“But Pacifica,” said the child,—­“Pacifica would not wish you to join the Free Companies.”

“God knows,” said Luca, hopelessly.  “Perhaps she would not care.”

“I am sure she would,” said Raffaelle, “for she does love you, Luca, though she cannot say so, being but a girl, and Signor Benedetto against you.  But that redcap you tamed for her, how she loves it, how she caresses it, and half is for you, Luca, half for the bird!”

Luca kissed him.

But the tears rolled down the poor youth’s face, for he was much in earnest and filled with despair.

“Even if she did, if she do,” he murmured hopelessly, “she never will let me know it, since her father forbids a thought of me; and now here is this trial of skill at the duke’s order come to make things worse, and if that swaggering Berengario of Fano win her, then truly will I join the free lances and pray heaven send me swift shrive and shroud.”

Raffaelle was very pensive for a while; then he raised his head, and said:—­

“I have thought of something, Luca.  But I do not know whether you will let me try it.”

“You angel child!  What would your old Luca deny to you?  But as for helping me, my dear, put that thought out of your little mind forever, for no one can help me, ’Faello, not the saints themselves, since I was born a dolt!”

Raffaelle kissed him, and said, “Now listen!”

A few days later Signer Benedetto informed his pupils in ceremonious audience of the duke’s command and of his own intentions; he did not pronounce his daughter’s name to the youths, but he spoke in terms that were clear enough to assure them that whoever had the good fortune and high merit to gain the duke’s choice of his pottery should have the honor of becoming associate in his own famous bottega.  Now, it had been known in Urbino ever since Pacifica had gone to her first communion that whoever pleased her father well enough to become his partner would have also to please her as her husband.  Not much attention was given to maidens’ wishes in those times, and no one thought the master-potter either unjust or cruel in thus suiting himself before he suited his daughter.  And what made the hearts of all the young men quake and sink the lowest was the fact that Signer Benedetto offered the competition, not only to his own apprentices, but to any native of the duchy of Urbino.  For who could tell what hero might not step forth from obscurity and gain the great prize of this fair hand of Pacifica’s?  And with her hand would go many a broad gold ducat, and heritage of the wide old gray stone house, and many an old jewel and old brocade that were kept there in dusky sweet-smelling cabinets, and also more than one good piece of land, smiling with corn and fruit trees, outside the gates in the lower pastures to the westward.