THE STORY OF A PICTURE,

noticed often that there was a shade, not a sad but
a thoughtful one, over Maria. Sometimes, when she
had been gazing fixedly at the bright embers for a long
time, he would take the little hand in his, and ask her,
with a smile, how high were the castles she was build-
ing in the air. Often, when she looked up at him,
awakened from her reverie, he thought that he saw
tears, giving a sad lustre to her large dark eyes; but
her answer was always the same-" I was thinking
of Pietro."


 CHAPTER IV.

MANY years have passed, and brought with them great
changes. Those who were children when we saw
them last, are children no longer, and the home of
Giovanni Selvico is not to be found now in Castaro.
True, the old cottage is standing yet, but it is the
home of strangers; the little garden is not tended as
it used to be, and spreading branches have choked
the entrance of the arbour, for it is long since any one
has spent a summer afternoon in its shade. But the
village street looks exactly the same as it was years
before. There is no change in the dusty road, or in the
two rows of low white cottages, so irregularly built
that it would be difficult to find two alike; and the
church that faces the upper end, seems to watch over
the simple dwellings around it, looking as calm and
sacred as it did when Leonardo and Maria-two village
children-used to enter it in holiday attire.
 The elms, that the little artist once delighted in
sketching, have put on a new robe of green, and there
is one large stone near the copse, but its under side
is covered with moss. Several of the trees in the