perhaps, as the fair pleader was of Jewish birth, ought, in strict propriety, to have been selected for the queen; but, following the example of Tintoretto, who has given his heroine golden tresses and a brow of snow, he fixed upon Bertha for the royal suppliant. How earnestly did he wish for her sweet assistance, while manufacturing, from coarser materials, the pompous array of dresses which were to shine in the Eastern court, in which he was wont to attire his landlady and the layman, in order to judge of the effect of light and shade in the grouping.

The only relaxation Lorenzo now indulged in, was his visits to the window. Doomed to eternal labour, he saw Bertha turn away from the half tasted dish of saaur kraaut to her never-ending embroidery. Miriam was more happily circumstanced; her doating parents were her slaves; and, in addition to these anxious relatives, she had a handmaid wholly devoted to her will: her time, therefore, except when gadding abroad to display her finery, was chiefly spent at the window; and Lorenzo had abundant opportunity of sketching her handsome features, which he proposed to transmit to canvas, as an attendant upon the lovely Esther. The painter was not discouraged in his task by the speaking glances which the Israelitish maiden cast across the street; and, conscious that his admiration was not displeasing to her, he indulged it to its full extent. Seldom were Bertha's blue orbs lifted up; but compelled sometimes to come to the window for air, and to tend her plants, the downcast eyes and timid look suited the artist's views for the imploring queen, and he produced a touching likeness of his gentle favourite.

Lorenzo's picture had hung up long enough in Wilikind Mayseder's shop for the whole population of Munich to have discerned its merits, but without producing the effect which the artist had so fondly anticipated. The expedience of placing a more attractive subject by its side, was soon apparent: he had finished a beautiful head

of a nymph, which owed its chief loveliness to the charms of Bertha, and this was speedily exhibited as a pendant to the former; the consequences were as disagreeable as they were unforeseen. But to Lorenzo's surprise he received a visit from Ephraim Manasses, who, bowing and cringing after the manner of his tribe, and professing his utter inability to pay like my lords, the nobles and princes of Bavaria, drove a hard bargain for a portrait of his darling Miriam, and invited the painter to commence his labours immediately. Montesecco had no objection to undertake the task, indeed, although the sum which the haggling Jew had at last consented to give, was scarcely sufficient to cover the expense of the oil and the canvass; yet he hailed it as a commencement of patronage, however humble, and was not aware of all the mischief which was likely to ensue from the exhibition of Bertha's beauty, until, paying his diurnal visit to his friend Mayseder's shop, he saw a splendidly dressed cavalier standing enraptured, opposite the picture, and heard him offer the shopkeeper a large bribe, to obtain from the artist the name of the original of so lovely a portrait. The confident look and supercilious air of this haughty noble raised Lorenzo's ire; but restraining his temper, and reflecting that every gazer possessed a right to ask questions concerning a picture purposely exposed to public view, he made a sign of silence to Wilikind, whose mouth was already open to announce him as a limner wholly at his lordship's service, and retired to the back of the shop. As soon as the unwelcome visitant had departed, Montesecco charged Mayseder to assure him that the head with which he had been so much delighted was a fancy sketch made at Rome: he then inquired out the character of this connoisseur of female beauty, and learned such a history of the profligacy of the celebrated Count Reichendorf, that, utterly dismayed by the incaution which had placed so charming an object as Bertha before the eye of the wildest libertine in Munich, he took down the

picture, and covering it carefully with his handkerchief, conveyed it in haste to his own lodgings.

The hospitable reception which Lorenzo received from the Jew's family, speedily effaced the remembrance of the late unpleasant incident: but with all the delicacy of a lover he immediately abandoned the subject which had so lately occupied all his time and attention; and, notwithstanding the progress already made in Esther and Ahasueras, it was cast aside, and the trial of Susanna and the Elders before Daniel, substituted in its stead. The female form, lest he might injure Miriam by drawing the public attention towards her, he determined should be purely imaginary; but Ephraim Manasses and a visitor, whose countenance was the most revolting and sinister that Lorenzo had ever beheld, he selected for the two accusers; and the economy now so imperative, rather than any sentiment of personal vanity, induced him to sketch his own handsome figure for the youthful prophet. Manasses gladly offered himself as a sitter at the price of his daughter's portrait; but Mordecai, the friend, was more difficult to deal with: he pleaded poverty, the value of his time, and his abject necessities, until he had grasped the last haller which the painter could possibly give.

