Howbeit, I mind me in right true love of the mirthful spirit and manifold sportiveness which marked our fellowship with the Italian limner; and after that I had once given him plainly and strongly to understand that the heart of a Nuremberg damsel was no light thing or plaything, and her very lips a sanctuary which her husband should one day find pure, all went well betwixt us.

The picture of Ann, the first he painted, showed her as Saint Cecelia hearkening to music which sounds from Heaven in her ears.  Two sweet angel babes floated on thin clouds above her head, singing hymns to a mandoline and viol.  Thus had my lord Cardinal commanded, and the work was so excellent that, if the Saint herself vouchsafed to look down on it out of Heaven, of a certainty it was pleasing in her eyes.

As to mine own presentment; at first I weened that I would be limned in my peach-colored brocade gown with silver dolphins thereon, by reason that I had worn that weed in the early morn after the dance, when Hans spoke his last loving farewell at the door of our house.  But whereas one cold day I went into Master Giacomo’s work-chamber in a red hood and a green cloak bordered with sable fur, he would thenceforth paint me in no other guise.  At first he was fain to present me as going forth to church; then he deemed that he might not show forth my very look and seeming if I were limned with downcast head and eyes.  Therefor he gave me the falcon on my hand which had erewhile been my lover’s gift.  My eyes were set on the distance as though I watched for a heron; thus I seemed in truth like one hunting—­“chaste Diana,” quoth the painter, minding him of the reproofs I had given him so often.  But it would be a hard task to tell of all the ways whereby the painter would provoke me to reprove him.  When the likeness was no more than half done, he painted his own merry face to the falcon on my wrist gazing up at me with silly languor.  Thereupon, when he presently quitted us, I took the red chalk and wrote his wife’s name on a clear place in front of the face and beneath it the image of a birch rod; and on the morrow he brought with him a right pleasant Sonnet, which I scarce had pardoned had he not offered it so humbly and read it in so sweet a voice.  And, being plainly interpreted, it was as follows: 

       “Upon Olympus, where the gods do dwell
        Who with almighty will rule earth and heaven,
        Lo!  I behold the chiefest of them all
        Jove, on his throne with Juno at his side. 
        A noble wedded pair.  In all the world
        The eye may vainly seek nor find their like. 
        The nations to his sanctuary throng,
        And kings, struck dumb, cast down their golden crowns.

       “Yet even these are not for ever one. 
        The god flies from the goddess.—­And a swan
        Does devoir now, the slave of Leda’s charms.

       “Thus I behold the beams of thy bright eye,
        And bid my home farewell,—­I, hapless wight,
        Fly like the god, fair maid, to worship thee!”