The story of it will be sufficiently understood from a
peep at its result.
CHAPTER VII
The Teaching of a Great Love
Paolina had been working all day in the church of San Vitale. She
had very nearly completed the copies she was to make there; and they
were the most important in extent of all she had engaged to execute.
It had been necessary to erect a scaffolding for the purpose of
bringing the artist sufficiently near to her subject; and the
permission to have this done had been obtained by the all-powerful
interest of the Marchese Lamberto. Many an hour had Ludovico passed
on that scaffolding by the artist's side as she plied her slow and
laborious task; and many a "Paul" had the old sacristan pocketed
with a grin of understanding, as he had opened the door of the
church to the young Marchese, the object of whose visit he had long
since learned to understand.
And Paolina herself? Did she approve of these visits made thus in
the perfect seclusion of that old church at the hours when its doors
were shut to the public? Did she like the hours so spent in tete-a-
tete conversation with the handsome young Marchese? She, who had so
readily found the means to make the entreprenant Conte Leandro keep
his distance, and had succeeded in disembarrassing herself of him
altogether,--could she find no possible means for avoiding the
assiduities of the Marchese Ludovico; could she not at least have
induced old Orsola to accompany her in the church of San Vitale, as
she had accompanied her in the gallery at Venice?
Perhaps old Orsola did not like climbing up a ladder to a
scaffolding.
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