Finally the morning came; and through the winding valley they drove fifteen miles, until they arrived at the church Santa Maria degli Angeli, situated on a plain at the foot of the hill on which sits Assisi. This immense church contains the Portiuncula,—that little chapel so dear to St. Francis, in which he founded the Franciscan order of monks, and in which he died,—and is a veritable Mecca, to which pilgrimages are made from all parts of the Roman Catholic world.

They spent some time here in visiting the different spots of interest within the church; in going out to see the tiny garden, where grow the thornless rose-bushes with blood-stained leaves, according to the old tradition, at which they were permitted to look through glass; and in listening to the rambling talk of a transparent-faced old monk in brown, Franciscan garb, who waxed more and more daring as he watched the interested faces of the party, until his tales of the patron saint grew so impossible that even poor Bettina's faith was sorely tried, and Malcom stole furtive glances at her to see how she bore it all.

At length they were free, and went on up the hill to the city. They stopped at a little hotel whose balcony commanded a magnificent view of the country, lingered a while, lunched, and then went out to visit the great double church of San Francesco, beneath which the saint is buried, and where are notable frescoes by Cimabue and Giotto.

When all was over, and they were taking their carriages for Perugia, Mr. Sumner said to his sister: "If you do not mind, I will drive in the other carriage," and so took his seat with Barbara, Bettina, and Malcom. All felt a little tired and were silent for a time, each busy with his own thoughts. Finally Barbara asked, in a thoughtful tone:—

"Did you notice the names on the leaves of the travellers' book at the hotel? I glanced over the opposite page as I wrote mine, and among the addresses were Australia, Germany, Norway, England, and America."

"I noticed it," answered Mr. Sumner, "and of course, like you, could not help asking myself the question, 'Why do travellers from all parts of the Christian world come to this small city, which is so utterly unimportant as the world reckons importance?' Simply because a good man was once born, lived, and died here. Surely one renews one's faith in God and humanity as one thinks of this fact."

"May not the paintings alone draw some visitors?" asked Malcom, after thinking for a few moments of his uncle's words.

"But even then we must allow that the paintings would not have been here if it were not for the saint; so it really amounts to about the same thing, doesn't it?" answered his uncle, smiling.

"What a pity it is," said Bettina, thinking of the garrulous old monk who so evidently desired to earn his lira, "that people will add so much that is imaginary when there is enough that is true. It is a shame to so exaggerate stories of St. Francis's life as to make them seem almost ridiculous."

When their drive was nearly over and they were watching the ever nearing Perugia, Malcom turned toward Mr. Sumner with a serious look and said:—

"Uncle Robert, these Italian cities are wonderfully interesting, and I think I have never enjoyed anything in my life so much as the fortnight since we left Florence and, of course, the time we were there; and yet I would not for worlds live here among them."

Then, as Mr. Sumner looked inquiringly at him, he continued, with an excited flush: "What is there in them that a man could get hold of to help, anyway? It seems to me as if their lives have been all lived, as if they now are dead; and how can any new life be put into them? Look at these villages we have been passing through! What power can make the people wish for anything better than they have, can wake them up to make more of the children than the parents are? In the present condition of people and government, how can any man, for instance, such as you are, really accomplish anything? How would one go about it? Now at home, you know, if one is only man enough, he can have so much influence to make things better; can give children better schools; can give people books; can help lift the low-down into a higher place. He can help in making all sorts of reforms, can be a leader in such things. He can go into politics and try to make them cleaner."

Malcom had spoken out of his heart, and, in sympathy with him, Bettina squeezed Barbara's hand under the cover.

Barbara, however, was looking at Mr. Sumner, and her quick eyes had noted the sensitive change of expression in his; the startled look of surprise that first leaped into them, and the steady pain that followed. An involuntary glance at Barbara told him that she recognized his pain and longed to say something to help, but she could not; and it was Bettina who, after a moment's silence, said gently:—

"I am sure you are right, Malcom, but I think I could live all my life in this dear, beautiful Italy if all whom I love were with me."

Malcom did not for a moment think that his words would so touch his uncle. He had spoken from his own stand-point, with thought of himself alone, and would have been amazed indeed could he have known what a steady flame within his uncle's mind his little spark had kindled.

* * * * *

"What is the matter with Miss Sherman?" whispered Malcom in Margery's ear, as, soon after dinner, they went out upon the terrace close to their hotel to look at the moon rising over the distant hills.

That young lady had disappeared as soon as they arose from the table, and Mrs. Douglas had sent Margery to her room to tell her they were going out, but she had declined to accompany them.

"Mother thinks she is not feeling quite well," answered Margery, drawing Malcom's face close to her own; "but I think she is vexed about something."

The truth was that Miss Sherman was as nearly cross as she dared to be. Were she with father and sister, instead of Mrs. Douglas's party, why! then she could give vent to her feelings; and what a relief it would be! But now she was trying her best to conquer them, or, rather, to hide them; but the habit of a lifetime will not easily give way on occasion.

She had never been so happy in her life as since she left Florence with Mrs. Douglas. Wherever she was, wherever she went, there was Mr. Sumner, always full of most courteous consideration for her as his sister's guest. She had been so happy that her sweetness and gentleness were irresistible, and again and again had Mrs. Douglas congratulated herself on having found such an enjoyable companion; and Mr. Sumner felt grateful to her for enhancing his sister's happiness.

But to-day a change had taken place in the satisfactory tide of affairs. Mr. Sumner had been willing—more than that—had chosen to drive all the way back from Assisi in the carriage with Malcom, Barbara, and Bettina, and it was all she could do to hide her chagrin and displeasure.

Mrs. Douglas, with her usual kind judgment, had decided that she was not quite well, and throughout the drive had respected her evident desire for silence, though she wondered a little at it.

So while she and Margery were talking about good St. Francis, whose heart overflowed with love to every living creature—mankind, animals, birds, and flowers, and whose whole life was given up to their service—Miss Sherman hugged close her little jealous grievance and, brooding over it, gave no thought to the associations of the place they had just visited, or to the glorious Italian landscape through which they were passing.

It was not that she really loved Mr. Sumner after all; that is, not as some women love, for it was not in her nature to do so; but she did wish to become his wife; and this had been her supreme thought during all the months since she had met him. Lately the memory of his agitation when Barbara had passed him that evening of the party had disagreeably haunted her. It had so moved her that, truth to tell, she mourned over Howard's death more because it served to withdraw an obstacle between these two than for any other reason. That mere girl, she thought, might prove a formidable rival. All the more had it seemed so, since she daily saw what a lovely, noble young woman Barbara really was, and how worthy a companion, even for Mr. Sumner.

So every moment he had devoted to herself or had seemed to choose to be in her own society, was an especial cause for self-congratulation. But now she furtively clinched her little gloved hand, and the lids lowered over her beautiful eyes as they grew hard, and she did not wish to talk.

"I wonder what is the matter with Lucile" (for so Miss Sherman had begged to be called), Mrs. Douglas queried with herself that night, and sought among the events of the day for some possible explanation. "She seems as if hurt by something." Suddenly the thought flashed into her mind: "Can it be because Robert left us to drive with the others? Can it be that she has learned to care for him so much as that?" And her woman's nature overflowed with sympathy at the suggestion of such an interpretation.

She had not forgotten the desire that crept into her heart that morning of the day they spent at Fiesole; and now came the glad belief that if Miss Sherman had really learned to love her brother, it must be that in time he would feel it, and yield to the sweetness of her affection. She did not wonder that Lucile should love her darling brother. Indeed, how could any woman help it? And she was so sensitive that she might acutely feel even such a little thing as his not returning in the carriage with them. And her quietness might have been caused by the disappointment. She would be herself the next morning; and Mrs. Douglas resolved to be only kinder and more loving than ever to her.

And, indeed, the next morning the clouds were all dissipated, and Miss Sherman accepted, with her usual sweet smile, her portion of the flowers that Mr. Sumner brought to the ladies of his party.

But the night just passed would never be forgotten by Robert Sumner, and had marked a vital change in his life. He had walked the floor of his moonlighted room until the early morning hours, his thoughts given wholly to the great subject Malcom's unconscious words had opened within his mind. Could it be that unconsciously, through weakness, he had yielded himself to a selfish course of living? He, whose one aim and ideal had ever been to give his life and its opportunities for the benefit of others? Had his view been a narrow one, when he had so longed that it should be wide and ever wider?

It really began to seem so in the pitiless glare of the light now thrown upon it. He had surely been living for his fellow-men. He had been striving to make his own culture helpful to those who were less happy in opportunity. But had his outlook been far and wide enough? Had not the personal sorrow to which he had yielded narrowed to his eyes the world,—his world, in which God had put him? Living on here in his loved Italy, the knowledge he had gained was being sent out to aid those who already had enough to enable them to follow into the higher paths he opened. His pictures, every one of which had grown out of his own heart, were bearing messages to those whose eyes were opened to read. But what of the great mass of humanity, God's humanity too, which was waiting for some one to awaken the very first desires for culture? For some one to open, never so little, the blind eyes? As Malcom had said, no one, no foreigner certainly, could ever reach this class of people in Italy. The Church and the heavy hand of past centuries of ignorance forbade this.

