seeking for his Madonna for the altar of the Servi. "What doth he like,
your little one? For I am a friend to the _bambini_, and the _poverina_
hath pain to bear."

She was more beautiful still when she smiled and the anxiety died out of
her girlish face for a moment, in gratitude for the sympathy.
"Eccellenza, thanks," she answered simply; "he has a beautiful face.
Sometimes when he has flowers in his little hand he smiles and is quite
still."

But the radiant look passed swiftly with the remembrance of the pain
that would come to the child on waking, and she kissed the tiny fingers
that lay over the edge of her mantle with a movement of irrepressible
tenderness, lapsing at once into reverie; while the artist, full of the
enthusiasm of creation, stood dreaming of his picture. This Holy Mother
should be greater, more compassionate, nearer to the people than any
Madonna he had ever painted; for never had he noted in any face before
such a passion of love and pity. In that moment of stillness the sunset
lights, intensifying, cast a glow about her; the child, half-waking,
stretched up his tiny hand and touched her cheek with a rare caress, and
the light in her face was a radiance never to be forgotten. The
Veronese's wonderful _Madonna del Sorriso_ leaped to instant life; a
_smile_ full of the pathos of human suffering, tender in comprehension,
perfect in faith--this, which this moment of inspiration had revealed to
him, would he paint for the consolation of those who should kneel before
the altar of the Servi!

She was busy with the child, putting him gently on the ground as a
gondola approached; he, with his thought in intense realization, fixing
the peculiar beauty of these sunset clouds in his artist memory as sole