CHAPTER XXVIII


THE OWL TOWER


"Will you not show me your tower?" said the sculptor one day to his
friend.

"It is plainly enough to be seen, methinks," answered the Count, with
a kind of sulkiness that often appeared in him, as one of the little
symptoms of inward trouble.

"Yes; its exterior is visible far and wide," said Kenyon. "But such
a gray, moss-grown tower as this, however valuable as an object of
scenery, will certainly be quite as interesting inside as out. It cannot
be less than six hundred years old; the foundations and lower story are
much older than that, I should judge; and traditions probably cling to
the walls within quite as plentifully as the gray and yellow lichens
cluster on its face without."

"No doubt," replied Donatello,--"but I know little of such things, and
never could comprehend the interest which some of you Forestieri take
in them. A year or two ago an English signore, with a venerable white
beard--they say he was a magician, too--came hither from as far off as
Florence, just to see my tower."