Page 44 (1/2)

It is one of the special excellences of such a saloon of polished and

richly colored marble, that decay can never tarnish it Until the house

crumbles down upon it, it shines indestructibly, and, with a little

dusting, looks just as brilliant in its three hundredth year as the day

after the final slab of giallo antico was fitted into the wall To the

sculptor, at this first View of it, it seeically imprisoned, and must always shine He anticipated Miria with even more than the

singular beauty that had heretofore distinguished her

While this thought was passing through his mind, the pillared door, at

the upper end of the saloon, was partly opened, and Miria As she advanced towards the

sculptor, the feebleness of her step was so apparent that he ht sink down on the marble floor,

without the instant support of his arleam of her natural self-reliance, she declined his aid,

and, after touching her cold hand to his, went and sat down on one of

the cushioned divans that were ranged against the wall

"You are very ill, Miriam!" said Kenyon, ht of this"

"No; not so ill as I see despondently,

"yet I ae speedily

occurs"

"What, then, is your disorder?" asked the sculptor; "and what the

remedy?"