is after our long, dusty ride!" exclaimed Margery,
tossing back her curls to catch the breeze.

"I did not expect to find Bologna so curiously beautiful," said Bettina,
after she had seen that Barbara was comfortable in the big chair Malcom
had wheeled out for her--for she was still languid from her recent
illness, and tired easily.

"Please tell us something about it, uncle," said Malcom. "I am afraid I
have not looked it up very thoroughly."

So Mr. Sumner told them many interesting things about the old city,--and
how it had figured largely in Italian history from the Punic wars soon
after Christ, down to the middle of the present century, when it finally
became a part of United Italy.

"What about the university?" queried Malcom again.

"It has had a grand reputation for about fourteen centuries, and thus
is among the most ancient existing seats of learning in Christendom.
During the Middle Ages students came to it from all parts of northern
Europe."

Bettina laughed. "I read a curious thing about it in my guide-book,"
said she. "That it has had several women professors; and one who was
very beautiful always sat behind a curtain while she delivered her
lectures. This was in the fourteenth century, I believe."

"A wise precaution," exclaimed Malcom, with a quizzical look. "Even I
sometimes forget what a pretty woman is saying, because my thoughts are
wandering from the subject to her face. And the men of those times could
not have had the constant experience we of this century in America
have."

"Don't be silly," smiled Bettina; and Mrs. Douglas, slipping her hand
through Malcom's arm, asked: "Do you see those towers?"

"Yes; and uncle, I remember you spoke of the leaning towers of Bologna
when we were at Pisa; what about them?"

"I think I simply said that since I had seen these towers, I have
believed that the one at Pisa had been intentionally built in the way it
now stands. My reason is that in all probability one of these was
purposely so built."

"Which was erected first?"

"This, about two hundred and fifty years."

"Let us go and see them at once!" exclaimed Malcom. "There is time to
give a good long look at the city before dinner."

"That is a good plan," said his mother, "and we will not go to the
picture-gallery until to-morrow morning. Then Barbara will be fresh, and
can enjoy it with the rest of us."

Mr. Sumner turned solicitously toward Barbara, with a movement as if to
go to her, b