Immediately before the chair into which the young man so hastily flung himself, lay a rich missal, upon the adornment of which he had been employed, before other thoughts and feelings had sent him to the window; and when he again resumed his work, it was upon the face of a fair saint, which formed the headpiece of a chapter, peering out from among the various graceful arabesques that twined in the brightest colours along the margin of the leaf.
In truth, the face of the young artist was almost as fair as that of the bright being he was engaged in painting. His light brown hair was parted in the middle, over a high white forehead, and fell in faintly waving curls almost to his neck, forming a frame to the soft oval face, to which his violet-blue melancholy-looking eyes, his calm, finely-chiselled features, and the serious repose of his imaginative mouth, imparted an air of gentleness and thoughtfulness combined. His dark, sober-coloured, simple dress, although somewhat too severe to suit his youthful figure, accorded well with the character of his physiognomy. His falling collar displayed a full white throat, which might have served as a model for a statue of Antinous, had it not borne more the stamp of genius in its proportions than of physical voluptuousness. The hands, which now hastily resumed their neglected occupation, had all the fairness and well-moulded contour of a womans, without that delicacy of size which would have stamped them as effeminate. Had he been aware of his own beauty, he might have copied his own graceful form for a personification of the lily-bearing angel in a group of the Annunciation.