“Maybe,” said Florence, carelessly; “but I’d as lief be in the fashion, after all.  And that’s where Hazel Ripwinkley never will get, with all her taking little novelties.”

Meanwhile, Hazel Ripwinkley was deep in the delights of a great portfolio of rare engravings; prints of glorious frescoes in old churches, and designs of splendid architecture; and Mrs. Geoffrey, seeing her real pleasure, was sitting beside her, turning over the large sheets, and explaining them; telling her, as she gazed into the wonderful faces of the Saints and the Evangelists in Correggio’s frescoes of the church of San Giovanni at Parma, how the whole dome was one radiant vision of heavenly glory, with clouds and angel faces, and adoring apostles, and Christ the Lord high over all; and that these were but the filling in between the springing curves of the magnificent arches; describing to her the Abbess’s room in San Paolo, with its strange, beautiful heathen picture over the mantel, of Diana mounting her stag-drawn car, and its circular walls painted with trellis-work and medallioned with windows, where the heads of little laughing children, and graceful, gentle animals peeped in from among vines and flowers.

Mrs. Geoffrey did not wonder that Hazel lingered with delight over these or over the groups by Raphael in the Sistine Chapel,—­the quiet pendentives, where the waiting of the world for its salvation was typified in the dream-like, reclining forms upon the still, desert sand; or the wonderful scenes from the “Creation,”—­the majestic “Let there be Light!” and the Breathing of the breath of life into Man.  She watched the surprise and awe with which the child beheld for the first time the daring of inspiration in the tremendous embodiment of the Almighty, and waited while she could hardly take her eyes away.  But when, afterward, they turned to a portfolio of Architecture, and she found her eager to examine spires and arches and capitals, rich reliefs and stately facades and sculptured gates, and exclaiming with pleasure at the colored drawings of Florentine ornamentation, she wondered, and questioned her,—­

“Have you ever seen such things before?  Do you draw?  I should hardly think you would care so much, at your age.”

“I like the prettiness,” said Hazel, simply, “and the grandness; but I don’t suppose I should care so much if it wasn’t for Dorris and Mr. Kincaid.  Mr. Kincaid draws buildings; he’s an architect; only he hasn’t architected much yet, because the people that build things don’t know him.  Dorris was so glad to give him a Christmas present of ‘Daguerreotypes de Paris,’ with the churches and arches and bridges and things; she got it at a sale; I wonder what they would say to all these beauties!”

Then Mrs. Geoffrey found what still more greatly enchanted her, a volume of engravings, of English Home Architecture; interiors of old Halls, magnificent staircases, lofty libraries and galleries dim with space; exteriors, gabled, turreted and towered; long, rambling piles of manor houses, with mixed styles of many centuries.