"Except as regards the pointed ears," said Kenyon; adding, aside, "and
one other little peculiarity, generally observable in the statues of
fauns."
"As for his Excellency the Count di Monte Beni's ears," replied Hilda,
smiling again at the dignity with which this title invested their
playful friend, "you know we could never see their shape, on account of
his clustering curls. Nay, I remember, he once started back, as shyly as
a wild deer, when Miriam made a pretence of examining them. How do you
explain that?"
"O, I certainly shall not contend against such a weight of evidence,
the fact of his faunship being otherwise so probable," answered the
sculptor, still hardly retaining his gravity. "Faun or not, Donatello or
the Count di Monte Beni--is a singularly wild creature, and, as I have
remarked on other occasions, though very gentle, does not love to be
touched. Speaking in no harsh sense, there is a great deal of animal
nature in him, as if he had been born in the woods, and had run wild all
his childhood, and were as yet but imperfectly domesticated. Life, even
in our day, is very simple and unsophisticated in some of the shaggy
nooks of the Apennines."
"It annoys me very much," said Hilda, "this inclination, which
most people have, to explain away the wonder and the mystery out
of everything. Why could not you allow me--and yourself, too--the
satisfaction of thinking him a Faun?"
"Pray keep your belief, dear Hilda, if it makes you any happier," said
the sculptor; "and I shall do my best to become a convert. Donatello has
asked me to spend the summer with him, in his ancestral tower, where
I purpose investigating the pedigree of these sylvan counts, his
forefathers; and if their shadows beckon me into dreamland, I shall
willingly follow. By the bye, speaking of Donatello, there is a point on
which I should like to be enlightened."
"Can I help you, then?" said Hilda, in answer to his look.
"Is there the slightest chance of his winning Miriam's affections?"
suggested Kenyon.
"Miriam! she, so accomplished and gifted!" exclaimed Hilda; "and he, a
rude, uncultivated boy! No, no, no!"
"It would seem impossible," said the sculptor. "But, on the other hand,
a gifted woman flings away her affections so unaccountably, sometimes!
Miriam of late has been very morbid and miserable, as we both know.
Young as she is, the morning light seems already to have faded out of
her life; and now comes Donatello, with natural sunshine enough for
himself and her, and offers her the opportunity of making her heart and
life all new and cheery again. People of high intellectual endowments do
not require similar ones in those they love. They are just the persons
to appreciate the wholesome gush of natural feeling, the honest
affection, the simple joy, the fulness of contentment with what
he loves, which Miriam sees in Donatello. True; she may call him a
simpleton. It is a necessity of the case; for a man loses the capacity
for this kind of affection, in proportion as he cultivates and refines
himself."