They had been much interested in the many examples of Fra Bartolommeo’s painting that are in San Marco—­where he, as well as Fra Angelico, had been a monk;—­in the Academy, and in the Uffizi and Pitti galleries; and had learned to recognize the peculiarities of his grouping of figures, and their abstract, devotional faces, his treatment of draperies, and the dear little angels, with their musical instruments, that are so often sitting at the feet of his madonnas.

They were fascinated by Andrea del Sarto, whom they followed all over the city wherever they could find either his frescoes or easel pictures.  His color especially enchanted them, after they had looked at so many darkened and faded pictures.  The story of his unquenchable love for his faithless wife, and how he painted her face into all his pictures, either as madonna or saint, played upon their romantic feelings.  Margery learned Browning’s poem about them, and often quoted from it.  They were never tired of looking at his Holy Families and Madonnas in the galleries, but especially loved to go to the S.S.  Annunziata and linger in the court, surrounded by glass colonnades, where are so many of his frescoes.

“Do you suppose it is true that his wife, Lucrezia, used to come here after he was dead and she was an old woman, to look at the pictures?” asked Margery one morning, when they had found their favorite place.

“I think it would be just like her vanity to point out her own likeness to people who were copying or looking at the frescoes, according to the old story,” answered Bettina, with a disapproving shake of the head.

“Well,” said Barbara, “the faces and figures and draperies are all lovely.  But I suppose it is true, as Mr. Sumner says, that Andrea del Sarto did not try to make the faces show any holy feeling, or indeed any very noble expression, so that they are not so great pictures as they would have been had he been high-minded enough to do such things.”

“It is a shame to have a man’s life and work harmed by a woman, even though she was his wife,” said Malcom, emphatically.

“All the more that she was his wife,” said Barbara.  “But I do not believe he could have done much better without Lucrezia.  I think his very love for such a woman shows a weakness in his character.  It would have been better if he had chosen other than sacred subjects, would it not, Howard?”

They were quite at home in their study of these more modern pictures, with photographs of which they were already somewhat familiar.  Howard, especially, had always had a fine and critical taste regarding art matters, and now, among the works of artists of whom he knew something, was a valuable member of the little coterie, and often appealed to when Mr. Sumner was absent.

And thus they had talked over and over again the impressions which each artist and his work made on them, until even Mr. Sumner was astonished and delighted at the evident result of the interest he had awakened.