The daughter who has been snatched from you, noble lady, was indeed matchless, and no sorrow is too deep to do her justice.

But the divinity who has taken her knows also how to give; and this portrait has preserved for you a part of what you loved.

This picture, too, may influence Melissa's fate; for Caesar has a fine taste in art, and one of the wants of our time which has helped to embitter him is the paralyzed state of the imitative arts.
It will be easier to win his favor for the painter who did this portrait than for a man of noble birth.

He needs such painters as this Alexander for the Pinakothek in the splendid baths he has built at Rome.

If you would but lend me this treasure to-morrow--" But she interrupted him with a decisive "Never!" and laid her hand on the frame as if to protect it.