“It is worth its weight in gold!” said the prince, sharing his emotion.  “Look, gentlemen—­look!  Will not the fame of Urbino be borne beyond the Apennines and Alps?”

Thus summoned, the court and the citizens came to look, and averred that truly never in Urbino had they seen such painting on majolica.  “But whose is it?” said Guidobaldo, impatiently, casting his eyes over the gathered group in the background of apprentices and artists.  “Maestro Benedetto, I pray you, the name of the artist; I pray you, quick!”

“It is marked number eleven, my lord,” answered the master-potter.  “Ho, you who reply to that number, stand out and give your name.  My lord duke has chosen your work.  Ho, there! do you hear me?”

But not one of the group moved.  The young men looked from one to another.  Who was this nameless rival?  There were but ten of themselves.

“Ho, there!” repeated Signor Benedetto, getting angry.  “Cannot you find a tongue, I say?  Who has wrought this work?  Silence is but insolence to his highness and to me!”

Then the child Sanzio loosened his little hand from his father’s hold, and went forward, and stood before the master-potter.

“I painted it,” he said, with a pleased smile; “I, Raffaelle.”

Can you not fancy, without telling, the confusion, the wonder, the rapture, the incredulity, the questions, the wild ecstasy of praise, that followed on the discovery of the child artist?  Only the presence of Guidobaldo kept it in anything like decent quietude, and even he, all duke though he was, felt his eyes wet and felt his heart swell; for he himself was childless, and for the joy that Giovanni Sanzio felt that day he would have given his patrimony and duchy.

He took a jewel hung on a gold chain from his own breast and threw it over Raffaelle’s shoulders.

“There is your first guerdon,” he said; “you will have many, O wondrous child, who shall live when we are dust!”

Raffaelle, who himself was all the while quite tranquil and unmoved, kissed the duke’s hand with sweetest grace, then turned to his own father.

“It is true I have won my lord duke’s prize?”

“Quite true, my angel!” said Giovanni Sanzio, with tremulous voice.

Raffaelle looked up at Maestro Benedetto.

“Then I claim the hand of Pacifica!”

There was a smile on all the faces round, even on the darker countenances of the vanquished painters.

“Oh, would indeed you were of age to be my son by marriage, as you are the son of my heart!” murmured Signor Benedetto.  “Dear and marvelous child, you are but jesting, I know.  Tell me what it is indeed that you would have.  I could deny you nothing; and truly it is you who are my master.”