His still, Vulcanic face hiding its burning brightness like a forge, he moved with ostentatious deference towards the scuttle, as if so far to escort their exit.  But the junior magistrate, a kind-hearted man, troubled at what seemed to him a certain sardonical disdain, lurking beneath the foundling’s humble mien, and in Christian sympathy more distressed at it on his account than on his own, dimly surmising what might be the final fate of such a cynic solitaire, nor perhaps uninfluenced by the general strangeness of surrounding things, this good magistrate had glanced sadly, sideways from the speaker, and thereupon his foreboding eye had started at the expression of the unchanging face of the Hour Una.

“How is this, Bannadonna?” he lowly asked, “Una looks unlike her sisters.”

“In Christ’s name, Bannadonna,” impulsively broke in the chief, his attention, for the first attracted to the figure, by his associate’s remark, “Una’s face looks just like that of Deborah, the prophetess, as painted by the Florentine, Del Fonca.”

“Surely, Bannadonna,” lowly resumed the milder magistrate, “you meant the twelve should wear the same jocundly abandoned air.  But see, the smile of Una seems but a fatal one.  ’Tis different.”

While his mild associate was speaking, the chief glanced, inquiringly, from him to the caster, as if anxious to mark how the discrepancy would be accounted for.  As the chief stood, his advanced foot was on the scuttle’s curb.

Bannadonna spoke: 

“Excellenza, now that, following your keener eye, I glance upon the face of Una, I do, indeed perceive some little variance.  But look all round the bell, and you will find no two faces entirely correspond.  Because there is a law in art—­but the cold wind is rising more; these lattices are but a poor defense.  Suffer me, magnificoes, to conduct you, at least, partly on your way.  Those in whose well-being there is a public stake, should be heedfully attended.”

“Touching the look of Una, you were saying, Bannadonna, that there was a certain law in art,” observed the chief, as the three now descended the stone shaft, “pray, tell me, then—.”

“Pardon; another time, Excellenza;—­the tower is damp.”

“Nay, I must rest, and hear it now.  Here,—­here is a wide landing, and through this leeward slit, no wind, but ample light.  Tell us of your law; and at large.”

“Since, Excellenza, you insist, know that there is a law in art, which bars the possibility of duplicates.  Some years ago, you may remember, I graved a small seal for your republic, bearing, for its chief device, the head of your own ancestor, its illustrious founder.  It becoming necessary, for the customs’ use, to have innumerable impressions for bales and boxes, I graved an entire plate, containing one hundred of the seals.  Now, though, indeed, my object was to have those hundred heads identical, and though, I dare say, people think them; so, yet, upon closely