p to look where it was
going, but ran right between the painter's legs and knocked him flat on
his back, putting an end to his learned talk.

Giotto scrambled to his feet with a rueful smile, and shook his finger
at the pig which was fast disappearing in the distance.

'Ah, well!' he said, 'I suppose thou hadst as much right to the road as
I had. Besides, how many gold pieces I have earned by the help of thy
bristles, and never have I given any of thy family even a drop of soup
in payment.'

Another time he went riding with a very learned lawyer into the country
to look after his property. For when Bondone died, he left all his
fields and his farm to his painter son. Very soon a storm came on, and
the rain poured down as if it never meant to stop.

'Let us seek shelter in this farmhouse and borrow a cloak,' suggested
Giotto.

So they went in and borrowed two old cloaks from the farmer, and
wrapped themselves up from head to foot. Then they mounted their horses
and rode back together to Florence.

Presently the lawyer turned to look at Giotto, and immediately burst
into a loud laugh. The rain was running from the painter's cap, he was
splashed with mud, and the old cloak made him look like a very forlorn
beggar.

'Dost think if any one met thee now, they would believe that thou art
the best painter in the world?' laughed the lawyer.

Giotto's eyes twinkled as he looked at the funny figure riding beside
him, for the lawyer was very small, and had a crooked back, and rolled
up in the old cloak he looked like a bundle of rags.

'Yes!' he answered quickly, 'any one would certainly believe I was a
great painter, if he could but first persuade himself that thou dost
know thy A B C.'

In all these stories we catch glimpses of the good-natured kindly
painter, with his love of jokes, and his own ready answers, and all the
time we must remember that he was filling the world with beauty, which
it still treasures to-day, helping to sow the seeds of that great tree
of Art which was to blossom so gloriously in later years.

And when he had finished his earthly work it was in his own cathedral,
'St. Mary of the Flowers,' that they laid him to rest, while the people
mourned him as a good friend as well as a great painter. There he lies
in the shadow of his lily tower, whose slender grace and
delicate-tinted marbles keep his memory ever fresh in his beautiful
city of Florence.

FRA ANGELICO

Nearly a hundred years h