"What a tragic tone was that last, Miriam!" said the sculptor;

and, looking into her face, he was startled to behold it pale and

tear-stained. "How suddenly this mood has come over you!"

"Let it go as it came," said Miriam, "like a thunder-shower in this

Roman sky. All is sunshine again, you see!"

Donatello's refractoriness as regarded his ears had evidently cost him

something, and he now came close to Miriam's side, gazing at her with an

appealing air, as if to solicit forgiveness. His mute, helpless gesture

of entreaty had something pathetic in it, and yet might well enough

excite a laugh, so like it was to what you may see in the aspect of a

hound when he thinks himself in fault or disgrace. It was difficult to

make out the character of this young man. So full of animal life as

he was, so joyous in his deportment, so handsome, so physically

well-developed, he made no impression of incompleteness, of maimed or

stinted nature. And yet, in social intercourse, these familiar friends

of his habitually and instinctively allowed for him, as for a child or

some other lawless thing, exacting no strict obedience to conventional

rules, and hardly noticing his eccentricities enough to pardon them.

There was an indefinable characteristic about Donatello that set him

outside of rules.

He caught Miriam's hand, kissed it, and gazed into her eyes without

saying a word. She smiled, and bestowed on him a little careless caress,

singularly like what one would give to a pet dog when he puts himself in

the way to receive it. Not that it was so decided a caress either, but

only the merest touch, somewhere between a pat and a tap of the finger;

it might be a mark of fondness, or perhaps a playful pretence of

punishment. At all events, it appeared to afford Donatello exquisite

pleasure; insomuch that he danced quite round the wooden railing that

fences in the Dying Gladiator.

"It is the very step of the Dancing Faun," said Miriam, apart, to Hilda.

"What a child, or what a simpleton, he is! I continually find myself

treating Donatello as if he were the merest unfledged chicken; and yet

he can claim no such privileges in the right of his tender age, for he

is at least--how old should you think him, Hilda?"

"Twenty years, perhaps," replied Hilda, glancing at Donatello; "but,

indeed, I cannot tell; hardly so old, on second thoughts, or possibly

older. He has nothing to do with time, but has a look of eternal youth

in his face."

"All underwitted people have that look," said Miriam scornfully.

"Donatello has certainly the gift of eternal youth, as Hilda suggests,"

observed Kenyon, laughing; "for, judging by the date of this statue,

which, I am more and more convinced, Praxiteles carved on purpose for

him, he must be at least twenty-five centuries old, and he still looks

as young as ever."




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