w to express, and from what choicest grapes, which would
ripen only in a certain divinely favored portion of the Monte Beni
vineyard.

The family, be it observed, were both proud and ashamed of these
legends; but whatever part of them they might consent to incorporate
into their ancestral history, they steadily repudiated all that referred
to their one distinctive feature, the pointed and furry ears. In a great
many years past, no sober credence had been yielded to the mythical
portion of the pedigree. It might, however, be considered as typifying
some such assemblage of qualities--in this case, chiefly remarkable for
their simplicity and naturalness--as, when they reappear in successive
generations, constitute what we call family character. The sculptor
found, moreover, on the evidence of some old portraits, that the
physical features of the race had long been similar to what he now saw
them in Donatello. With accumulating years, it is true, the Monte
Beni face had a tendency to look grim and savage; and, in two or three
instances, the family pictures glared at the spectator in the eyes like
some surly animal, that had lost its good humor when it outlived its
playfulness.

The young Count accorded his guest full liberty to investigate the
personal annals of these pictured worthies, as well as all the rest
of his progenitors; and ample materials were at hand in many chests of
worm-eaten papers and yellow parchments, that had been gathering into
larger and dustier piles ever since the dark ages. But, to confess the
truth, the information afforded by these musty documents was so much
more prosaic than what Kenyon acquired from Tomaso's legends, that even
the superior authenticity of the former could not reconcile him to its
dullness. What especially delighted the sculptor was the analogy between
Donatello's character, as he himself knew it, and those peculiar traits
which the old butler's narrative assumed to have been long hereditary
in the race. He was amused at finding, too, that not only Tomaso but the
peasantry of the estate and neighboring village recognized his friend
as a genuine Monte Beni, of the original type. They seemed to cherish a
great affection for the young Count, and were full of stories about his
sportive childhood; how he had played among the little rustics, and been
at once the wildest and the sweetest of them all; and how, in his very
infancy, he had plunged into the deep pools of the streamlets an