Removing the wet cloths from her bas-relief, she stood for a moment studying it, and then investing herself in a great apron, set busily to work upon one of the fleeting figures in the composition. She had scarcely begun when as often before a heavy step was heard upon the stair without, a tap sounded lightly upon her door, and, in answer to her invitation, Grant Herman entered. He, too, had evidently been working in clay, of which his loose blouse bore abundant marks. A paper cap, not unlike that of a pastry-cook in an English picture, was stuck a little aslant over his iron gray locks, giving him a certain roguish air, with which the occasional twinkle in his eye harmonized well. "Good morning, Mrs. Greyson," he said in his hearty voice, and then stood for a moment looking over her shoulder at her work in silence. "Do you think the movement of that figure too violent?" his pupil asked, turning to look up at him, and noticing for the first time that despite the saucy pose of his cap, the sculptor was evidently not in the best of spirits. "No," returned he, rather absently. "But you must have less agitation in the robe; it is merely hurried now, not swift. Lengthen and simplify those folds--so." As he indicated the desired curves with his nervous fingers, Mrs. Greyson's quick eye caught sight of a striking ring upon his hand, and without thought she said, involuntarily: "You have a new ring!" "Yes," returned Herman, flushing; "or rather a very old one. It is an intaglio that the artist Hoffmeir--I have told you of our friendship in Rome--gave me one Christmas. I returned it to him when I left Rome, and at his death he in turn sent it back to me." "But Hoffmeir has been dead several years." "More than six; but the ring has just come into my hands." The intaglio was a dark sard beautifully cut with the head of Minerva, and Mrs. Greyson's artistic instincts were keenly alive to the exquisite delicacy of its workmanship. She inquired something of its origin and probable age, and then dropped it from her attention, save that, being a woman, she wondered a little what was the personal bearing of this token, and whether the sculptor's sadness arose from the awakening of memories connected with it. "It must seem like a token from the grave," she said, "coming as it does, so long after Hoffmeir's death." "It does," the other replied, soberly; "but it brought a message with it. Oh, the wretchedness of hearing a voice from the dead, to whom you can send no answer!" The burst of emotion with which he said this was very unusual, and Mrs. Greyson regarded him with perhaps as much surprise as sympathy, having never before seen him so deeply moved. "I am afraid," she ventured, hesitatingly, "that what I said seemed intrusive, though of course it was not meant to be." "It did not seem so; but I am out of sorts this afternoon. I have sent my model away because I am too much unstrung to work."