placed in the most honourable part, they were
obliged to be content, though they vowed vengeance
against the Tournabuoni. Neither did Ghirlandaio
get his extra two hundred gold pieces, for although
Giovanni was delighted with the frescoes he never
paid the price he had promised.

To the end of his days Ghirlandaio loved nothing
so much as to work from morning till night.
Nothing was too small or mean for him to do.
He would even paint the hoops for women's baskets
rather than send any work away from his shop.

`Oh,' he cried, one day, `how I wish I could
paint all the walls around Florence with my stories.'

But there was no time to do all that. He was
only forty-four years old when Death came and bade
him lay down his brushes and pencil, for his work
was done.

Beneath his own frescoes they laid him to rest
in the church of Santa Maria Novella. And
although we sometimes miss the soul in his pictures
and weary of the gay outward decoration of
goldsmith's work, yet there is something there which
makes us love the grand show of fair ladies and strong
men in the carefully finished work of this Florentine
`Maker of Garlands.'