little feet, if it were only to crush one cluster of the grapes. And the
grape-juice that gushed beneath his childish tread, be it ever so small
in quantity, sufficed to impart a pleasant flavor to a whole cask of
wine. The race of Monte Beni--so these rustic chroniclers assured
the sculptor--had possessed the gift from the oldest of old times of
expressing good wine from ordinary grapes, and a ravishing liquor from
the choice growth of their vineyard.

In a word, as he listened to such tales as these, Kenyon could have
imagined that the valleys and hillsides about him were a veritable
Arcadia; and that Donatello was not merely a sylvan faun, but the genial
wine god in his very person. Making many allowances for the poetic
fancies of Italian peasants, he set it down for fact that his friend, in
a simple way and among rustic folks, had been an exceedingly delightful
fellow in his younger days.

But the contadini sometimes added, shaking their heads and sighing, that
the young Count was sadly changed since he went to Rome. The village
girls now missed the merry smile with which he used to greet them.

The sculptor inquired of his good friend Tomaso, whether he, too,
had noticed the shadow which was said to have recently fallen over
Donatello's life.

"Ah, yes, Signore!" answered the old butler, "it is even so, since
he came back from that wicked and miserable city. The world has grown
either too evil, or else too wise and sad, for such men as the old
Counts of Monte Beni used to be. His very first taste of it, as you see,
has changed and spoilt my poor young lord. There had not been a single
count in the family these hundred years or more, who was so true a Monte