himself to her father's service in a heedless moment of eagerness
to breathe the same air and dwell under the same roof as she did.
He had gained little for his pains: to see her at mass and at
mealtimes, now and then to be allowed to bring water from the well
for her or feed her pigeons, to see her gray gown go down between
the orchard trees and catch the sunlight, to hear the hum of her
spinning wheel, the thrum of her viol--this was the uttermost he
got of joy in two long years; and how he envied Raffaelle running
along the stone floor of the loggia to leap into her arms, to hang
upon her skirts, to pick the summer fruit with her, and sort with
her the autumn herbs for drying!

"I love Pacifica!" he would say, with a groan, to Raffaelle; and
Raffaelle would say, with a smile, "Ah, Luca, so do I!"

"It is not the same thing, my dear," sighed Luca; "I want her for
my wife."

"I shall have no wife; I shall marry myself to painting," said
Raffaelle, with a little grave, wise face looking out from under
the golden roof of his fair hair. For he was never tired of
watching his father painting the saints with their branch of palm
on their ground of blue or of gold, or Maestro Benedetto making
the dull clay glow with angels' wings and prophets' robes and holy
legends told in color.

Now, one day, as Raffaelle was standing and looking thus at his
favorite window in the potter's house, his friend, the handsome,
black-browed Luca, who was also standing there, did sigh so deeply
and so deplorably that the child was startled from his dreams.