ght themselves to try the echoes
of these woods; for, on the festas of the Church, Rome scatters its
merrymakers all abroad, ripe for the dance or any other pastime.

As Miriam and Donatello emerged from among the trees, the musicians
scraped, tinkled, or blew, each according to his various kind of
instrument, more inspiringly than ever. A darkchecked little girl,
with bright black eyes, stood by, shaking a tambourine set round
with tinkling bells, and thumping it on its parchment head. Without
interrupting his brisk, though measured movement, Donatello snatched
away this unmelodious contrivance, and, flourishing it above his head,
produced music of indescribable potency, still dancing with frisky step,
and striking the tambourine, and ringing its little bells, all in one
jovial act.

It might be that there was magic in the sound, or contagion, at least,
in the spirit which had got possession of Miriam and himself, for very
soon a number of festal people were drawn to the spot, and struck
into the dance, singly or in pairs, as if they were all gone mad with
jollity. Among them were some of the plebeian damsels whom we meet
bareheaded in the Roman streets, with silver stilettos thrust through
their glossy hair; the contadinas, too, from the Campagna and the
villages, with their rich and picturesque costumes of scarlet and all
bright hues, such as fairer maidens might not venture to put on. Then
came the modern Roman from Trastevere, perchance, with his old cloak
drawn about him like a toga, which anon, as his active motion heated
him, he flung aside. Three French soldiers capered freely into the
throng, in wide scarlet trousers, their short swords dangling at their
sides; and three German artists in gray flaccid hats and flaunting
beards; and one of the Pope's Swiss guardsmen in the strange motley garb
which Michael Angelo contrived for them. Two young English tourists (one
of them a lord) took contadine partners and dashed in, as did also a
shaggy man in goat-skin breeches, who looked like rustic Pan in person,
and footed it as merrily as he. Besides the above there was a herdsman
or two from the Campagna, and a few peasants in sky-blue jackets, and
small-clothes tied with ribbons at the knees; haggard and sallow were
these last, poor serfs, having little to eat and nothing but the malaria
to breathe; but still they plucked up a momentary spirit and joined
hands in Donatello's dance.

Here, as it seemed, had the Gold