"I promise," she called. "But as for the gown, thou couldst have brought me that in any case!"
Vistarnini turned into the house, and silence again fell on the sunny courtyard.
Graziosa looked musingly at the gate, then down at her bare arm and sighed.
Two pet doves whirled down from the chestnuts and strutted across the courtyard, with a show of white tails.
Graziosa noticed them suddenly, in the midst of her dreaming, and was rising to get their evening meal, when the little painter, clean and reclothed, bustled out of the house, carrying a flat dish.
"Here is thy food!" he cried to the birds. "Are ye hungry, little ones?"
And he threw the grain in a golden shower.
"Ambrogio is not here to see thee feed to-day," he continued. "What makes him late, Graziosa?"
"The way is long," she returned, "from the convent where he works, father, and the monks grudge him any time away from the altar-piece."
"And the bracelet?" said Agnolo. "He vowed thou shouldst have it back."