Bettina told of Barbara’s trouble.

“How strange!” said Margery.  “Mamma has just been talking to us about this very thing.  She says that, if you like, Uncle Robert will teach us about the works of the Italian painters.  You know he knows everything about them!  He has even written a book about these paintings in Florence!”

“Yes,” said Malcom with a comical shrug, “the idea is that we all spend one or two mornings every week studying stiff old Madonnas and Magdalenes and saints!  I love noble and beautiful paintings as well as any one, but I wonder if I can ever learn anything that will make me care to look twice at some of those old things in the long entrance gallery of the Uffizi.  I doubt it.  Give me the old palaces where the Medici lived, and let me study up what they did.  Or even Dante, or Michael Angelo! He was an artist who is worth studying about.  Why! do you know, he built the fortifications of San Miniato and—­”

“But,” interrupted Barbara, “you know that whenever Italy is written or talked about, her art seems to be the very most important thing.  I was reading only the other day an article in which the writer said that undoubtedly the chief mission or gift of Italy to the world is her paintings,—­her old paintings,—­and that this mission is all fulfilled.  Now, if this be true, do we wish to come here and go away without learning all that we possibly can of them?  I think that would be foolish.”

“And,” added Bettina, “I think one of the most interesting studies in the world is about these same old saints whom you dislike so much, Malcom.  They were heroes; and I think some of them were a great deal grander than those mythological characters you so dote upon.  If your uncle will only be so good as to talk to us of the pictures!  Let us go at once and thank him.  Now, Malcom, you will be enthusiastic about it, will you not?  There will be so much time for all the other things.”

Bettina put her arm affectionately about Margery, and smiled into Malcom’s face, as they all went to seek Mrs. Douglas and Mr. Sumner.

“Here come the victims, Uncle Rob! three willing ones,—­Barbara, who is ever sighing for new worlds to conquer; Betty, who already dotes upon St. Sebastian stuck full of arrows and St. Lucia carrying her eyes on a platter; Madge, who would go to the rack if only you led the way,—­and poor rebellious, inartistic I.”

“But, my boy—­” began Mrs. Douglas.

“Oh!  I will do it all if only the girls will climb the Campanile and Galileo’s Tower with me and it does not interfere with our drives and walks.  If this is to become an aesthetic crowd, I don’t wish to be left out,” laughed Malcom.

A morning was decided upon for the first lesson.