-the son of a grocer in Oughterard,--true, every word of it,--Dan Nelligan's son! and you may fancy now what chance he 'd have of seeing himself on that canvas if her Ladyship knew it.” “Is this the youth who has so distinguished himself at college?” asked Mary. “The very one. I made that sketch of him when he was reading for the medal; he did n't know it, for I was in a window opposite, where he couldn't see me; and when I finished he leaned his chin in his hand and looked up at the sky, as if thinking; and the expression of his up-turned face, with the lips a little apart, was so fine that I took it down at once, and there it is,” said he, turning over the page and presenting a few pencil lines lightly and spiritedly drawn. “A young gentleman left this packet, Miss Mary, and said it was for you,” said a servant, presenting a small sealed enclosure. Mary Martin blushed deeply, and she opened the parcel, out of which fell her own glove, with a card. “The very man we were talking of,” said Mr. Crow, lifting it up and handing it to her,--“Joseph Nelligan. That's like the old proverb; talk of the--” But she was gone ere he could finish his quotation.