as if I could see this countenance gradually brightening while I look
at it. It gives the impression of a growing intellectual power and
moral sense. Donatello's face used to evince little more than a genial,
pleasurable sort of vivacity, and capability of enjoyment. But here, a
soul is being breathed into him; it is the Faun, but advancing towards a
state of higher development."

"Hilda, do you see all this?" exclaimed Kenyon, in considerable
surprise. "I may have had such an idea in my mind, but was quite unaware
that I had succeeded in conveying it into the marble."

"Forgive me," said Hilda, "but I question whether this striking effect
has been brought about by any skill or purpose on the sculptor's part.
Is it not, perhaps, the chance result of the bust being just so far
shaped out, in the marble, as the process of moral growth had advanced
in the original? A few more strokes of the chisel might change the whole
expression, and so spoil it for what it is now worth."

"I believe you are right," answered Kenyon, thoughtfully examining his
work; "and, strangely enough, it was the very expression that I tried
unsuccessfully to produce in the clay model. Well; not another chip
shall be struck from the marble."

And, accordingly, Donatello's bust (like that rude, rough mass of the
head of Brutus, by Michael Angelo, at Florence) has ever since remained
in an unfinished state. Most spectators mistake it for an unsuccessful
attempt towards copying the features of the Faun of Praxiteles. One
observer in a thousand is conscious of something more, and lingers long
over this mysterious face, departing from it reluctantly, and with many
a glance thrown backward. What perplexes him is the riddle that he sees
propounded there; the riddle of the soul's growth, taking its first
impulse amid remorse and pain, and struggling through the incrustations
of the senses. It was the contemplation of this imperfect portrait of
Donatello that originally interested us in his history, and impelled us
to elicit from Kenyon what he knew of his friend's adventures.

CHAPTER XLII

REMINISCENCES OF MIRIAM

When Hilda and himself turned away from the unfinished bust, the
sculptor's mind still dwelt upon the reminiscences which it suggested.
"You have not seen Donatello recently," he remarked, "and therefore
cannot be aware how sadly he is changed."

"No wonder!" exclaimed Hilda, growing pale.

The terrible scene which she had wit