"The difference of our speech is soon explained," said Lorenzo, "though we are both of the same land. But she has ever lived in Lombardy. I have travelled far and wide, but my youth was all spent in Florence. I came there when I was very young, and remained till the death of Lorenzo de Medici, whose godson I am." "Then you are Lorenzo Visconti," said the artist; "but who is this?" and he pointed toward Leonora with the end of his pencil. "You divine," answered the young man without noticing his question; "are you skilled in the black art among all your other learning, signor?" "I am really skilled in very little," replied their companion. "In a life neither very long nor very short, but one of much labour and much study, I have never produced one work--nay, done one thing with which I was wholly satisfied. The man who places his estimate of excellence very high may surpass his contemporaries, and yet fall far short of his own conceptions. Hereafter men may speak of me well or ill, as they please. If ill, their censure will not hurt me: if well, their faintest applause will go beyond my own. As to the black art, Signor Lorenzo, the blackest arts are not those of the magician; yet many things seem magical which are very simple. Lorenzo de Medici had but one Lombard godson; and I remember you well, now, when you were a little boy in Florence. The only marvel is that I ever forgot you. But you have not introduced me to this lady." "Nay, I know not whom to introduce," answered the young man. "Ah! you have entangled me in my own net," said the artist. "Well it is right you should both know who it is gives counsels unsought, and teaches lessons perhaps unneeded. A good many years ago there lived in Florence a poor gentleman named Ser Pietro da Vinci. His means were small, but he had great capacity, though he turned it to but little account. His taste for art was great, however, and he frequented the houses of the best painters and sculptors in Italy. "Well, he had a son, a wild, fitful boy, who studied everything, attempted much, and perfected little. He plunged into arithmetic, mathematics, geometry, and used to find a good deal of fun in puzzling his masters with hard questions. Again, he would work untaught in clay, and make heads of children and of laughing women; and again he would sing his own rude verses to the lute, or sketch the figures and faces of all who came near him. "This was all when he was very young--a mere boy, indeed; but among his father's friends was the well-known Andrea Verrocchio, the great painter; and in his bottega was soon found the boy, studying hard, and only now and then giving way to his wild moods by darting away from his painting, sometimes to some sister art, sometimes to something directly opposite. He drew plans for houses, churches, fortresses; he devised instruments of war, projected canals, laid out new roads, sung to his lute, danced at the village festivals, studied medicine and anatomy.