of another man’s joy and sorrow.

We had also there another lion,—a lion cub,—entitled to roar a little, and of him also I must say something.  Charles O’Brien was a young man, about twenty-five years of age, who had sent out from his studio in the preceding year a certain bust, supposed by his admirers to be unsurpassed by any effort of ancient or modern genius.  I am no judge of sculpture, and will not, therefore, pronounce an opinion; but many who considered themselves to be judges, declared that it was a “goodish head and shoulders,” and nothing more.  I merely mention the fact, as it was on the strength of that head and shoulders that O’Brien separated himself from a throng of others such as himself in Rome, walked solitary during the days, and threw himself at the feet of various ladies when the days were over.  He had ridden on the shoulders of his bust into a prominent place in our circle, and there encountered much feminine admiration—from Mrs. General Talboys and others.

Some eighteen or twenty of us used to meet every Sunday evening in Mrs. Mackinnon’s drawing-room.  Many of us, indeed, were in the habit of seeing each other daily, and of visiting together the haunts in Rome which are best loved by art-loving strangers; but here, in this drawing-room, we were sure to come together, and here before the end of November, Mrs. Talboys might always be found, not in any accustomed seat, but moving about the room as the different male mental attractions of our society might chance to move themselves.  She was at first greatly taken by Mackinnon,—who also was, I think, a little stirred by her admiration, though he stoutly denied the charge.  She became, however, very dear to us all before she left us, and certainly we owed to her our love, for she added infinitely to the joys of our winter.

“I have come here to refresh myself,” she said to Mackinnon one evening—to Mackinnon and myself; for we were standing together.

“Shall I get you tea?” said I.

“And will you have something to eat?” Mackinnon asked.

“No, no, no;” she answered.  “Tea, yes; but for Heaven’s sake let nothing solid dispel the associations of such a meeting as this!”

“I thought you might have dined early,” said Mackinnon.  Now Mackinnon was a man whose own dinner was very dear to him.  I have seen him become hasty and unpleasant, even under the pillars of the Forum, when he thought that the party were placing his fish in jeopardy by their desire to linger there too long.

“Early!  Yes.  No; I know not when it was.  One dines and sleeps in obedience to that dull clay which weighs down so generally the particle of our spirit.  But the clay may sometimes be forgotten.  Here I can always forget it.”

“I thought you asked for refreshment,” I said.  She only looked at me, whose small attempts at prose composition had, up to that time, been altogether unsuccessful, and then addressed herself in reply to Mackinnon.

“It is the air which we breathe that fills our lungs and gives us life and light.  It is that which refreshes us if pure, or sinks us into stagnation if it be foul.  Let me for awhile inhale the breath of an invigorating literature.  Sit down, Mr. Mackinnon; I have a question that I must put to you.”  And then she succeeded in carrying him off into a corner.  As far as I could see he went willingly enough at that time, though he soon became averse to any long retirement in company with Mrs. Talboys.

We none of us quite understood what were her exact ideas on the subject of revealed religion.  Somebody, I think, had told her that there were among us one or two whose opinions were not exactly orthodox according to the doctrines of the established English church.  If so, she was determined to show us that she also was advanced beyond the prejudices of an old and dry school of theology.  “I have thrown down all the barriers of religion,” she said to poor Mrs. Mackinnon, “and am looking for the sentiments of a pure Christianity.”

“Thrown down all the barriers of religion!” said Mrs. Mackinnon, in a tone of horror which was not appreciated.

“Indeed, yes,” said Mrs. Talboys, with an exulting voice.  “Are not the days for such trammels gone by?”

“But yet you hold by Christianity?”

“A pure Christianity, unstained by blood and perjury, by hypocrisy and verbose genuflection.  Can I not worship and say my prayers among the clouds?”  And she pointed to the lofty ceiling and the handsome chandelier.

“But Ida goes to church,” said Mrs. Mackinnon.  Ida Talboys was her daughter.  Now, it may be observed, that many who throw down the barriers of religion, so far as those barriers may affect themselves, still maintain them on behalf of their children.  “Yes,” said Mrs. Talboys; “dear Ida! her soft spirit is not yet adapted to receive the perfect truth.  We are obliged to govern children by the strength of their prejudices.”  And then she moved away, for it was seldom that Mrs. Talboys remained long in conversation with any lady.

Mackinnon, I believe, soon became tired of her.  He liked her flattery, and at first declared that she was clever and nice; but her niceness was too purely celestial to satisfy his mundane tastes.  Mackinnon himself can revel among the clouds in his own writings, and can leave us sometimes in doubt whether he ever means to come back to earth; but when his foot is on terra firma, he loves to feel the earthly substratum which supports his weight.  With women he likes a hand that can remain an unnecessary moment within his own, an eye that can glisten with the sparkle of champagne, a heart weak enough to make its owner’s arm tremble within his own beneath the moonlight gloom of the Coliseum arches.  A dash of sentiment the while makes all these things the sweeter; but the sentiment alone will not suffice for him.  Mrs. Talboys did, I believe, drink her glass of champagne, as do other ladies; but with her it had no such pleasing effect.  It loosened only her tongue, but never her eye.  Her arm, I think, never trembled, and her hand never lingered.  The General was always safe, and happy, perhaps, in his solitary safety.

It so happened that we had unfortunately among us two artists who had quarrelled with their wives.  O’Brien, whom I have before mentioned, was one of them.  In his case, I believe him to have been almost as free from blame as a man can be whose marriage was in itself a fault.  However, he had a wife in Ireland some ten years older than himself; and though he might sometimes almost forget the fact, his friends and neighbours were well aware of it.  In the other case the whole fault probably was with the husband.  He was an ill-tempered, bad-hearted man, clever enough, but without principle; and he was continually guilty of the great sin of speaking evil of the woman whose name he should have been anxious to protect.  In both cases our friend Mrs. Talboys took a warm interest, and in each of them she sympathised with the present husband against the absent wife.

Of the consolation which she offered in the latter instance we used to hear something from Mackinnon.  He would repeat to his wife, and to me and my wife, the conversations which she had with him.  “Poor Brown;” she would say, “I pity him, with my very heart’s blood.”

“You are aware that he has comforted himself in his desolation,” Mackinnon replied.

“I know very well to what you allude.  I think I may say that I am conversant with all the circumstances of this heart-blighting sacrifice.”  Mrs. Talboys was apt to boast of the thorough confidence reposed in her by all those in whom she took an interest.  “Yes, he has sought such comfort in another love as the hard cruel world would allow him.”

“Or perhaps something more than that,” said Mackinnon.  “He has a family here in Rome, you know; two little babies.”

“I know it, I know it,” she said.  “Cherub