But what of the great young land across the waters where he had been born—his own land—the refuge of the poor of all countries of the earth, even of his dear Italy? Surely no power of influence there could be forbidden. The good that wealth, culture, and art, guided by a heart consecrated to humanity, could work was limitless there.

He now saw that his personal sorrow, his own selfish grief, had come between all this and himself for six long years. In deep humiliation he bowed himself; and looking out over the great plain at his feet, in which lay Assisi and the paths the worn feet of St. Francis and his brethren had so often trod six centuries ago, now all gilded with the light of the same moon that was shining over the distant land of his birth, Robert Sumner pledged his life anew to God and his fellow-man, and determined that his old grief should be only a stepping-stone to a larger service; that, keeping Italy and her treasures in his life only as a recreation and a source of inspiration, he would hereafter live in his own America.

In the peace of mind that came after the struggle, which was no slight one, he slept and dreamed,—dreamed of the fair girl he had so loved with all the force of his young, strong nature, and whom he had so long mourned. She smiled upon him, and into her smile came the lovelight he had seen in Barbara's eyes that birthday evening, and then she changed into Barbara, and he awoke with the thought of the wistful look she had given him the afternoon before when Malcom's words wounded.

In the morning, as he gave the flowers he had chosen expressly for her, and their hands for a moment met, the remembrance of this dream flashed into his mind, and Barbara, surprised, felt a momentary lingering of his touch.

After breakfast Mrs. Douglas declared her intention to spend the morning in writing letters, and advised the others to follow her example.

"You know we go to Rome to-morrow, and I prophesy no one of us will feel like sparing much time for writing during our first days there," she said.

Barbara and Bettina spent an hour on their home-letter, then stole away alone, and finding a secluded spot on the grand terrace in front of their hotel, sat down, with the great valley before them. The blue sky, so clear and blue, was full of great white puffs of cloud whose shadows were most fascinating to watch as they danced over the plain,—now hiding a distant city,—now permitting just a gleam of sunshine to gild its topmost towers; and anon flitting, leaving that city-crowned summit all in light, while another was enveloped in darkness.

They talked long together, as only two girls who love each other can talk—of the sky and the land; of the impressions daily received; of the thoughts born of their present daily experiences; of the home friends from whom they were so widely separated. Then they grew silent, giving themselves to the dreamy beauty of the scene.

By and by Barbara, her eyes dark with unwonted feeling, turned impulsively to her sister and began to talk of that which had been so often in her mind,—her visit to Howard just before he died. Something now impelled her to tell that of which she had before kept silence. Her voice trembled as she described the scene—the eyes that spoke so much when the voice was already forever silent—and the wonderful love she saw in them when she gave the tender kiss.

"He did love you, did he not, Bab dear?" said Bettina, in a hushed, awestricken voice.

"Should you ever have loved him?" she asked timidly after a pause, looking at her sister as if she were invested with a new, strange dignity, that in some way set her apart and hallowed her.

"No, dear, I am sure—not as he loved me. I wish, oh! so much, that I could have made him happy; but since I know that could never have been, do you know, Betty, I am beginning to be glad that he has gone from us; that I can never give him any more pain. I never before dreamed what it may be to love. You know, Betty, we have never had time to think of such things; we have been too young. Somehow," and her fingers caressed the roses in her belt, "things seem different lately."



Chapter XIII.

Cupid Laughs.

From court to the cottage, In bower and in hall, From the king unto the beggar, Love conquers all. Though ne'er so stout and lordly, Strive or do what you may, Yet be you ne'er so hardy, Love will find out the way.

—ANONYMOUS



Mr. Sumner and Mrs. Douglas had been most fortunate in getting possession of extremely pleasant apartments close to the Pincio. These were in the very same house in which they had lived with their parents twenty years before, when Mrs. Douglas was a young girl of eighteen years. Here she had first met and learned to love young Kenneth Douglas, so that most tender memories clustered about the place, and she was glad that her children should learn to know it.

She soon began to pick up the old threads of life. "Ah me! what golden threads they then were," she often sighed. Mr. Sumner was at home here in Rome almost as much as in Florence, and was busy for a time making and receiving calls from artist friends.

Malcom had his own private guide, and from morning until night they hardly saw him. He averred himself to be in the seventh heaven, and there was little need that he should proclaim the fact; it was evident enough. Julius Caesar's Commentaries, Cicero's Orations, Virgil, all Roman history were getting illuminated for him in such a way that they would never grow dim.

But at first the others felt sensibly the change from dear, familiar little Florence. Rome is so vast in her history, legend, and romance! The city was oppressive at near sight.

"Shall we ever really know anything about it all?" asked the girls of each other. Even Miss Sherman, who had been able to get a room in a small hotel close by, and so was still their constant companion, wore a little troubled air now and then, as if there were something she ought to do and did not know how to set about it.

They drove all over the city; saw its ancient ruins—the Colosseum, the Forums, the Palatine Hill, the Baths of Agrippa, Caracalla, Titus, and Diocletian; visited the Pantheon, Castle of St. Angelo, and many of the most important churches. They drove outside the walls on the Via Appia, and saw all the many interesting things by the way. They sought all the best points of view from which they could look out over the great city.

One afternoon they were all together on the wide piazza in front of San Pietro in Montorio, which commands a very wide outlook. Here, after having studied the location of chief points of interest, they gave themselves up to the delight of a superb sunset view. As they lingered before again taking their carriages, Malcom told some of his morning experiences, and Barbara wistfully said:—

"I wonder if we ought not to begin some definite study of Roman history and the old ruins. Betty and I have taken some books from the library in Piazza di Spagna, and are reading hard an hour or two every day, but it gives me a restless feeling to know that there is so much all about me that I do not understand," and she looked inquiringly at Mr. Sumner.

"Robert and I have talked over this very thing," replied Mrs. Douglas.

"Shall I tell them what we think?" she asked her brother, as he rather abruptly turned away. On his assent she continued:—

"It is a familiar question, since I very plainly remember hearing my father and mother talk of it when I was your age, and Robert was but a lad. My father said it would take a lifetime of patient study to learn thoroughly all that can to-day be learned of what we call ancient Rome—the Rome of the Caesars; and how many Romes existed before that, of which we can know nothing, save through legend and tradition! 'Now, will it not be best,' he asked, 'that we read all we can of legend and the chief points of Roman history up to the present time, so that the subject of Rome get into our minds and hearts; and then try to absorb all we can of the spirit of both past and present, so that we shall know Rome even though we have not tried to find out all about her? We cannot accomplish the latter, and if we try I fear we shall miss everything.' My mother agreed fully with him. And so, many evenings at home; father would read to us pathetic legends and stirring tales of ancient Roman life; and we would often go and sit amidst the earth-covered ruins on the Palatine. Here, children, I have heard your own dear father more than once repeat, as only he could, Byron's graphic lines:—

"Cypress and ivy, weed and wall-flower grown, Matted and mass'd together; hillocks heap'd On what were chambers, arch crushed, column strewn In fragments; choked-up vaults, and frescoes steep'd In subterranean damps, where the owl peep'd Deeming it midnight.

"He used to love to repeat bits of poetry everywhere, just as Margery does.

"We climbed the Colosseum walls and sat there for hours dreaming of what it once was—and so we went all over the city—until I really think I lived in ancient Rome a part of the time. Often did I weep over the tragic fate of Roman heroes and matrons as I was in the places sacred to their history, so deeply impressed was I by the reality of the past life of Rome. I had not followed the erudite words of any interpreter of the ruins; I had not learned which was the particular pile of stones which marks the location of the palace of Tiberius, Augustus, or Septimius Severus; I could not even give name to all the various ruins of the Roman Forum, but old Rome was very real to me, and has been ever since.

"Now," she continued, as she glanced at the interested faces about her, "we are here for a very short time, and it does seem much the best to both Robert and me that you should try to get Rome into your hearts first. Don't be one bit afraid to grow sentimental over her. It is a good place in which to give ourselves up to sentiment. We will take a guide for all that which seems necessary. This one afternoon, however, up here, when you have learned the location of the seven hills and have clearly fixed in your minds the relative positions of the most important ruins and old buildings is, in my opinion, worth more than would be many afternoons spent in prowling through particular ruins; that is, for you. Were we archaeological students, it would of course be a far different matter."

"And we will at once resume our study of paintings," said Mr. Sumner, drawing nearer. "To-morrow morning, if Malcom has no engagement, we will go to the Sistine Chapel to see Michael Angelo's frescoes. I have been so busy until now that I could not get the time I wished for it."

The next morning, as Barbara and Bettina were getting ready for the drive according to Mr. Sumner's appointment, Bettina, who was vigorously brushing her brown suit, heard a sigh from her sister, and looking up saw her ruefully examining her own skirt.

"Rather the worse for wear, aren't they, Barbara mia?"

"Indeed, they are. I didn't notice it, though, until we came here into this bright Rome. We seem to have come all at once into spring sunshine and the atmosphere of new clothes; and, Betty, I believe I do feel shabby. I know you have been thinking the same thing, too; for everybody else seems to have new spring dresses, and they are so fresh and pretty that ours look doubly worse. Oh, dear!" and she sighed again.

