not diminished when Naumann, after drawing Will aside for a
moment and looking, first at a large canvas, then at Mr. Casaubon, came forward
again and said,
    »My friend Ladislaw thinks you will pardon me, sir, if I say that a sketch
of your head would be invaluable to me for the St Thomas Aquinas in my picture
there. It is too much to ask; but I so seldom see just what I want - the
idealistic in the real.«
    »You astonish me greatly, sir,« said Mr. Casaubon, his looks improved with a
glow of delight; »but if my poor physiognomy, which I have been accustomed to
regard as of the commonest order, can be of any use to you in furnishing some
traits for the angelical doctor, I shall feel honoured. That is to say, if the
operation will not be a lengthy one; and if Mrs. Casaubon will not object to the
delay.«
    As for Dorothea, nothing could have pleased her more, unless it had been a
miraculous voice pronouncing Mr. Casaubon the wisest and worthiest among the
sons of men. In that case her tottering faith would have become firm again.
    Naumann's apparatus was at hand in wonderful completeness, and the sketch
went on at once as well as the conversation. Dorothea sat down and subsided into
calm silence, feeling happier than she had done for a long while before. Every
one about her seemed good, and she said to herself that Rome, if she had only
been less ignorant, would have been full of beauty: its sadness would have been
winged with hope. No nature could be less suspicious than hers: when she was a
child she believed in the gratitude of wasps and the honourable susceptibility
of sparrows, and was proportionately indignant when their baseness was made
manifest.
    The adroit artist was asking Mr. Casaubon questions about English politics,
which brought long answers, and Will meanwhile had perched himself on some steps
in the background overlooking all.
    Presently Naumann said - »Now if I could lay this by for half an hour and
take it up again - come and look, Ladislaw - I think it is perfect so far.«
    Will vented those adjuring interjections which imply that admiration is too
strong for syntax; and Naumann said in a tone of piteous regret,
    »Ah - now - if I could but have had more - but you have other engagements -
I could not ask it - or even to come again to-morrow.«
    »O let us stay!« said Dorothea. »We have nothing to do to-