d finished his work and
had left the chapel, that one of the pupils lingered behind. His sharp
eye had caught sight of a netted purse which lay in a dark corner,
dropped there by some careless visitor, or perhaps by the master
himself. The boy darted back and caught up the treasure; but at that
moment the master turned back to fetch something he had forgotten. The
boy looked quickly round. Where could he hide his prize? In a moment
his eye fell on a hole in the wall, underneath a step which Filippino
had been painting in the fresco. That was the very place, and he ran
forward to thrust the purse inside. But, alas! the hole was only a
painted one, and the boy was fairly caught, and was obliged with shame
and confusion to give up his prize.

Scarcely were these frescoes finished when Filippino was seized with a
terrible fever, and he died almost as suddenly as his father had done.

In those days when there was a funeral of a prince in Florence, the
Florentines used to shut their shops, and this was considered a great
mark of respect, and was paid only to those of royal blood. But on the
day that Filippino's funeral passed along the Via dei Servi, every shop
there was closed and all Florence mourned for him.

'Some men,' they said, 'are born princes, and some raise themselves by
their talents to be kings among men. Our Filippino was a prince in Art,
and so do we do honour to his title.'

PIETRO PERUGINO

It was early morning, and the rays of the rising sun had scarcely yet
caught the roofs of the city of Perugia, when along the winding road
which led across the plain a man and a boy walked with steady,
purposelike steps towards the town which crowned the hill in front.

The man was poorly dressed in the common rough clothes of an Umbrian
peasant. Hard work and poverty had bent his shoulders and drawn stern
lines upon his face, but there was a dignity about him which marked him
as something above the common working man.

The little boy who trotted barefoot along by the side of his father had
a sweet, serious little face, but he looked tired and hungry, and
scarcely fit for such a long rough walk. They had started from their
home at Castello delle Pieve very early that morning, and the piece of
black bread which had served them for breakfast had been but small.
Away in front stretched that long, white, never-ending road; and the
little dusty feet that pattered so bravely along had to take hurried
runs now and aga