"You know me well enough," replied Pier-Angelo, with a smile, "to believe that, far from interfering with your pride and your dutiful sentiments, I shall always encourage them. Take my advice, therefore, and accept this money. It is honestly yours; it costs me nothing, and the person who gives it to you is at liberty to place what estimate she pleases on the merits of your work. That is the difference that there will always be between you and your father, Michel. An artist has no fixed price. A single day of inspiration may make him rich. Whereas, a deal of hard work is not enough to raise us mechanics out of the slough of poverty. But God, in His mercy, has given us compensations. The artist conceives and brings forth his works with much pain. The mechanic performs his task with laughter and a song. I am so accustomed to that, that I wouldn't exchange my trade for yours." "Let me at least derive from mine such pleasure as it is capable of affording me," said Michel. "Take this purse, father, and let nothing ever be taken from it for my use. It is my sister's marriage portion; it is the interest on the money she lent me when I was at Rome; and if I never earn enough to make her richer, let her at least have the benefit of my day of success. O father!" he cried, seeing that Pier-Angelo was unwilling to accept his sacrifice, "do not refuse me; you will break my heart! Your blind affection has almost corrupted my nature. Help me to cease to be the selfish creature that you would have made me. Encourage my good impulses, instead of robbing me of their fruit. It comes only too late." "True, my boy, I ought to do it," said Pier-Angelo, deeply touched; "but consider that this is no mere commonplace sacrifice of money that you propose to make. If it were simply a matter of depriving yourself of some little pleasure, it would be of little consequence, and I should not hesitate. But your artistic future, the cultivation of your intellect, the very essence of your life, are contained in this little silk net! It means a year of study in Rome! And who knows when you will be able to earn as much more? Perhaps the princess won't give any more balls. The other nobles are neither so rich nor so generous as she. Such opportunities are not often met with, and are very likely not to happen twice in a lifetime. I am growing old; I may fall from my ladder to-morrow and cripple myself; then how would you resume the life of an artist? Aren't you at all alarmed at the idea that, for the pleasure of giving your sister a marriage portion, you run the risk of becoming a mechanic again, and remaining a mechanic all your life?"