ly
pleasures. So Botticelli chose his subjects to please the court, and
for a while ceased to paint his sad-eyed Madonnas.

What mattered to him what his subject was? Let him but paint his
dancing figures, tripping along in their light flowing garments,
keeping time to the music of his thoughts, and the subject might be one
of the old Greek tales or any other story that served his purpose.

All the gay court dresses, the rich quaint robes of the fair ladies,
helped to train the young painter's fancy for flowing draperies and
wonderful veils of filmy transparent gauze.

There was one fair lady especially whom Sandro loved to paint--the
beautiful Simonetta, as she is still called.

First he painted her as Venus, who was born of the sea foam. In his
picture she floats to the shore standing in a shell, her golden hair
wrapped round her. The winds behind blow her onward and scatter pink
and red roses through the air. On the shore stands Spring, who holds
out a mantle, flowers nestling in its folds, ready to enwrap the
goddess when the winds shall have wafted her to land.

Then again we see her in his wonderful picture of 'Spring,' and in
another called 'Mars and Venus.' She was too great a lady to stoop to
the humble painter, and he perhaps only looked up to her as a star
shining in heaven, far out of the reach of his love. But he never
ceased to worship her from afar. He never married or cared for any
other fair face, just as the great poet Dante, whom Botticelli admired
so much, dreamed only of his one love, Beatrice.

But Sandro did not go sadly through life sighing for what could never
be his. He was kindly and good-natured, full of jokes, and ready to
make merry with his pupils in the workshop.

It once happened that one of these pupils, Biagio by name, had made a
copy of one of Sandro's pictures, a beautiful Madonna surrounded by
eight angels. This he was very anxious to sell, and the master kindly
promised to help him, and in the end arranged the matter with a citizen
of Florence, who offered to buy it for six gold pieces.

'Well, Biagio,' said Sandro, when his pupil came into the studio next
morning, 'I have sold thy picture. Let us now hang it up in a good
light that the man who wishes to buy it may see it at its best. Then
will he pay thee the money.'

Biagio was overjoyed.

'Oh, master,' he cried, 'how well thou hast done.'

Then with hands which trembled with excitement the pupil arranged the
pictur