Then, catching sight of her sister's downcast face, Barbara, in a moment, after her usual fashion, rose above her annoyance and cried:—

"For shame, Barbara Burnett! to think that you are in Rome, the Eternal City! that you are dressing to go to the Sistine Chapel to look at Michael Angelo's frescoes! and do you dare to waste a thought on the gown you are to wear! Oh, Betty! you are ashamed of me, too, I know.—There, you dear old brown suit! Forgive me, and I never will do such a mean thing again. To think of all the lovely places I have been in with you, and now that I should like to cheat you out of seeing Michael Angelo's frescoes!" and she adjusted the last button with such a comical, half-disgusted expression on her face that Betty burst into a merry laugh.

When the two girls came down stairs and stepped out upon the sidewalk beside which the carriages were waiting, their radiant faces gave not the slightest hint that any annoyance had ever lurked there; and no one, looking into them, would ever give a thought to the worn brown dresses. No one? not many, at least. Perhaps Miss Sherman, looking so dainty in her own fresh attire, did. Anyway, as Mr. Sumner handed her into one of the carriages, and himself springing in, took a seat beside her, she shot a triumphant glance at Barbara, who was seating herself in the other carriage with Bettina and Malcom. Mrs. Douglas and Margery had gone out on some morning errand and would follow them presently so Miss Sherman was alone with Mr. Sumner.

Robert Sumner was waging quite a battle with himself during these days. Ever since that night at Perugia, he had found to his utter dismay that he could not put Barbara out of his thoughts. Indeed, ever after the evening of the birthday party she had assumed to him a distinct individuality. It seemed as if he had received a revelation of what she was to become. Every now and then as he saw her at home, the vision of beautiful womanhood that had passed before him that evening would flash into his mind, and the thought would come that sometime, somewhere, she would find him into whose eyes could shine from her own that glorious lovelight that he had for an instant surprised in them.

It had not seemed to him that he then saw the present Barbara, but that which she was to be; and this future Barbara had no special connection with the present one, save to awaken an interest that caused him to be watchful of her. He had always recognized the charm of her personality,—her frank enthusiasms, and her rich reserve; the wide outlook and wise judgment of things unusual in one so young. But now he began to observe other more intimate qualities,—the wealth of affection bestowed on Bettina and the distant home; her tender regard to the feelings of those about her; her quick resentment of any injustice; her sturdy self-reliance; her sweet, unspoiled, unselfish nature; and her longing for knowledge and all good gifts.

Then came Howard's death, and he realized how deeply she was moved. A new look came often into her eyes, which he noted; a new tone into her voice, which he heard. And yet he felt that the experience had not touched the depths of her being.

While they were on the way from Florence to Rome he had rejoiced every time he heard her voice ringing with the old merry tones, which showed that she had for the moment forgotten all sad thoughts. When he was ostensibly talking to all, he was often really talking only to Barbara, and watching the expression of her eyes; and he always listened to catch her first words when any new experience came to their party. He was really fast getting into a dangerous condition, this young man nearly thirty years old, but was as unconscious of it as a child.

At Perugia came the night struggle caused by Malcom's words; the dream, and the morning meeting with Barbara. When his hand touched hers as he put into them the roses, he felt again for an instant the electric thrill that ran through him on the birthday night, when he met that wonderful look in her eyes. It brought a feeling of possession, as if it were the hand of his Margaret which he had touched,—Margaret, who was so soon to have been his wife when death claimed her.

He tried to account for it. He was jealous for the beloved dead whose words, whose ways, whose face had reigned supreme over his heart for so many years, when he caught himself dwelling on Barbara's words, recalling her tricks of tone, her individual ways.

He set himself resolutely to the task of overcoming this singular tendency of his thought; and oh! how the little blind (but all-seeing) god of love had been laughing at Robert Sumner all through the days since they reached Rome.

Instead of driving and walking about with the others, he had zealously set himself the task of calling at the studios of all his artist friends; had visited exhibitions; had gone hither and thither by himself; and yet every time had hastened home, though he would not admit it to his own consciousness, in order that he might know where Barbara was, what she was doing, and how she was feeling. He had busied himself in fitting up a sky-lighted room for a studio, where he resolved to spend many morning hours, forgetting all else save his beloved occupation; and the very first time he sat before his easel a sketch of Barbara's face grew out of the canvas. The harder he tried to put her from his thoughts, the less could he do so, and he grew restless and unhappy.

Another cause of troubled, agitated feeling was his decision to return to America and there make his home. In this he had not faltered, but it oppressed him. He loved this Italy, with her soft skies, her fair, smiling vineyards and bold mountain backgrounds, her romantic legends, and, above all, her art-treasures. He had taken her as his foster-mother. Her atmosphere stimulated him to work in those directions his heart loved best. How would it be when he should be back again in his native land? He had fought his battle; duty had told him to go there; and when she had sounded the call, there could be no retreat for him. But love and longing and memory and fear all harassed him. He had as yet said nothing of this to his sister, but it weighed on him continually. Taken all in all, Robert Sumner's life, which had been keyed to so even a pitch, and to which all discord had been a stranger for so many years, was sadly jarred and out of tune.

Of course Mrs. Douglas's keen sisterly eyes could not be blind to the fact that something was troubling her brother. And it was such an unusual thing to see signs of so prolonged disturbance in him that she became anxious to know the cause. Still she could not speak of it first. Intimate as they were, the inner feelings of each were very sacred to the other, and she must wait until he should choose to reveal all to her.

She well knew that his heart had been wholly consecrated to the only love it had heretofore known, and the query had often arisen in her mind whether the approach of another affection might not in the first place work some unhappiness. That he could ever love again as he had loved Margaret she did not for a moment believe. She well knew, however, that the happiness of any woman who might give her life into her brother's keeping was safe, and her wish for him was that he might be so drawn toward some loving woman that he might desire to make her his wife, and so be blessed with family life and love; for the thought that he might live lonely, without family ties, was inexpressibly sad to her loving heart.

We have seen how the coming of Miss Sherman into their lives roused these hopes afresh; and she now wondered if his evident unrest might be caused by the first suggestion of the thought of asking her to become his wife. It was evident that he admired her and enjoyed her society; and, so far as Miss Sherman's feelings were concerned, she felt no doubt. Indeed, she sometimes shrank a bit from the free display of her fondness for his company, and hoped that Malcom and the girls might not notice it. She easily excused it, however, to herself, although the closer intimacy of daily intercourse was revealing, little by little, flaws in the character she had thought so fair.

How utterly mistaken was Mrs. Douglas! and how shocked would Lucile Sherman have been this very morning could she have known how strong a longing leaped into Robert Sumner's heart to take into his hungry arms that graceful figure in worn brown suit, with brave, smiling young face and steadfast eyes, put her into his carriage, and drive away,—anywhere,—so it only were away and away!

Or, how stern a grip he imposed on himself as he took his seat beside her dimpling, chattering self, radiant with fresh colors and graceful draperies.

Or, of the tumult of his thoughts as they drove along through the narrow streets, across the yellow Tiber and up to the stately entrance of St. Peter's.



Chapter XIV.

A Visit to the Sistine Chapel.

Deep love lieth under These pictures of time; They fade in the light of Their meaning sublime.

—EMERSON.



They first passed into the great Cathedral in order to give a look at that most beautiful of all Michael Angelo's sculptures—Mary holding on her knees her dead Son. Barbara and Bettina had studied it on a former visit to St. Peter's when Mr. Sumner was not with them. Now he asked them to note the evident weight of the dead Christ,—with every muscle relaxed,—a triumph of the sculptor's art; and, especially, the impersonal face of the mother; a face that is simply the embodiment of her feeling, and wholly apart from the ordinary human!

"This is a special characteristic of Michael Angelo's faces," he said, "and denotes the high order of his thought. In it, he approached more closely the conceptions of the ancient Greek masters than has any other modern artist—and now we will go to the Sistine Chapel," he added, after a little time.

They went out to the Vatican entrance, passed the almost historic Swiss Guards, and climbed the stairs with quite the emotion that they were about to visit some sacred shrine, so much had they read and so deeply had they thought about the frescoes they were about to see.

For some time after they entered the Chapel Mr. Sumner said nothing. The custodian, according to custom, provided them with mirrors; and each one passed slowly along beneath the world-famous ceiling paintings, catching the reflection of fragment after fragment, figure after figure. Soon the mirrors were cast aside, and the opera-glasses Mr. Sumner had advised them to bring were brought into use,—they were no longer content to study simply a reflected image.

At last necks and eyes grew tired, and when Mr. Sumner saw this, he asked all to sit for a time on one of the benches, in a corner apart from others who were there.

"I know just how you feel," he said. "You are disappointed. The frescoes are so far above our heads; their colors are dull; they are disfigured by seams; there are so many subjects that you are confused and weary. You are already striving to retain their interest and importance by connecting them with the personality of their creator, and are imagining Michael Angelo swung up there underneath the vault, above his scaffoldings, laboring by day and by night during four years. You are beginning in the wrong place to rightly comprehend the work.

