nd now that they think they can learn to know, as soon as they
see it, a Giotto, a Fra Angelico, a Botticelli, or a Fra Filippo Lippi,
they will be simply crazy. You ought to hear the learned way in which
they are beginning to discourse about them. They don't do it when you
are around."

"Oh, Malcom! who was it that _must_ wait a few minutes longer, the other
morning, in Santa Maria Novella in order to run downstairs and give one
more look at Giotto's frescoes?" laughed Bettina.

* * * * *

Barbara's and Bettina's eighteenth birthday was drawing near. Mrs.
Douglas had for a long time planned to give a party to them, and had
fully arranged the details before she spoke of it to the girls.

"It shall be your 'coming-out party' here in Florence," she said; "not a
large party, but a thoroughly pleasant and enjoyable one, I am sure."

And the circle of friends who were eager to know and to add to the
pleasure of any one belonging to Robert Sumner seemed to ensure this.
Mrs. Douglas further said that she did not wish them to give a thought
to what they would wear on the occasion, but to leave everything with
her. Every girl of eighteen years will readily understand what a flutter
of joyous excitement Barbara and Bettina felt, and how they talked over
the coming event, when they were alone. Finally Bettina asked:--

"Why does Mrs. Douglas do so much for us? How can we ever repay her?"

"We can never repay her, Betty," replied her sister. "Nor does she wish
it. I do not know why she is so kind. She must love us, or,--perhaps it
is because she is so fond of papa. Do you know, Betty, that our father
once saved her life? She told me about it only yesterday, and I did not
think to tell you last night, there was so much to talk about. It was
when she was a little girl of twelve or thirteen years and papa was just
beginning to practise. You know her father was very wealthy, and had
helped him to get his profession because the two families were always so
intimate. Well, Mrs. Douglas was so ill that three or four doctors said
they could do nothing more for her, and she must die. Of course her
father and mother were broken-hearted. And papa went to them, and for
days and nights did not sleep and hardly ate, but was with her every
moment; and the older doctors acknowledged that but for him she could
never have lived.--And, just think! he never said a word about it to
us!"

"Our father never talks of