as he might well have done that
you had kindly written a letter in his behalf to the Gonfalonier of
Florence, whither he intends later to journey. But my uncle
learning of this later was duly impressed thereby, and pronounced
him a young man of engaging manners who doubtless deserved such
distinguished favour.

"Even with this warrant our acquaintance has made no such rapid
strides. I meet him rarely except at our host's table where there
are often other guests and always that pest Giovanni Bazzi, whom I
can in no wise abide, and concerning whose honesty I have of late
entertained very grave suspicions. So serious indeed are they that
I will not at present divulge them but shall continue to watch the
rogue, knowing that the guilty sooner or later accuse themselves. I
think he dreads me for he leaves me always to converse with
Raphael, with whom my topic is ever Florence, which I knew as a
child before the banishment of the Medici.

"He tells me that he longs to see the city on account of the
artists there assembled and chiefly the painter Frate, formerly
known as Baccio della Porta, who turned monk under the preaching of
Savonarola.

"'And truly,' said he, 'I think that art and a monastic life wed
well together, and I would willingly retire to some cloistered
garden afar from the world if I might carry my box of colours with
me, and might sometimes see as in a vision a face like thine to
paint from.' Then was I seized with a foolish timidity so that I
could in no wise answer--nay, nor so much as lift up my head--but
my heart said, 'And why afar from the world? Why not in it making
all better and happier?'

"And while I sat thus silent, abashed, he, continuing to gaze upon
me, cried: 'Nay, but I _must_ paint thee: for thou art the very
embodiment of the ideal which I am striving to shadow forth in my
picture. I wish to depict the Virgin at the time of her betrothal
to St. Joseph, And to show a soul as pure as any of Fra Angelico's
angels shining through a body that shall have all the perfection
and charm of Da Vinci's women. It is what my master, Perugino,
strove for but never attained. How could he when he had only his
beautiful but soulless wife Chiara Fancelli to paint from?'

"'And do I look thus to thee?' I asked in wonder. 'Then