"It is the magnitude of Michael Angelo's conceptions that puts him among the very first of painters; and it is the conception of these frescoes that makes them the most notable paintings in the world. We must dwell on this for a moment. When the work was begun it was the artist's intention to paint on the end wall, opposite the altar, the Fall of Lucifer, the enemy of man, who caused sin to befall him. This was never accomplished. Then he designed to cover the ceiling (as he did) with the chief Biblical scenes of the world's history that are connected with man's creation and fall—to picture all these as looking directly forward to Christ's coming and man's redemption; and then to complete the series, as he afterward did, by painting this great Last Judgment over the altar. Is it not a stupendous conception?

"Let your eyes run along the ceiling as I talk. God is represented as a most superbly majestic Being in the form of man. He separates light from darkness. He creates the sun and moon. He commands the waters to bring forth all kinds of fish; the earth and air to bring forth animal life. He creates Adam: nothing more grand is there in the whole realm of art than this magnificent figure, perfect in everything save the reception of the breath of eternal life; his eyes are waiting for the Divine spark that will leap into them when God's finger shall touch his own. He creates Eve. In Paradise they sin, and are driven out by angels with flaming swords. Then, a sad sequence to the parents' weakness, Cain murders his brother Abel. The flood comes and destroys all their descendants save Noah. He who has withstood evil is saved with his family in the ark, and becomes the father of a new race."

"And do the pictures at the corners, and the single figures, have anything to do with this subject?" asked Malcom, after a pause, during which all were busy following the thoughts awakened by Mr. Sumner's words.



"Yes, indeed; nothing here is foreign to the one great thought of the painter. The four irregular spaces at the corners are filled with representations of important deliverances of the Jewish people from evil,—David slaying Goliath, the hanging of Haman, the serpent raised in the wilderness, and Judith with the head of Holofernes. The connection in Michael Angelo's mind evidently was that God, who had always provided a help for His people, would also in His own time give a Saviour from their sins.

"Ranged along the sides you see seven prophets and five sibyls: the prophets foretold Christ's coming to the Jewish world, and the sibyls sang of it to the Gentile world.

"Nowhere, however, do we see the waiting and the longing for the coming of the Redeemer more strikingly shown than in these families,—'Genealogy of the Virgin' they are commonly called,—that are painted in the triangular spaces above the windows. Each represents a father, mother, and little child, every bit of whose life seems utterly absorbed with just the idea of patient, expectant waiting. When troubled and weary, as we all are sometimes, you know, I have often come here to gain calmness and strength by looking at one or two of these groups;" and Mr. Sumner paused, with his eyes fixed on one of the loveliest of the Holy Families, as they are sometimes called, as if he would now drink in its spirit of hopeful peace.

"They are waiting," he resumed after a few minutes, "as only those can wait who confidently hope; and, therefore, there is really nothing in the rendering of all this grand conception that more clearly points to the Saviour's coming than do these.

"I think this part of the frescoes has not generally received the attention it merits.

"The decorative figures, called Athletes, that you see seated on the apparently projecting cornice, at each of the four corners of the smaller great divisions of the ceiling, are a wholly unique creation of the artist, and serve as a necessary separation of picture from picture. They are with reason greatly admired in the world of art.

"These many figures, each possessing distinct personality, were evolved from the mind of the artist. We can never think of him as going about through the city streets seeking models for his work as did Leonardo da Vinci. His figures are as purely ideal as the creations of the old Greeks. Now think of all this. Think of the sphere of the old master's thought during these four years, and you will not wonder that he could not sleep, but, restless, came again and again at night with a candle fixed in his paper helmet to light the work of his hands."

All were silent. Never before had they seen Mr. Sumner so evidently moved by his subject; and this made it all the more impressive. They became impatient as they heard a little group of tourists chatting and laughing in front of the Last Judgment; and when, finally, a crowd of travellers with a noisy guide entered the Chapel, they quickly decided to go away and to come again the next day.

"Thank you so much, Mr. Sumner," said Barbara, in a low, sympathetic voice, as she found herself beside him as they came out through the long corridor; "you have made it all very plain to us,—the greatness, the skill, the patience of Michael Angelo. It is as if he had been inspired by God."

"And why not?" was the gentle reply, as he looked down into the upturned face so full of sweet seriousness. "Do you believe that the days of inspiration were confined to past ages? God is the same as then, and close at hand as then; man is the same and with the same needs.

"The passive master lent his hand To the vast soul that o'er him planned,

wrote our Emerson, showing he believed, as I firmly do, that we ourselves now work God's will, as men did ages ago; that God inspires us even as he did the old Prophets."

"I love to believe so," said Barbara, simply.

"And," continued Mr. Sumner, "this does not lessen any man, but rather makes him greater. Surely God's working through him makes him truly grander than the mere work itself ever could."

As Malcom, Barbara, and Bettina drove homeward, their talk took a serious turn. Malcom was deeply impressed by his uncle's last words, which he had overheard, when taken into connection with all the preceding thoughts about Michael Angelo. Finally he asked:—

"And then what can a man do? What did Michael Angelo, himself, do if, as uncle suggested, God wrought through him?"

"Oh, I know!" exclaimed Bettina, eagerly. "I have heard papa and mamma talk about the same thing more than once, only of course Michael Angelo was not their subject. In the first place, he must have realized that God sent him into the world to do something, and also that He had not left him alone, but was with him. Papa always says that to realize this begins everything that is good."

"Yes," interrupted Barbara. "He did feel this. Don't you remember that he wrote in one of his letters that we were reading in that library book the other day, 'Make no intimacies with any one but the Almighty alone'? I was particularly struck by it, because just before I read it, I was thinking what a lonely man he was."

"Yes, dear, I remember. And in the next place," continued Bettina, "papa says we must get ourselves ready to do as great work as is possible, so that may be given us. If we do not prepare ourselves, this cannot be. You know how Michael Angelo studied and studied there in Florence when he was a young man; how he never spared himself, but 'toiled tremendously,' as some one has said. And, next, we must do in the very best way possible even the smallest thing God sees fit to give us to do, so that we may be found worthy to do greater ones. But, Malcom, you know all this as well or better than I do, and I know you are trying to do these things too!" and Bettina blushed at the thought that she had been preaching.

But Malcom laughed, and looked as if he could listen to so sweet a preacher forever. Never were there two better comrades than he and Bettina had been all their lives.

Barbara said little. There was a far-away look in her eyes that told of unexpressed thought. She was pondering that which the morning had brought; and underneath and through all was the happy knowledge that her hero had not failed her. As usual he had committed new gifts into her keeping. And the gentle, almost intimate, tones of his voice when he was talking to her,—she felt it was to herself alone, though others heard—dwelt like music in her ears.

Mr. Sumner had been calmed by the lesson of Michael Angelo's frescoes, as he had often been before. In the presence of eternal verities,—however they may be embodied to us,—our own private concerns must ever grow trivial. What matters a little unrest or disappointment, or even unhappiness, when our thought is engaged with untold ages of God's dealing with mankind? With the wondrous fact that God is with man,—Immanuel,—forever and forevermore?

That evening he spent with the family in their pretty sitting room, and in answer to some questions about the Last Judgment, talked for a few minutes about this large fresco, which occupied seven years of Michael Angelo's life. He told them that although it is not perhaps so great as a work of art as the ceiling frescoes, yet because of its conception, of the number of figures introduced, the boldness of their treatment, and the magnificence of their drawing, it stands unrivalled. He said they ought to study it, bit by bit, group by group, after having once learned to understand its design.

They talked of the grim humor of the artist in giving his Belial—the master of Hades—the face of the master of ceremonies of the chapel, who found so much fault with his painting of nude figures.

"That was the chief feature of interest in the picture to that group of young people who stood so long before it this morning," said Mr. Sumner. "I often notice that the portrait of grouty old Biagio attracts more attention than any other of the nearly three hundred figures in the picture."

"I don't wonder, for I want to see it too," said Malcom, laughing.

They talked also of Vittoria Colonna, at whose home and in whose companionship the lonely master found all his happiness, especially during these years of toil. The girls were much interested in her, and Mr. Sumner said he would take them to visit the Colonna Palace, where, among other pictures, they would find a portrait of this noble woman, who was so famous in the literary life of her time.

* * * * *

One morning, not long after, Malcom brought a handful of letters from the banker's, among which several fell to Barbara and Bettina.

After opening two or three of his own, Mr. Sumner looked up and said:—

"I have here a letter dictated by Howard's grandmother. It contains only a few words, which were written evidently by some friend, who adds that the poor old lady is greatly prostrated, and it is feared will never recover from the shock of his death."

"Poor woman! I wish it might have come less suddenly to her," replied Mrs. Douglas, in a sympathetic voice.

After a little silence, during which all were busy with their letters, a low cry burst from Barbara's lips.

Startled, all looked up to find her, pale as death, staring at a sheet clutched in her hand, while Bettina had sunk on her knees with her arms about her sister's waist.

"What is it? oh! what is it?" cried they.

Barbara found just voice enough to say: "No bad news from home," and then appealingly held her letter toward Mr. Sumner.

"Shall I read it?" and as she bowed assent, he hastily scanned the contents.

"Howard left a large portion of his money to Barbara," he said briefly, in response to the inquiring eyes, and handed the letter back to the agitated girl, who, with Bettina, sought their own room.

Then he added, striving to keep his voice calm and natural: "It seems that the very day before he was taken ill, Howard went to a lawyer in Florence and made a codicil to his will, in which he grouped several bequests heretofore given, into one large one, which he gave to Barbara. This he at once sent to his lawyer in Boston, who has now written to Barbara."

