d broken, my heart would have
broken too. It is for the choir window in the church of St. Remi, and
we had gone, my little helper and I, to see if it was indeed of the size
for the stonework. Night had fallen ere we finished, and what could we
do save carry it home as best we might? But you, young sir, you speak as
if you too knew something of the art."

"So little that I scarce dare speak of it in your presence," Alleyne
answered. "I have been cloister-bred, and it was no very great matter to
handle the brush better than my brother novices."

"There are pigments, brush, and paper," said the old artist. "I do not
give you glass, for that is another matter, and takes much skill in the
mixing of colors. Now I pray you to show me a touch of your art. I thank
you, Tita! The Venetian glasses, cara mia, and fill them to the brim. A
seat, signor!"

While Ford, in his English-French, was conversing with Tita in her
Italian French, the old man was carefully examining his precious head to
see that no scratch had been left upon its surface. When he glanced up
again, Alleyne had, with a few bold strokes of the brush, tinted in a
woman's face and neck upon the white sheet in front of him.

"Diavolo!" exclaimed the old artist, standing with his head on one side,
"you have power; yes, cospetto! you have power, it is the face of an
angel!"

"It is the face of the Lady Maude Loring!" cried Ford, even more
astonished.

"Why, on my faith, it is not unlike her!" said Alleyne, in some
confusion.

"Ah! a portrait! So much the better. Young man, I am Agostino Pisano,
the son of Andrea Pisano, and I say again that you have power. Further,
I say, that, if you will stay with me, I will teach you all the secrets
of the glass-stainers' mystery: the pigments and their thickening,
which will fuse into the glass and which will not, the furnace and the
glazing--every trick and method you shall know."

"I would be right glad to study under such a master," said Alleyne; "but
I am sworn to follow my lord whilst this war lasts."

"War! war!" cried the old Italian. "Ever this talk of war. And the men
that you hold to be great--what are they? Have I not heard their names?
Soldiers, butchers, destroyers! Ah, per Bacco! we have men in Italy who
are in very truth great. You pull down, you despoil; but they build up,
they restore. Ah, if you could but see my own dear Pisa, the Duomo, the
cloisters of Campo Santo, the high Campanile, with the mellow t