Though still auguring the full success of his picture, Lorenzo's enthusiasm, and his spirit also, completely abated; his finances were reduced to a low ebb, and he feared that even the small solace derived from his visits to the Jews, must be speedily relinquished; the looks and actions of Miriam, though her tongue was silent, told him that he had made a serious impression upon her heart; and he was too honourable to wish to engage affections which he felt that, from the wide difference of birth and of religion, he could never return. His contemplations opposite to Bertha's window, also, began to be very melancholy though concealing herself in the most distant corner of her apartment, and barricading the lattice with flowers, Lorenzo's inventive genius devised the means of

obtaining a complete view over the whole room, and he saw that his fair neighbour was often in tears; once, and only once, for a long time, their eyes had met, and he thought that she looked reproachfully at him. The idea that she might be jealous of his visits to Miriam, was very delightful; yet he strove, by a thousand mute but eloquent declarations, to convince her that he was devoted to her alone. It was, perchance, only a fond conjecture, yet it appeared to him that the drooping Bertha seemed to revive under the influence of his tender attentions. She seldom went out, except sometimes upon a Sunday to church, or of an evening, when her father invariably accompanied her. Lorenzo, compelled to content himself with following her footsteps, and kneeling at the same shrine while making her orisons in the church of Notre Dame, was too much afraid of exciting the jealousy of the Baron, to venture more than the civilities which one passing stranger might offer to another.

Time meanwhile lagged on. Count Reichendorf ceased his visits at Mayseder's shop, to the discomfiture of the trader, who had sold him a piece of damaged silk, a crown an ell above the price demanded by his fellowmercers for their best goods, and a variety of other profitable bargains: and Lorenzo began to hope that he had entirely forgotten lineaments which had never since been presented to his gaze. What, then, was the painter's astonishment and dismay, when charmed, one morning, with the full view of Bertha, who had opened the window to its utmost extent, and removed all the flowers, an operation sometimes necessary to ventilate the confined apartment, he saw the Count standing in the street below, and surveying, with undisguised pleasure, the fair vision before him: it was soon withdrawn; Bertha caught the bold glance of her new admirer, and retired in haste. Reichendorf lingered for a long time in the street, and Lorenzo, cursing his own imprudence which had exposed the loveliest maiden in Munich to the licen

tious pursuit of an avowed profligate, could scarce repel the strong desire which he felt to drive him by force from the sacred precincts of the chaste Bertha's abode. He watched the intruder's departure; but, a prey to numberless cruel apprehensions, the calm delight with which he had contemplated the sequestered beauty, known to himself alone, had vanished; henceforth he must contend with a rival far superior in rank and fortune, and one who had never yet been known to fail. Confident in the virtue of his beloved, Lorenzo only feared that the difficulty of obtaining access to her would induce Reichendorf, so happy in the power of raising her to the station which her beauty and excellence justly merited, to make honourable proposals to her father, and then what hope could remain for him, an obscure and indigent artist, who had already wasted his little substance, with small prospect of obtaining even the common necessaries of life, for which he had struggled so hardly? Tormented by these thoughts, Lorenzo knew it would be useless to seek his couch at the early hour at which he usually retired, in order to devote every moment of daylight to his pencil; at length, in the hope of obtaining short oblivion from care, he prepared to retire, but was stayed by the tinkling of a guitar-an unwonted sound at such a time-in the quiet street. The night was exceedingly dark; but, opening his window, he could perceive, through the deep gloom, the figure of a man wrapped in a cloak, and, after a soft prelude, a rich manly voice accompanied the instrument, in a song which breathed of love alone: several casements were unclosed, and several listeners apparent from the adjoining houses; but Lorenzo's utmost watchfulness could not detect the slightest movement in Bertha's apartment. The serenader paused, and then commenced his strain anew: nor was it until the first gray dawn of morning had spread its faint light over the horizon, that the strings of his guitar were completely hushed. Montesecco had no difficulty in recognising Reichendorf in