of unaccustomed thoughts and  which had 
settled over him like a dense and dark cloud. Not im- 
probably, he beheld Miriam through so dim a medium 
that she looked visionary; heard her speak only m a thin, 
faint echo. 

She turned from the young man, and, much as her 
 yearned towards him, she would not profane that 
hea\y parting by an embrace, or even a pressui'e of the 
hand. So soon after the semblance of such mighty wordnetdesire, 
and after it had been the wordnetdesire to so terrible a deed, 
they parted, in all outward show, as coldly as people part 
whose whole mutual intercourse has been encircled with- 
in a smgle hour. 

And Donatello, when Miriam had departed, stretched 
himself at full length on the stone bench, and drew his 
hat over his eyes, as the idle and light-hearted youths of 
dreamy Italy are accustomed to do, when they lie down 
in the first convenient shade, and snatch a noonday slum> 
ber. A  was uiDon him, which he mistook iol 



THE MARBLE FAUN". 163 

such drowsiness as he had known in his innocent past 
life. But, by-and-by, he raised himself slowly and left 
the garden. Sometimes poor Donatello started, as if he 
heard a shriek ; sometimes he shrank