A sinful man might do all the more effective penance in this old banquet hall." "But I should regret to have suggested so ungenial a transformation in your hospitable saloon," continued Kenyon, duly noting the change in Donatello's characteristics.

"You startle me, my friend, by so ascetic a design! It would hardly have entered your head, when we first met.

Pray do not,--if I may take the freedom of a somewhat elder man to advise you," added he, smiling,--"pray do not, under a notion of improvement, take upon yourself to be sombre, thoughtful, and penitential, like all the rest of us." Donatello made no answer, but sat awhile, appearing to follow with his eyes one of the figures, which was repeated many times over in the groups upon the walls and ceiling.

It formed the principal link of an allegory, by which (as is often the case in such pictorial designs) the whole series of frescos were bound together, but which it would be impossible, or, at least, very wearisome, to unravel.

The sculptor's eyes took a similar direction, and soon began to trace through the vicissitudes,--once gay, now sombre,--in which the old artist had involved it, the same individual figure.