“And he said ‘Hello,’ in Italian of course, and the little boy answered ‘Master, I salute you--’ and Cimabue drew near. And when near, he looked down at a rock upon which the little boy had drawn a picture with a bit of soft, crumbling stone. The picture was good, and Cimabue felt a thrill sweep over him--the selfsame sort of thrill that I feel when Sam shows my dull eyes a bit of his genius--and he took the little boy with him, after he saw his _people_, and the little boy grew up to paint pictures of people. Before he painted--early in thirteen hundred, legend has it, all the pictures had been of stiff, remote, too holy Saints. But little Giotto, who had learned love and wisdom of the fields and trees and birds and beasts, painted Madonnas who smiled, and little babies who held out their arms to be taken, and proud Josephs who seem to say, ‘Please look at _my_ family.’ . . . Painted, what Ruskin called, ‘Mamma and Papa and the baby.’ . . . I thank you, ladies and gentleman,” he ended, with mock ceremony, “for your kind attention!” Then he paused outside of a wall that had once been pink, but had been washed by the rain and faded by sun until it was only a faint peach in a few sheltered spots, and here he rang a bell. Soon after he did this, a girl opened the gate for us, greeted Mr. Wake and us all with real sweetness, and we trooped into his garden. And I was glad to see it, for I loved Mr. Wake and I wanted to see where he lived, but I would have enjoyed it in any case, for it was--without exception--the prettiest place I had ever seen. There were high walls all around it except on the side that looked down upon Florence. Here the view was interrupted, rather edged, by groups of tall, slender cypress trees, and here was a low, marble balustrade. . . . There were vines and clumps of foliage, and in the center of the lower terrace a little fountain with a laughing cupid in its center. . . . And there were wicker chairs with hoods on them--Sam said that they were called beach chairs--and there was a yellow awning with a bright blue star on it, which had once been the sail of a Venetian fishing craft. . . . I cannot describe it. . . . While I was there I could only feel it, and hope I wouldn’t wake. . . . I sank down in a chair that had a footstool near it, and looked down the green hillside, toward the city of towers. “Like it?” asked Sam, as he dropped on the footstool, and after my nod, lit a cigarette. “Oh,” I murmured. “Didn’t exaggerate, did I?” he went on. “No,” I answered, “you _couldn’t_.” Then Mr. Wake came up, followed by Viola who was murmuring, “En_chant_ing,” “A_dor_able,” and “Too _heav_enly,” one right after the other. And after he had come to stand smiling down at me, I mentioned Miss Sheila for the first time. “Mr. Wake,” I said, “My fairy godmother would love this more than I can say. It’ll seem strange to you, but she has talked to me of a place like this. She _really_ has.”