of all patience at last, she showed him she was far from satisfied.

"My lad," she bade him, "tell your master from me he must come and work
himself at the pictures I commissioned him to paint. I meant them to be
the work of his own hand, not a mere apprentice's."

Far from declaring himself, Buffalmacco put on the look and voice of a
poor working-man, and humbly answered Usimbalda, that he saw plain
enough he was not of the sort to inspire confidence in so noble a lady,
and that his duty was to obey.

"I will inform my master," he went on; "and he will not fail to put
himself at the orders of My Lady Abbess."

With this assurance, the Lady Usimbalda left the Church. No sooner was
he alone than Buffalmacco arranged on the scaffolding, just at the spot
where he was at work, two stools with a crock on the top. Then going to
the corner where he had laid them, he pulled out his cloak and hat,
which as it happened were in a very fair state of freshness, and put
them on the lay figure he had improvised; next, he stuck a brush in the
spout of the crock, which was turned towards the wall. This done, after
assuring himself the thing had quite the look of a man busy painting, he
decamped with all speed, determined to keep away till he had seen what
happened.

Next day the Nuns paid their usual visit to the scene of action. But
finding instead of the merry fellow they were accustomed to, a stately
gentleman who held himself In the stiffest of attitudes and seemed
entirely indisposed to laugh and talk, they were afraid and took to
flight.