"Your forefathers, my dear Count, must have been joyous fellows, keeping up the vintage merriment throughout the year.

It does me good to think of them gladdening the hearts of men and women, with their wine of Sunshine, even in the Iron Age, as Pan and Bacchus, whom we see yonder, did in the Golden one!" "Yes; there have been merry times in the banquet hall of Monte Beni, even within my own remembrance," replied Donatello, looking gravely at the painted walls.

"It was meant for mirth, as you see; and when I brought my own cheerfulness into the saloon, these frescos looked cheerful too.

But, methinks, they have all faded since I saw them last." "It would be a good idea," said the sculptor, falling into his companion's vein, and helping him out with an illustration which Donatello himself could not have put into shape, "to convert this saloon into a chapel; and when the priest tells his hearers of the instability of earthly joys, and would show how drearily they vanish, he may point to these pictures, that were so joyous and are so dismal.

He could not illustrate his theme so aptly in any other way." "True, indeed," answered the Count, his former simplicity strangely mixing itself up with ah experience that had changed him; "and yonder, where the minstrels used to stand, the altar shall be placed.