"This is what poor Howard tried so hard to tell me at the last," said Mrs. Douglas. "He began two or three times, but did not have the strength to continue. I suspected it was something like this, but thought it best not to mention it. How much is it?" she asked after a pause, during which Malcom and Margery had talked in earnest tones.

"Nearly half a million," answered Mr. Sumner.

Barbara the owner of nearly half a million dollars! No wonder she was overcome! It seemed like an Arabian Nights' tale.

"How perfectly lovely!" cried Margery; and her mother echoed her words.

Mr. Sumner looked rather grave. It was not that Barbara should have the money, but that another should have the right to give it her. Some one else to bless the life of the girl who was becoming so dear to him! To whom he was beginning to long to bring all good things! It was as if the dead Howard came in some way between himself and her; and he went out alone beneath the trees of the Pincian Gardens to think it all over.

Meanwhile, the two girls were in their chamber. Barbara threw herself on a couch beneath the window, and gazed with unseeing eyes up into the depths of the Italian sky. She was stunned by the news the letter had brought, and, as yet, thought was completely passive.

Bettina read several times the lawyer's letter, trying to understand its contents. At last she said gently:—

"Can it be possible, Bab? I can hardly comprehend how much it is. We have never thought of so much money in all our lives. Why! you are rich, dear. You have more money than you ever can spend!"

Barbara sprang from the couch, and threw out her arms with an exultant gesture.

"Spend! I hadn't once thought of that! Betty! Betty! Papa and mamma shall have everything they wish! They shall never work so hard any more! Mamma shall have a seamstress every day, and her poor pricked fingers shall grow smooth! She shall have the loveliest clothes, and never again give the prettiest of everything to you and me! Papa shall have vacations, and books, and the study in hospitals he has so longed for! Richard shall have college certain to look forward to; Lois shall have the best teachers in the world for her music; Margaret shall be an artist; and dear little Bertie!—oh! he shall have what he needs for everything he wishes to do and be! And they shall all come abroad to this dear lovely Italy, and enjoy all that we are enjoying! And you and I, Betty!—why!—you and I can have some new spring dresses!" And the excited girl burst into a flood of tears, mingled with laughter at the absurdity of her anti-climax.

Bettina did not know what to do. She had never seen Barbara so overwrought with excitement. Presently, however, she began to speak of Howard, and before long they were talking tenderly of the young man who so short a time ago was a stranger to them, but whose life had been destined to touch so closely their own.

Barbara was profoundly moved as she realized this proof of his affection for her, and a depression was fast following her moment of exultation, when a tap at the door ushered in Mrs. Douglas, who took her into her arms as her mother would have done. Her sweet sympathy and bright practical talk did a world of good in restoring to both the girls their natural calmness.

Barbara, however, was in a feverish haste to do something that would repay her parents for the money she and Betty were using, and, to soothe her, Mrs. Douglas told her what to write to the lawyer, so that he would at once transfer a few thousands of dollars to Dr. Burnett. Then she said:—

"I would not write your father and mother about it until to-morrow. You can do it more easily then; and I will write, too, if you would like. Margery and Malcom are longing to see you. So is Robert, I am sure. And will it not be best for you to go right out somewhere with us?"



Chapter XV.

A Morning in the Vatican.

Oh! their Rafael of the dear Madonnas.

—BROWNING.



It was, of course, somewhat difficult for Barbara to adjust herself to the new conditions. After the first, however, she said nothing to any one save Bettina about the money Howard had left her, only, as in her ignorance of business methods, she had need to consult Mrs. Douglas.

But she and Bettina had many things to talk over and much consultation to hold regarding the future. One evening, after they had been thus busy, Bettina said, nestling closer to her sister, as they sat together on the couch, brave in its Roman draperies:—

"You must not always say 'our money,' Bab, dear."

"Why not?" with a startled look.

"Because it is your money,—your very own;—the money Howard gave you to spend for him, and yourself enjoy."

"But, Betty, we have shared everything all our lives. I do not know how to have or use anything that is not yours as well as mine. If Howard had known my heart, he would have had it just as I would. I shall give you half, Betty. Do not, oh! do not refuse it. I shall not be happy with it unless you are willing. Then you and I will work with it and enjoy it together. It is the only way. Say yes, dear," and Barbara looked at her sister with an almost piteous entreaty.

Bettina could say nothing for a time. Then, as if impelled by the force of Barbara's desire, said:—

"Wait until we get home. Then, if you wish it as you do now, I will do as papa and mamma think best; for, darling," in a somewhat quavering voice, "I know if the money were all mine, I should feel just as you do." And a loving kiss sealed the compact.

Meanwhile the days in Rome were passing,—lovely in nature as only spring days in Italy can be; days filled to overflowing with delightful and unique interest. For cities, as well as people, possess their own characteristic individualities, and Rome is distinctively an individual city.

From her foundation by the shepherd-kings far beyond the outermost threshold of history, down through the six or seven centuries during which she was engaged in conquering the nations; through the five hundred years of her undisputed reign as proud mistress of the world; in her sad decay and fall; and to-day in her resurrection, she is only herself—unlike all other cities.

The fragmentary ruins of her great heathen temples arise close beside her Christian churches,—some are even foundations for them,—while the trappings of many have furnished the rich adornments of Christian altars. Her mediaeval castles and palaces, crowded to overflowing with heart-breaking traditions, look out over smiling gardens in the midst of which stand the quiet, orderly, innocent homes of the present race of commonplace men and women. Her vast Colosseum is only an immense quarry. Her proud mausoleum of the Julian Caesars is an unimportant circus.

We drive or walk on the Corso, along which the Caesars triumphantly led processions of captives; through which, centuries later, numberless papal pageants made proud entries of the city; where the maddest jollities of carnival seasons have raged: and we see nothing more important than modern carriages filled with gayly dressed women, and shops brilliant with modern jewellery and pretty colored fabrics; and we purchase gloves, handkerchiefs, and photographs close to some spot over which, perchance, Queen Zenobia passed laden with the golden chains that fettered her as she graced the triumph of Emperor Aurelian; or Cleopatra, when she came conqueror of the proud heart of Julius Caesar.

We linger on the Pincio, listening to the sweet music of the Roman band, while our eyes wander out over the myriad roofs and domes to where great St. Peter's meets the western horizon; and we forget utterly those dark centuries during which this lovely hill was given over to Nero's fearful ghost, until a Pope, with his own hands, cut down the grand trees that crowned its summit, thus exorcising the demon birds which the people believed to linger in them and still to work the wicked emperor's will.

We take afternoon tea at the English Mrs. Watson's, beside the foot of the Scala di Spagna, close to whose top tradition tells us that shameless Messalina, Claudius's empress, was mercilessly slain.

And so it is throughout the city. Tradition, legend, and romance have peopled every place we visit. Wars, massacres, and horrible suffering have left a stain at every step. Love and faith and glorious self-sacrifice have consecrated the ways over which we pass. And though we do not give definite thought to these things always, yet all the time the city is weaving her spell about our minds and hearts, and we suddenly arouse to find that, traditional or historic, civilized or barbarous, conqueror or conquered, ancient or modern, she has become Cara Roma to us, and so will be forevermore.

Thus it had been with Mrs. Douglas and Mr. Sumner, and so it now was with the young people of their household who had come hither for the first time.

The days flew fast. It was almost difficult to find time when all could get together for their art study. Mr. Sumner had told them at first that here they would study under totally different conditions from those in Florence, so separated are the works of any particular artist save Michael Angelo.

They had already visited individually, as they chose, those historic palaces in which are most important family picture-galleries, such as the Colonna, Farnese, Doria, Corsini, Villa Borghese, etc., but they wished to go all together to the Vatican to hear Mr. Sumner talk of Raphael's works, and right glad were they when finally a convenient time came.

They walked quickly through many pictured rooms and corridors until they reached the third room of the famous picture-gallery, where they took seats, and Mr. Sumner said, in a low voice:—

"I did not wish to come here immediately after we had studied Michael Angelo's frescoes. It was better to wait for a time, so utterly unlike are these two great masters of painting. I confess that I never like to compare them, one with the other, although their lives were so closely related that it is always natural to do so. Their characters were opposite; so, also, their work. One sways us by his all-compelling strength; the other draws us by his alluring charm. Michael Angelo is in painting what Dante and Shakespeare are in poetry, and Beethoven in music; Raphael is like the gentle Spenser and the tender Mozart. Michael Angelo is thoroughly original; Raphael possessed a peculiarly receptive nature, that caught something from all with whom he came into close contact. Michael Angelo strove continually to grow; Raphael struggled for nothing. Michael Angelo's life was sternly lonely and sorrowful; Raphael's bright, happy, and placid. Michael Angelo lived long; Raphael died in early manhood.

"Still," he continued, after a moment, as he noted the sympathetic faces about him, "although I have mentioned them, I beg of you not to allow any of these personal characteristics or distinctions to influence you in your judgment of the work of these two. Forget the one to-day as we study the other.

"You have read much of Raphael's life, so I will not talk about that. You remember that, when young, he studied in Perugia, in Perugino's studio, and perhaps you will recollect that, when we were there, I told you that his early work was exceedingly like that of this master.

