I was wandering through the Uffizi gallery in Florence one day, with my guide-book open in my hand, when I met the subjects of this story. They were by a large window, nine of them, framed in a little gilt frame a foot or so square. I looked at them, and then, by force of habit, I looked at the guide-book. "Portraits of nine unknown persons," it said. I went nearer and looked at them again, and after that I saw the guide-book no more. They were not portraits or unknown persons, but nine new friends who told me the story of their lives as I stood by the window gazing. There were eight brothers of them, of a noble family, and dwelling in happy Tuscany. They lived in the country. Their mother was dead--died when Barnaba first opened his wondering eyes at her. Their father was a student, and loved his boys, and his books, and nature, and determined to keep them all together. "If we live in town," he said, "I can't do this; I am not very rich, so I will remain in my country home, and my boys and I will have a life of our own." Such a merry, merry life as the boys had together. Everything was turned to play for them, even their studies. Their principal delight was acting, and in their little plays, queer compounds of Grecian dramas and childish dreams, each one had his regular part. It was Pietro who was always the main figure, made the grandest speeches, and prayed the longest prayers--for they had religious dramas sometimes--and strutted around the most. They made Giuseppe their hero for all that, carried him in on their shoulders from battle, and crowned him with laurel at the end of the fourth act regularly. Domenico played the scholar: he had so grave an air, so learned a mien. Guido was the soldier boy. Let him but throw his cap on his wavy hair, or toss his coat over his shoulder and strut upon the mimic stage, and you would have sworn he was armed to the teeth, and that you could hear the click of his spurs. How Barnaba loved Guido! How he would twirl his long hair over his finger secretly, hoping 'twould wave, and try to strut in on the stage heroically too. But he was sure to blunder a bit, poor Barnaba. He was the youngest, you see, and had poor parts given him that he didn't suit. He was not meant for a page, and sometimes, while Pietro would strut around and puff and declaim, little Barnaba was clenching his nervous hands tightly behind him, and longing that he might speak out like a man too. But no one ever dreamed that the stiff little page, with the long hair and the wondering eyes, had any wishes other than to make a good page. For Barnaba had a firm mouth, spite of the tremble at the corners, and it was always readier to shut than to open.