At all events, it appeared to afford Donatello exquisite pleasure; insomuch that he danced quite round the wooden railing that fences in the Dying Gladiator.
"It is the very step of the Dancing Faun," said Miriam, apart, to Hilda.
"What a child, or what a simpleton, he is! I continually find myself treating Donatello as if he were the merest unfledged chicken; and yet he can claim no such privileges in the right of his tender age, for he is at least--how old should you think him, Hilda ?" "Twenty years, perhaps," replied Hilda, glancing at Donatello; "but, indeed, I cannot tell; hardly so old, on second thoughts, or possibly older.

He has nothing to do with time, but has a look of eternal youth in his face." "All underwitted people have that look," said Miriam scornfully.
"Donatello has certainly the gift of eternal youth, as Hilda suggests," observed Kenyon, laughing; "for, judging by the date of this statue, which, I am more and more convinced, Praxiteles carved on purpose for him, he must be at least twenty-five centuries old, and he still looks as young as ever." "What age have you, Donatello ?" asked Miriam.
"Signorina, I do not know," he answered; "no great age, however; for I have only lived since I met you." "Now, what old man of society could have turned a silly compliment more smartly than that!" exclaimed Miriam.

"Nature and art are just at one sometimes.

But what a happy ignorance is this of our friend Donatello! Not to know his own age! It is equivalent to being immortal on earth.

If I could only forget mine!" "It is too soon to wish that," observed the sculptor; "you are scarcely older than Donatello looks." "I shall be content, then," rejoined Miriam, "if I could only forget one day of all my life." Then she seemed to repent of this allusion, and hastily added, "A woman's days are so tedious that it is a boon to leave even one of them out of the account." The foregoing conversation had been carried on in a mood in which all imaginative people, whether artists or poets, love to indulge.