in his uncouth way; but he had not cultivated the art of talking, and quickly exhausted his topics.  He next introduced his son Bernardo, the junior of Beatrice by one year, whose efforts at creating amusement, being constrained and unnatural, for he came against his will, were little more successful than his own.  At length the idea of engaging the services of his lodger, with whom he had observed that Beatrice sometimes laughed and chatted of an evening, occurred to him, and he forthwith mentioned the subject to Spinello.  The young man entertained a very strong affection for Bernardo, who, if he wanted genius, was far from being destitute of amiable and endearing qualities; and therefore, notwithstanding that he felt it would greatly interfere with his studies, and trench upon his time, he immediately determined to comply with the old man’s desires.

The next morning saw Spinello installed in his new office.  Beatrice was seated like a statue in an antique chair with her arms crossed upon her bosom, her eyes fixed upon vacancy, and her features screwed in spite of herself, into an expression of weariness and impatience.  By degrees, however, as Spinello conversed with her, now of one trifle, then of another, her eyes involuntarily wandered to that portion of the room in which the young dialectician sat involved in shadow, and exerting all his eloquence and ingenuity to awaken her attention.  The experiment succeeded.  Spinello was entreated to be present the next day, the day following, and, in fact, every day, until the portrait was completed, or, at least, nearly so.  He gazed, as I have said, upon the face of Beatrice, and would sometimes spend a moment in examining the inanimate representation of it, and in instituting a comparison between it and the original; until one day forgetting in his idolatry of loveliness the respect due to old age, he snatched the pencil from the hand of Bernardo, and with singular ardour and impatience exclaimed—­“Let me finish it!” Without uttering a word, the old man, awed by the vehemence of his manner, yielded up the pencil; and Spinello proceeded, as if in a dream, to embody upon the canvass the idea of beauty which inhabited his soul.

Spinello, thus entrapped by his own enthusiasm, could do no other than proceed with the portrait.  Though infinitely desirous not to wound the feelings of Daddi, he perceived at once that it would be necessary to recast the whole design of the piece to change the style of colouring—­in a word, to paint a new picture.  Daddi, who loved his child still more than his art, and wished to preserve and transmit to posterity a likeness of her, by whomsoever painted, was not offended, though he was a little hurt, by this freedom, and without murmur or objection allowed Spinello to accomplish his undertaking in whatever manner he pleased.  The young man went to work with a satisfaction and alacrity he had never before experienced; and the image of Beatrice, passing into his soul, to be thence reflected, as from one mirror upon another, on the canvass, shed the light of Paradise over his fancy—­as the musk-deer perfumes the thicket in which it slumbers.