"Now, look! Here right before us is Raphael's Coronation of the Virgin,—his first important painting. See how like Perugino's are the figures. Notice the exquisite angels on either side of the Virgin, which are so often reproduced! See their pure, childlike faces and the queer little stiffness that is almost a grace! See the sweet solemnity of Christ and the Madonna, the staid grouping of the figures below,—the winged cherubim,—the soft color!

"I have here two photographs," and he unfolded and passed one to Margery, who was close beside him, "which I wish you to look at carefully. They are of works painted very soon after the Coronation; one, the Marriage of the Virgin, or Lo Sposalizio, is in the Brera Gallery at Milan. It is as like Perugino's work as is the Coronation."

After a time spent in looking at and talking about the picture, during which Bettina told the story of the blossomed rod which Joseph bears over his shoulder, and the rod without blossoms which the disappointed suitor is breaking over his knee, Mr. Sumner gave them the other photograph.

"This," he resumed, "you will readily recognize, as you have so often looked at the picture in the Pitti Gallery in Florence—the Madonna del Gran Duca. This is the only Madonna that belongs to this period of Raphael's painting, and the last important picture in the style. It was painted during the early part of his visit to Florence."

"I never see this, uncle," said Margery, as she passed the photograph on to the others, "without thinking how the Grand Duke carried it about in its rich casket wherever he went, and said his prayers before it night and morning. I am glad the people named it after him. Don't you think it very beautiful, uncle?"

"Yes; and it is one of the purest Madonnas ever painted—so impersonal is the face," replied Mr. Sumner.

"I wish," he continued, "I could go on like this through a list of Raphael's works with you, but it is utterly impossible, so many are there. When he went to Florence, where you know he spent some years, he fell under the influence of the Florentine artists, and his work gradually lost its resemblance to Perugino's. It gained more freedom, action, grace, and strength of color. Some examples of this second style of his painting are the Madonna del Cardellino, or Madonna of the Goldfinch, which you will remember in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence, and La Belle Jardiniere in the Louvre, Paris. But I have brought photographs of these pictures so that you may see the striking difference between them and those previously painted."

Murmured exclamations attested the interest with which the comparison was made. After all seemed satisfied, Mr. Sumner continued:—

"After Raphael came to Rome, summoned by the same Pope Julius II. who sent for Michael Angelo, and was thus brought under the influence of that great painter, his method again changed. It grew firmer and stronger. Then he painted his best pictures,—and so many of them! So, you can see, it is somewhat difficult to characterize Raphael's work as a whole, for into it came so many influences. One thing, however, is true. From all those whom he followed, he gathered only the best qualities. His work deservedly holds its prominent place in the world's estimation;—so high and sweet and pure are its motifs, while their rendering is in the very best manner of the High Renaissance. No other artist ever painted so many noble pictures in so few years of time."

"Did not his pupils assist him in many works, uncle?" asked Malcom, as his uncle paused for a moment.

"Yes," replied Mr. Sumner, rising, "especially in the frescoes that we shall see by and by. It would have been utterly impossible for him to have executed all these with his own hand. Let us now go out into this next gallery through which we entered, and look at the Transfiguration."

So they went into the small room which is dedicated wholly to three large pictures:—the Transfiguration and Madonna di Foligno by Raphael, and the Communion of St. Jerome by Domenichino.

"Raphael's last picture, which he left unfinished!" murmured Bettina, and she took an almost reverential attitude before it.

"How very, very different from the Coronation!" exclaimed Barbara, after some moments of earnest study. "That is so utterly simple, so quiet! This is more than dramatic!"

"Raphael's whole lifetime of painting lies between the two," replied Mr. Sumner, who had been intently watching her face as he stood beside her.

"Do you like this, Mr. Sumner? I do not think I do, really," said Miss Sherman, as she dropped into a chair, her eyes denoting a veiled displeasure, which was also apparent in the tones of her voice.

"It is a difficult picture to judge," replied Mr. Sumner, slowly. "I wish you all could have studied many others before studying this one. But, indeed, you are so familiar with Raphael's pictures that you need only to recall them to mind. This was painted under peculiar circumstances,—in competition, you remember, with Sebastian del Piombo's Resurrection of Lazarus; and Sebastian was a pupil of Michael Angelo. Some writers have affirmed that that master aided his pupil in the drawing of the chief figures in his picture. Raphael tried harder than he ever had done before to put some of the dramatic vigor and action of Michael Angelo into the figures here in the lower part of the Transfiguration. The result is that he overdid it. It is not Raphaelesque; it is an unfortunate composite. The composition is fine; the quiet glory of heaven in the upper part,—the turbulence of earth in the lower, are well expressed; but the perfection of artistic effect is wanting. It is full of beauties, yet it is not beautiful. It has many defects, yet only a great master could have designed and painted it."

By and by they turned their attention to the Madonna di Foligno, and were especially interested in it as being a votive picture. Margery, who was very fond of this Madonna, with the exquisite background of angels' heads, had a photograph of it in her own room at home, and knew the whole story of the origin of the picture. So she told it at Malcom's request, her delicate fingers clasping and unclasping each other, according to her habit, as she talked.

"How true it is that one ought to know the reason why a picture is painted, all about its painter, and a thousand other things, in order to appreciate it properly," said Malcom, as they turned to leave the room.

"That is so," replied his uncle. "I really feel," with an apologetic smile, "that I can do nothing with Raphael. There is so much of him scattered about everywhere. We will regard this morning's study as only preliminary, and you must study his pictures by yourselves, wherever you find them. By the way," and he turned to look back through the doorway, "you must not forget to come here again to see Domenichino's great picture. How striking it is! But we must not mix his work with Raphael's."

They passed through the first room of the gallery, stopping but a moment to see two or three comparatively unimportant pictures painted by Raphael, and went out into the Loggia.

"I brought you through this without a word, when we first came," said Mr. Sumner. "But now I wish you to look up at the roof-paintings. They were designed by Raphael, but painted by his pupils. You see they all have Bible subjects. For this reason this Loggia is sometimes called 'Raphael's Bible.' The composition of every picture is simple, and in the master's happiest style."

As they left the Loggia and entered "Raphael's Stanze," a series of rooms whose walls are covered with his frescoes, Mr. Sumner said:—

"We will to-day only give a glance at the paintings in this first room. They are, as you see, illustrative of great events in the history of Rome. They were executed wholly by Raphael's pupils, after his designs."

"I shall come here again," said Malcom, in a positive tone. "This is more in my line than Madonnas," and he made a bit of a wry face.

"And better still is to come for you," returned his uncle with a smile, as they passed on. "Here in this next room are scenes in the religious history of the city, and here," as they entered the third room, "is the famous Camera della Segnatura."

"Room of the Signatures! Why so called?" asked Barbara.

"Because the Papal indulgences used to be signed here; and here," continued Mr. Sumner, turning for a moment toward Malcom, "are the greatest of all Raphael's frescoes. We will now stop here for a few minutes, and you must come again for real study. The subjects are the representations of the most lofty occupations that engage the minds of men—Philosophy, Justice, Theology, and Poetry. This is the first painting done by Raphael in the Vatican, and it is all his own work, both design and execution.

"Here on this side," pointing at a large fresco which covered the entire wall, "is La Disputa, or Theology. Above, on the ceiling, you see a symbolic figure representing Religion, with the Bible in one hand and pointing down at the great picture with the other. Opposite is the School of Athens. Above this is a figure emblematic of Philosophy, wearing a diadem and holding two books. On the two end walls, broken, as you see, by the windows, are Parnassus, peopled with Apollo and the Muses, together with figures of celebrated poets,—above which is the crowned figure with a lyre which represents Poetry,—and," turning, "the Administration of Law, with ceiling-figure with crown, sword, and balance, symbolizing Justice. In this room the painter had much to contend against. These opposite windows at the ends, which fill the space with cross-lights, and around which he must place two of his pictures, must have been discouraging. But the compositions are consummately fine, and the whole is so admirably managed that one does not even think of that which, if the work were less magnificent, would be harassing.

"I advise you to come here early some morning and bring with you some full description of the pictures, which tells whom the figures are intended to represent. Study first each painting as a whole; see the fine distribution of masses; the general arrangement; the symmetry of groups which balance each other; the harmony of line and color. Then study individual figures for form, attitude, and expression. I think you will wish to give several mornings to this one room.

"What do you think of this, Malcom? Do you not wish to get acquainted with Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, and Virgil?" added Mr. Sumner, putting his hand suddenly on the young man's shoulder, and looking into his face to surprise his thought.

"I think it is fine, Uncle Rob. It's all right;" and Malcom's steady blue eyes emphasized his satisfaction.

"What do you call Raphael's greatest picture?" asked Barbara, as they turned from the frescoed walls.

"These are his most important frescoes," replied Mr. Sumner; "and all critics agree that his most famous easel picture is the Madonna di San Sisto in the Dresden Gallery. This is so very familiar to you that it needs no explanation. It was, you know, his last Madonna, and it contains a hint of Divinity in both mother and child never attained by any painter before or since."

"When shall we see Raphael's tapestries?" asked Margery, as they finally passed on through halls and corridors.

