“Do stop, Malcom,” cried Bettina, “just here at the angel!  Why!  I think he is perfectly beautiful with one hand on St. Joachim’s head and the other on St. Anna’s.  He is blessing them and drawing them together and forgiving, all in one.”

“And the people, all of them! just look at the people!” cried Barbara, impetuously.  “Each one is thinking of something, and I seem to know what it is!  How could—­” But her voice faltered, and stopped abruptly.

“It is not difficult to understand what Howard is thinking of,” whispered Malcom in Bettina’s ear.  “Did you see what a look he gave Barbara?  I don’t believe she likes it.”

Mr. Sumner, turning, surprised the same look in the young man’s eyes and gave a quick, inquiring glance at the fair, flushed face of Barbara.  He felt annoyed, without knowing exactly why.  A new and foreign element had been introduced into the little group, whose influence was not to be transient.

After a few more words, in which he told them to notice the type of Giotto’s faces—­the eyes set near together, their too great length, though much better in this respect than Cimabue’s, and the broad, rounded chins—­they turned away.

“We have seen all we ought to stay here for to-day, and now we will drive over to Santa Croce.  There are also notable frescoes by Giotto in Assisi, and especially in the Arena Chapel, Padua.  Perhaps we may see them all by and by.”

On leaving the church, Bettina looked back, saying:—­

“This is the church that Michael Angelo used to call ‘his bride.’”

“Used to,” laughed Malcom.  “You have gone back centuries this morning, Betty.”

“I feel so.  I should not be one bit surprised to meet some of these old artists right here in the Piazza on their way to their work.”

“Let us go over to Santa Croce by way of the Duomo, and through Piazza Signoria, Uncle,” said Margery.  “I am never tired of those little, narrow, crooked streets.”

“Yes, that will be a good way; for then we shall go right past Giotto’s Campanile, and though you have seen it often you will look upon it with especial interest just now, when we are studying his work.”

At Santa Croce they were to meet Mrs. Douglas by appointment; and as they pressed on through the broad nave, lined on either side by massive monuments to Florence’s great dead, they espied her at the entrance of the Bardi Chapel in conversation with a lady whose slender figure and bright, animated face grew familiar to the young people of the steamship as they approached; for it was the Miss Sherman whom Barbara and Bettina had admired so much on the Kaiser Wilhelm, and whom, with her father and sister, they had met once before in this same church.

Coming rapidly forward, Mrs. Douglas introduced her companion.

“She is alone in Florence,” she explained to her brother a moment later when the others had passed on, “for her father has been suddenly summoned home, and her sister has accompanied him.  She is a bright, charming young woman, who loves art dearly, and I am sure we all shall like her.  I felt drawn to her as we talked together several times on our way over.  I think we must have her with us all we can.”