rial of which God moulded her, to keep that severity which I, as
well as you, have recognized."

"O, you are right!" said Miriam; "I never questioned it; though, as
I told you, when she cast me off, it severed some few remaining bonds
between me and decorous womanhood. But were there anything to forgive, I
do forgive her. May you win her virgin heart; for methinks there can
be few men in this evil world who are not more unworthy of her than
yourself."

CHAPTER XXXII

SCENES BY THE WAY

When it came to the point of quitting the reposeful life of Monte Beni,
the sculptor was not without regrets, and would willingly have dreamed a
little longer of the sweet paradise on earth that Hilda's presence
there might make. Nevertheless, amid all its repose, he had begun to be
sensible of a restless melancholy, to which the cultivators of the ideal
arts are more liable than sturdier men. On his own part, therefore, and
leaving Donatello out of the case, he would have judged it well to go.
He made parting visits to the legendary dell, and to other delightful
spots with which he had grown familiar; he climbed the tower again, and
saw a sunset and a moonrise over the great valley; he drank, on the
eve of his departure, one flask, and then another, of the Monte Beni
Sunshine, and stored up its flavor in his memory as the standard of what
is exquisite in wine. These things accomplished, Kenyon was ready for
the journey.

Donatello had not very easily been stirred out of the peculiar
sluggishness, which enthralls and bewitches melancholy people. He had
offered merely a passive resistance, however, not an active one, to his
friend's schemes; and when the appointed hour came, he yielded to the
impulse which Kenyon failed not to apply; and was started upon the
journey before he had made up his mind to undertake it. They wandered
forth at large, like two knights-errant, among the valleys, and the
mountains, and the old mountain towns of that picturesque and
lovely region. Save to keep the appointment with Miriam, a fortnight
thereafter, in the great square of Perugia, there was nothing more
definite in the sculptor's plan than that they should let themselves
be blown hither and thither like Winged seeds, that mount upon each
wandering breeze. Yet there was an idea of fatality implied in the
simile of the winged seeds which did not altogether suit Kenyon's fancy;
for, if you look closely into the matter, it will be seen that