"I hardly think I will go with you to see those, Madge dear," answered her uncle. "There is no further need that I explain any of Raphael's work to you. Your books and your own critical tastes, which are pretty well formed by this time, will be quite sufficient. Indeed," looking around until he caught Barbara's eyes, "I really think you can study all the remaining paintings in Rome by yourselves," and he was made happy by seeing the swift regret which clouded them.

"When we return to Florence," he added, "you will be more interested than when we were there before in looking at Raphael's Madonnas and portraits in those galleries; and on our way from Florence to Venice, we will stop at Bologna to see his St. Cecilia".

"How perfectly delightful!" cried Bettina. "I have been wishing to see that ever since we went to the church of St. Cecilia the other day. I was greatly interested to know that it had once been her own home, and in everything there connected with her. She was so brave, and true, and good! It seems as if Raphael could have painted a worthy picture of her!"

As Bettina suddenly checked her pretty enthusiasm, her face flushed painfully, and Barbara, seeking the cause, caught the supercilious smile with which Miss Sherman was regarding her sister. She at once divined that poor Bettina feared that, in some way, she had made herself ridiculous to the older lady.

Going swiftly to her sister she threw her arm closely about her waist, and with a charming air of defiance,—with erect head and flashing eyes, said:—

"Mr. Sumner, St. Cecilia is a real, historical character, is she not? As much so as St. Francis, Nero, or Marcus Aurelius?" The slight emphasis on the last name recalled to all the party the effusive eulogiums Miss Sherman had lavished upon that famous imperial philosopher a few days before, while they were looking at his bust in the museum of Palazzo Laterano; when, unfortunately, she had imputed to him certain utterances that rightfully belong to another literary man who lived in quite a different age and country.

Mr. Sumner could not avoid a merry twinkle of his eyes as he strove to answer with becoming gravity, and Malcom hastily pushed on far in advance.

Once at home, Malcom and Margery gave their version of the affair to their mother.

"It isn't the first time she has looked like that at both Barbara and Betty," averred Malcom, emphatically, "and they have known and felt it, too."

"I am very sorry," said Mrs. Douglas, with a troubled look.

"Oh! you need not fear anything further, mother mia" said Malcom, sympathizingly. "Barbara will never show any more feeling. She would not have done it for herself, only for Betty. Under the circumstances she just had to fire her independence-gun, that is all. Now there will be perfect peace on her side. You know her.

"And," he added in an aside to Margery, as his mother was leaving the room, "Miss Sherman will not dare to be cross openly for fear of mother and Uncle Rob. I didn't dare to look at her. But wasn't it rich?" And he went off into a peal of laughter.

"It was only what she deserved, anyway," said Margery, who was usually most gentle in all her judgments.

It was quite a commentary on Mrs. Douglas's judgment of Lucile Sherman's character at this time, that she now deemed it best to tell her of Howard's bequest to Barbara, about which she had heretofore held silence.



Chapter XVI.

Poor Barbara's Trouble.

O, how this spring of love resembleth The uncertain glory of an April day; Which now shows all the beauty of the sun, And by and by a cloud takes all away.

—SHAKESPEARE.



Barbara and Bettina, sometimes accompanied by Mrs. Douglas, sometimes by Malcom, usually by Margery, saw all the remaining and important art treasures of Rome.

They studied long the Vatican and Capitol sculptures; went to the Barberini Palace to see Raphael's La Fornarina, so rich in color; and, close beside it, the pale, tearful face of Beatrice Cenci, so long attributed to Guido Reni, but whose authorship is now doubtful; to the doleful old church Santa Maria dei Capuccini, to see St. Michael and the Dragon by Guido Reni, in which they were especially interested, because Hawthorne made it a rendezvous of the four friends in his "Marble Faun," where so diverse judgments of the picture were pronounced, each having its foundation in the heart and experience of the speaker. They had been reading this book in the same way in which they had read "Romola" in Florence, and each girl was now the happy possessor of a much-prized copy, interleaved by herself with photographs of the Roman scenes and works of art mentioned in the book.

They went to the garden-house of the Rospigliosi Palace to see on its ceiling Guido Reni's Aurora, one of the finest decorative pictures ever painted. And to the Accademia di San Luca to find the drawing by Canevari after Van Dyck's portrait of the infant son of Charles I. in the Turin Gallery, which is so often reproduced under the name of the Stuart Baby. Not many pictures, great or small, escaped their eager young eyes. They grew familiar with the works of Domenichino, Guercino, Garofalo, Carlo Dolci, Sassoferrato, etc., and the days of their stay in Rome rapidly passed by.

Mrs. Douglas was very desirous to take them for a few days to Naples, or rather to the environments of Naples. To herself it would be a pilgrimage of affection; and in those drives, loveliest in the world, she would recall many precious memories of the past.

"I hesitated to speak of doing this before," said she, when she suggested it to her brother, "because I have tried to make the whole trip comparatively inexpensive, remembering the shortness of the dear doctor's purse. Now, of course, this needs no consideration."

So they planned to go there for a short visit; and on their return it would be time to pack their trunks for Florence, where they were to stop two or three days before going northward toward Venice.

A morning ride from Rome to Naples during the early days of May is idyllic. In the smiling sunshine they rushed on through wide meadows covered with luxuriant verdure and vineyards flushed with delicate greens. After they had passed Capua, which is magnificently situated on a wide plain,—amphitheatre-like within its half-circle of lovely hills, flanked behind by the Apennines,—Malcom said, as he finally drew in his head from the open window and, with a very contented look, settled back into a corner of the compartment, with one arm thrown about his mother's shoulders:—

"It is no wonder that old Hannibal's army grew effeminate after the soldiers had lived here for some months, and so was easily conquered. Life could not have had many hardships in such a place as this.

"I declare!" he added with a laugh as he shook back the wind-blown hair from his forehead; "it is difficult to realize these days in what century one is living. My mind has been so full of ancient history lately that I feel quite like an antique myself."

"I know," answered his uncle with a smile, "how life widens and lengthens as thought expands under the influence of travel through historic scenes. One may study history from books for a lifetime and never realize it as he would could he, even for an hour, be placed upon the very spot where some important event took place. What a fact Hannibal's army of two thousand years ago becomes to us when we know that these very mountain tops which are before us looked down upon it,—that its soldiers idled, ate, and slept on this very plain."

Thus talking, almost before they knew, they came out upon the beautiful Bay of Naples. They saw the little island of Capri, the larger Ischia crowned with its volcanic mountains, and, between it and the point of Posilipo, where once stood Virgil's villa, the tiny island Nisida (old "Nesis"), whither Brutus fled after the assassination of Julius Caesar; where Cicero visited him, and where he bade adieu to his wife, Portia, when he set sail for Greece.

"Looking out over this same bay, these same islands, Virgil sang of flocks, of fields, and of heroes," said Mr. Sumner, following the former line of thought, as he began to take from the racks above the valises of the party.

Arrived at their hotel, which was situated in the higher quarters of the city, they were ensconced in rooms whose balconied windows commanded magnificent views of the softly radiant city, the bay, and, close at hand, Mount Vesuvius, over which was hovering the usual cloud of smoke.

At the close of the afternoon Barbara and Bettina stood long on their own window-balcony. The scene was fascinating—even more so than they had dreamed.

"There is but one Naples, as there is but one Rome and one Florence," said Barbara softly. "Each city is grandly beautiful in its own individual way, but for none has nature done so much as for Naples."

In silence they watched the sunset glow and the oncoming twilight, until the call for dinner sounded through the halls.

"I fear to leave it all," said Bettina, turning reluctantly away, "lest we can never find it again."

The next three days were crowded to the brim. One was spent in going to the top of Vesuvius; another in the great Museum, so interesting with its remains of antique sculptures, so destitute of important paintings; the third in driving about the city, to San Martino, and around the point of Posilipo, ending with a visit to Virgil's tomb.

Then came the Sabbath, and they attended morning service in the Cathedral,—in the very chapel of San Januarius which is decorated with pictures by Domenichino, Guido Reni, and Lanfranco, the completion of which was prevented by the jealousy of the Neapolitan painters.

The next morning they went to Pompeii, where in the late afternoon carriages were to meet them for beginning the drive through Castellammare, Sorrento, and Amalfi to La Cava.

The absorbing charm of Pompeii, whose resurrection began after nearly seventeen centuries of burial and is yet only partial, at once seized them,—all of them,—for, visit the ruined city often as one may, yet the sight of its worn streets with their high stepping-stones, its broken pavements, its decorated walls, its shops,—all possess such an atmosphere of departed life that its fascination is complete, and does not yield to familiarity.

After hours of wandering about with their guide, seeing the points of most interest,—the beautiful houses recently excavated, the homes of Glaucus, of Pansa, of Sallust, of Orpheus, of Diomedes and very many others; the forum, temples, and amphitheatre—they sat long amid the ruins, looking at the fatal mountain, so close at hand, and the desolation at its foot, and meditated upon the terrors of that fearful night.

Malcom read aloud the story as related by Pliny, a volume of whose letters he had put into his pocket, and Margery recited some lines of a beautiful sonnet on Pompeii which she had once learned, whose author she did not remember:—

"No chariot wheels invade her stony roads; Priestless her temples, lone her vast abodes, Deserted,—forum, palace, everywhere! Yet are her chambers for the master fit, Her shops are ready for the oil and wine, Ploughed are her streets with many a chariot line, And on her walls to-morrow's play is writ,— Of that to-morrow which might never be!"

