d Kenyon, duly noting the change in
Donatello's characteristics. "You startle me, my friend, by so ascetic a
design! It would hardly have entered your head, when we first met. Pray
do not,--if I may take the freedom of a somewhat elder man to advise
you," added he, smiling,--"pray do not, under a notion of improvement,
take upon yourself to be sombre, thoughtful, and penitential, like all
the rest of us."

Donatello made no answer, but sat awhile, appearing to follow with
his eyes one of the figures, which was repeated many times over in the
groups upon the walls and ceiling. It formed the principal link of an
allegory, by which (as is often the case in such pictorial designs)
the whole series of frescos were bound together, but which it would be
impossible, or, at least, very wearisome, to unravel. The sculptor's
eyes took a similar direction, and soon began to trace through the
vicissitudes,--once gay, now sombre,--in which the old artist had
involved it, the same individual figure. He fancied a resemblance in it
to Donatello himself; and it put him in mind of one of the purposes with
which he had come to Monte Beni.

"My dear Count," said he, "I have a proposal to make. You must let me
employ a little of my leisure in modelling your bust. You remember what
a striking resemblance we all of us--Hilda, Miriam, and I--found between
your features and those of the Faun of Praxiteles. Then, it seemed an
identity; but now that I know your face better, the likeness is far less
apparent. Your head in marble would be a treasure to me. Shall I have
it?"

"I have a weakness which I fear I cannot overcome," replied the Count,
turning away his face. "It troubles me to be looked at steadfastly."

"I have observed it since we have been sitting here, though never
before," rejoined the sculptor. "It is a kind of nervousness, I
apprehend, which, you caught in the Roman air, and which grows upon you,
in your solitary life. It need be no hindrance to my taking your bust;
for I will catch the likeness and expression by side glimpses, which
(if portrait painters and bust makers did but know it) always bring home
richer results than a broad stare."

"You may take me if you have the power," said Donatello; but, even as he
spoke, he turned away his face; "and if you can see what makes me shrink
from you, you are welcome to put it in the bust. It is not my will, but
my necessity, to avoid men's eyes. Only," he added, with a smile which
ma