“Generation after generation,” thought Maurice, “but no longer Pietro or little Amouretta.” Quivering with emotion as he was, he saw that the passion and skill of that far-away Maurice of the twenties had not vanished. Now, as then, he had in large measure the artist’s gift of multiplying his personality when he was at work; his consciousness as an artist rose many-mansioned toward the skies. With heart and mind swelling from the scene he conned and created, he was at once the Maurice who did not need a pearl palette to capture the glory of that violet-edged puff of golden cloud over the meadow, who could hear the bees in the orchard, who could see a jewelled indigo bird flaming out from the locust bush; a Maurice whose whole being overflowed with returning health, with rapture in painting, with pride in Maury junior, with love for the wife of his delight, with affection for good old Jimmy Anthony, and yet a Maurice with sharp remembrance of those vanished children of joy, Pietro and Amouretta. As he painted, he smiled often, because many persons, both living and dead, came and ranged themselves beside him, and it was pleasant to be talking with them, on that flowery hillside. Oh, Lionardo, of course, and Père Corot; Monet and Pissarro; his own namesake, Maurice Denis, dear Thayer of Monadnock, and John Sargent, since he too could do landscapes and portraits and murals! And Whistler, certainly, though at times he talked too much, interrupting quite scornfully while Maurice was explaining to Lionardo how our American goldfinch beats his wings as he sings; or else breaking in with a prickly jest when Maurice was giving M. Monet his reasons why (with due respect, Monsieur!) he meant to paint all day on that one landscape, instead of beginning another as soon as the light should change.