The spell was not broken until Mr. Sumner, looking at his watch, declared it was quite time they should return to the little hotel, take an afternoon lunch, and so be ready when the carriages should await them.

The beauty of the drive from Naples to the Bay of Salerno has been set forth, by many writers, in prose and song and poem, and remembering this, Barbara's and Bettina's faces were radiant with expectation as they started upon it. Malcom and Margery were in the carriage with them; the atmosphere was perfection; the sun shone with just the right degree of heat; the waters of the beautiful Bay of Naples were just rippling beneath the soft breeze, and seventeen miles of incomparable loveliness lay between them and Sorrento, where they were to spend the night. What wonder they were happy!

Just as they were entering the town of Castellammare (the ancient Stabiae, where the elder Pliny perished) the carriage containing Mrs. Douglas, Miss Sherman, and Mr. Sumner, which had thus far followed them, dashed past, and its occupants were greeted with a merry peal of laughter from the four young voices.

"How joyous they are!" exclaimed Mrs. Douglas, her own face reflecting their happiness. "You look envious, Robert."

Then, turning to Miss Sherman, she added: "I never tire of watching Barbara and Bettina these days. I believe they are two of the rarest girls in the world. Nothing has yet spoiled them, and I think nothing ever will. It has been one of the sweetest things possible to see their little everyday charities since they have had money in abundance. Before, they felt that every dollar their parents spared them was a sacred trust to be used just for their positive needs. Now, their evident delight in giving to the flower-girls, to the street-gamins, to the beggars, to everything miserable that offers, is delightful."

"Do you think Barbara will know how to be wise in the spending of her money?" asked Miss Sherman, with a constrained smile.

"As to the wise ways of spending money," answered Mrs. Douglas, stealing a glance at her brother's imperturbable face opposite, "everybody has his own individual opinion. I, myself, feel sure of Barbara. Before her money came, she had received the greater and far more important heritage of a noble-minded ancestry and a childhood devoted to unselfish living and the seeking of the highest things. During these eighteen years her character has been formed, and it is so grounded that the mere possession of money will not alter it. To my mind it is a happy thing that Howard's money will be used in such a personal way as I think it will be."

"Personal a way?" queried Miss Sherman.

"I mean personal as distinguished from institutional—you know his first intention was to endow institutions. For instance, within a week after Barbara received the lawyer's announcement, she consulted me as to how she could best make provision for an old lady who has been for years more or less of a pensioner of her father's family. The dear old woman with a little aid has supported herself for many years, but lately it has seemed as if she would have to give up the wee bit of a home she loves so much and become an inmate of some great Institution, and this would almost break her heart. Barbara was in haste to put enough money at her disposal so that a good woman may be hired to come and care for her so long as she shall live, and to provide for all her wants. Also she remembered a poor young girl, once her and Betty's schoolmate, who has always longed for further study, whose one ambition has been to go to college. This was simply impossible, not even the strictest economy, even the going without necessities, has gathered together sufficient money for the expenses of a single year. Before we left Rome, Barbara arranged for the deposit in the bank at home of enough money to permit this struggling girl to look forward with certainty to a college course, and wrote the letter which will bring her so much joy.

"Dear child!" she continued tenderly, after a pause; "the only bit of money she has yet spent for herself was to get the spring outfits that she and Betty have really needed for some time, but for which they did not like to use their father's money.

"And I do believe," after another pause, "that the two girls' lives will be passed as unostentatiously as if the money had not come to them."

"Why do you speak as if the money had come to both?" asked Miss Sherman, with a curious inflection of the voice.

"Did I? I did not realize it. But I will not change my words; for, unless I mistake much, the money will be Bettina's as much as Barbara's, and this, because Barbara will have it so."

The words were hardly spoken by Mrs. Douglas when Mr. Sumner, who was riding backward and so facing the following carriage, sprang up, crying in a low, smothered tone of alarm, "Barbara!"

But Mrs. Douglas had not time to turn before he sank back saying: "Excuse me. I must have been mistaken. I thought that something was the matter; that Barbara had been taken ill."

Then he added, in explanation to his sister: "The carriage was so far back, as it rounded a curve, permitting me to look into it, that I could not see very distinctly."

Miss Sherman bit her lip and rode on in silence. Mr. Sumner's concern for Barbara seemed painfully evident to her. She had much that was disagreeable to think of, for it was impossible to avoid contrasting herself with the picture of Barbara which Mrs. Douglas had drawn. She thought of the sister at home who so patiently, year after year, had given up her own cherished desires that she might be gratified; who had needed, far more than she herself had, the change and rest of this year abroad, but whom she had forced to return with the father, even though she knew well it was her own duty to go,—how many such instances of selfishness had filled her life!

She felt that she could almost hate this fortunate Barbara, who so easily was gaining all the things she herself coveted,—admiration,—wealth,—love? no, not if she could help it! and she forced herself to smile, to praise the same qualities of heart that Mrs. Douglas had admired; to talk pityingly of the miserable ones of earth; adoringly of self-sacrificing, heroic deeds, and sympathizingly of noble endeavor.

* * * * *

What had been the matter in the other carriage? After the burst of gayety with which the three girls and Malcom had greeted the swifter equipage as it rolled past theirs, nothing was said for some time, until Malcom suddenly burst out with the expression of what had evidently been the subject of his thought:—

"Girls, do you think that Uncle Robert is falling in love with Miss Sherman?"

The question fell like a bombshell into the little group. Margery first found a voice, but it was a most awed, repressed one:—

"Why, Malcom! could he ever love anybody again? You know—oh! what could make you think of such a thing? It is not like you to make light of Uncle Robert's feelings."

"I am not doing so, Madge dear. Men can love twice. It would not hurt Margaret should he learn to love some one else. And it would be ever so much better for him. Uncle's life seems very lonely to me. Now he is busy with us; but just think of the long years when he is living and working over here all alone. Still, I am sure I would not choose Miss Sherman for him. Yet I am not certain but it looks some like it. What do you think, Betty?"

"I—don't—know—what—I—do—think,—Malcom. You know how much I love and admire your uncle. I do not think there are many women good enough to be his wife."

Bettina thought, but did not say, that she could not love and admire Miss Sherman, who had made it quite evident to Barbara and herself that she cared nothing for them, save as they were under the care of Mrs. Douglas; who had never given them any companionship, or, at least, never had until during the past week or two, after she had learned that Barbara was Howard's heiress.

Barbara drew her breath quickly and sharply. Could such a thing as this be? was this to come? In her mind, Mr. Sumner was consecrated to the dead Margaret, about whom she had thought so much,—the picture of whose lovely face she had so often studied,—whose character she had adorned with all possible graces! She listened, as in a dream, to Bettina and Malcom. He should not love any one else; or, if he could—poor Barbara's heart was ruthlessly torn open and revealed unto her consciousness. She felt that the others must read the tale in her confused face.

Confused? No, Barbara, it was pale and still, as if a mortal wound had been given.

Her head reeled, the world grew dark, and it was silence until she heard Bettina saying frantically:—

"Bab, dear! are you faint? Oh! what is it?"

With an almost superhuman effort Barbara drew herself up and smiled bravely, with white lips:—

"It is nothing—only a moment's dizziness. It is all over now."

This was what Mr. Sumner saw when he sprang up in alarm, and then in a moment said: "Everything seems all right now."

But poor Barbara thought nothing could ever be right again. And when their carriage drew up in the spacious courtyard of their hotel at Sorrento, and Mr. Sumner, with an unusually bright and eager face, stood waiting to help her alight, it was a frozen little hand that was put into his, and he could not win a single glance from the eyes he loved to watch, and from which he was impatient to learn if it were indeed well with the owner.

To this day Barbara shudders at the thought or mention of the next four or five days. And they were such rare days for enjoyment, could she have forgotten her own heart:—across the blue waters to Capri, with a visit by the way to the famous Blue Grotto; a whole day in that lovely town, walking about its winding, climbing streets; the long drive from Sorrento to quaint Prajano, with, on one hand, towering, rugged limestone cliffs, to whose rough sides, every here and there, clings an Italian village, and, on the other, the smiling, wide-spreading Mediterranean; the little rowboat ride to Amalfi; the day full of interest spent there; and then the drive close beside the sea toward Palermo, terminated by a sharp turn toward the blue mountains among which nestles La Cava; the railway ride back to Naples.

She struggled bravely to be her old self,—to hide everything from all eyes. But she felt so wofully humiliated, for she now knew for the first time that she loved Robert Sumner; loved him so that it was positive agony to think that he might love another,—so that it was almost a pain to remember that he had ever loved. What would he think should he suspect the truth! And she was so fearful that her eyes might give a hint of it that, try in as many ways as he could, Mr. Sumner could never get a good look into them during these days. The kinder he was, and the more zealously he endeavored to add to her comfort and happiness, the more wretched she grew. She longed to get away from everybody, even from Betty, lest her secret might become apparent to the keen sisterly affection that knew her so intimately. She began to feel a fierce longing for home and for father and mother; and the months which must necessarily elapse before she could be there stretched drearily before her.