lapse of years, causes but a natural sigh or two, because even his
mother feared that he could not keep it always. But after a young man
has brought it through his childhood, and has still worn it in
his bosom, not as an early dewdrop, but as a diamond of pure white
lustre,--it is a pity to lose it, then. And thus, when Kenyon saw how
much his friend had now to hide, and how well he hid it, he would have
wept, although his tears would have been even idler than those which
Donatello had just shed.

They parted on the lawn before the house, the Count to climb his tower,
and the sculptor to read an antique edition of Dante, which he had found
among some old volumes of Catholic devotion, in a seldom-visited room,
Tomaso met him in the entrance hall, and showed a desire to speak.

"Our poor signorino looks very sad to-day!" he said.

"Even so, good Tomaso," replied the sculptor. "Would that we could raise
his spirits a little!"

"There might be means, Signore," answered the old butler, "if one might
but be sure that they were the right ones. We men are but rough nurses
for a sick body or a sick spirit."

"Women, you would say, my good friend, are better," said the sculptor,
struck by an intelligence in the butler's face. "That is possible! But
it depends."

"Ah; we will wait a little longer," said Tomaso, with the customary
shake of his head.