"It is certainly an excellent style of good looks!" I answered.
He eyed me an instant askance, and then seemed hurried along by the
current of remembrance. "You should have seen the mother and the child
together, seen them as I first saw them--the mother with her head draped
in a shawl, a divine trouble in her face, and the bambino pressed to her
bosom. You would have said, I think, that Raphael had found his match in
common chance. I was coming in, one summer night, from a long walk in
the country, when I met this apparition at the city gate. The woman held
out her hand. I hardly knew whether to say, 'What do you want?' or to
fall down and worship. She asked for a little money. I saw that she was
beautiful and pale; she might have stepped out of the stable of
Bethlehem! I gave her money and helped her on her way into the town. I
had guessed her story. She, too, was a maiden mother, and she had been
turned out into the world in her shame. I felt in all my pulses that
here was my subject marvellously realised. I felt like one of the old
monkish artists who had had a vision.
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