Marie played Michael Angelo. I was his proud father, who appeared only in the last scene, and said, "Come to my arms, my beloved son!" which he did so impetuously--Marie was nothing if not ardent--that I was greatly embarrassed, and did not know how to hold him. Lorenzo the Magnificent was affably, though somewhat feebly, portrayed by Annie Churchill, who wore a waterproof cloak, flung, like Hamlet's mantle, over her left shoulder, and a beaver hat with a red bow and an ostrich plume, the property of Eloise Didier. It was a significant circumstance that when Marie, rushing to my embrace, knocked over a little table, the sole furniture of the Medicean palace, and indicating by its presence that we were no longer in the snow, Lorenzo hastily picked it up, and straightened the cover; while Elizabeth--who had no business to be in that scene--stood calmly by, twirling her feather duster, and apparently accustomed to being waited on by the flower of the Florentine nobility. The production of "Michael Angelo" cost us four weeks of hard and happy labour. His name became so familiar to our lips that Tony, whose turn it was to read night and morning prayers, substituted it profanely for that of the blessed Archangel. We always said the Credo and Confiteor in Latin, so that _beato Michaeli Archangelo_ became _beato Michael Angelo_, without attracting the attention of any ears save ours. It was one of those daring jests (as close to wickedness as we ever got) which served as passwords in our secret city. The second time we gave the play, we extended a general invitation to the First Cours to come and see it; and a score or so of the less supercilious girls actually availed themselves of the privilege. It is hard for me to make clear what condescension this implied. Feudal lord and feudal vassal were not more widely separated than were the First and Second Cours. Feudal lord and feudal vassal were not more firmly convinced of the justness of their respective positions. No uneasy agitator had ever pricked us into discontent. The existing order of things seemed to us as natural as the planetary system.