"So he did; still—"
"That Napoleon of France invited you to his court, and that the German Emperor has even made you a knight."
"Hark to me, Pablo!" and this time the rider's voice was commanding. "These things are indeed true, for people everywhere have shown me the rarest kindness; but while the palace doors of all Europe are open to me if I care to enter, and ladies and gentlemen of every nation pour their compliments and gold upon me, my heart has turned back to my native village and the dear simple friends of my childhood. I have left the great world for a time, and have come back to see the old faces; and Pablo, on that slope, near the little cottage,"—here his voice broke, as he pointed to the last of the mud-walled cabins,—"I have planned to build a church as beautiful as the Parthenon at Athens. If my good old neighbors cannot travel far enough to see the temples of the world, they shall have one near at hand, which will show them that Canova has not forgotten them."
True to his word, the sculptor lingered in Passagno until there had risen on the mountain side a classic, snowy edifice which was the wonder and pride of all the villagers. When the builders had finished and had gone their way, the man who had designed it all put on his apron, took up his chisel, and completed for the altar ornaments that he had begun twenty years before, when he had lived in the cabin just over the way.
How the people rejoiced in their pillared house of worship, and how grateful they were to the giver of so splendid a gift. Warmly they bade him farewell when his task was at length completed, and he was obliged to go in order to execute the greater works that awaited him.
At last, in the city of Rome, when the sculptor's hair whitened, his step faltered, and his heart grew strangely still, the friends about him, a brilliant company, carried him tenderly up the Alpine road, and laid him to rest beneath the altar of his own carving.
When the service was ended, the lords and ladies, the princes and cardinals, the poets and teachers who had paid him their devotion to the last, wound their way slowly down to the turbulent world; and Tonin Canova slept on the mountain side, in the heart of his Alpine village.