eauty at his feet. The feelings that gather fervour from novelty will
be of little help towards making the world a home for dimmed and faded
human beings; and if there is any love of which they are not widowed, it
must be the love that is rooted in memories and distils perpetually the
sweet balms of fidelity and forbearing tenderness.

But surely such memories were not absent from Tito's mind? Far in the
backward vista of his remembered life, when he was only seven years old,
Baldassarre had rescued him from blows, had taken him to a home that
seemed like opened paradise, where there was sweet food and soothing
caresses, all had on Baldassarre's knee; and from that time till the
hour they had parted, Tito had been the one centre of Baldassarre's
fatherly cares.

And he had been docile, pliable, quick of apprehension, ready to
acquire: a very bright lovely boy, a youth of even splendid grace, who
seemed quite without vices, as if that beautiful form represented a
vitality so exquisitely poised and balanced that it could know no uneasy
desires, no unrest--a radiant presence for a lonely man to have won for
himself. If he were silent when his father expected some response,
still he did not look moody; if he declined some labour--why, he flung
himself down with such a charming, half-smiling, half-pleading air, that
the pleasure of looking at him made amends to one who had watched his
growth with a sense of claim and possession: the curves of Tito's mouth
had ineffable good-humour in them. And then, the quick talent to which
everything came readily, from philosophical systems to the rhymes of a
street ballad caught up at a hearing! Would any one have said that Tito
had not made a rich return to his benefactor, or that his gratitude and
affection would fail on any great demand?

He did not admit that his gratitude had failed; but _it was not certain_
that Baldassarre was in slavery, not certain that he was living.

"Do I not owe something to myself?" said Tito, inwardly, with a slight
movement of his shoulders, the first he had made since he had turned to
look down at the florins. "Before I quit everything, and incur again
all the risks of which I am even now weary, I must at least have a
reasonable hope. Am I to spend my life in a wandering search? _I
believe he is dead_. Cennini was right about my florins: I will place
them in his hands to-morrow."

When, the next morning, Tito put this determination into act h