“When we return to Florence,” he added, “you will be more interested than when we were there before in looking at Raphael’s Madonnas and portraits in those galleries; and on our way from Florence to Venice, we will stop at Bologna to see his St. Cecilia”.

“How perfectly delightful!” cried Bettina.  “I have been wishing to see that ever since we went to the church of St. Cecilia the other day.  I was greatly interested to know that it had once been her own home, and in everything there connected with her.  She was so brave, and true, and good!  It seems as if Raphael could have painted a worthy picture of her!”

As Bettina suddenly checked her pretty enthusiasm, her face flushed painfully, and Barbara, seeking the cause, caught the supercilious smile with which Miss Sherman was regarding her sister.  She at once divined that poor Bettina feared that, in some way, she had made herself ridiculous to the older lady.

Going swiftly to her sister she threw her arm closely about her waist, and with a charming air of defiance,—­with erect head and flashing eyes, said:—­

“Mr. Sumner, St. Cecilia is a real, historical character, is she not?  As much so as St. Francis, Nero, or Marcus Aurelius?” The slight emphasis on the last name recalled to all the party the effusive eulogiums Miss Sherman had lavished upon that famous imperial philosopher a few days before, while they were looking at his bust in the museum of Palazzo Laterano; when, unfortunately, she had imputed to him certain utterances that rightfully belong to another literary man who lived in quite a different age and country.

Mr. Sumner could not avoid a merry twinkle of his eyes as he strove to answer with becoming gravity, and Malcom hastily pushed on far in advance.

Once at home, Malcom and Margery gave their version of the affair to their mother.

“It isn’t the first time she has looked like that at both Barbara and Betty,” averred Malcom, emphatically, “and they have known and felt it, too.”

“I am very sorry,” said Mrs. Douglas, with a troubled look.

“Oh! you need not fear anything further, mother mia” said Malcom, sympathizingly.  “Barbara will never show any more feeling.  She would not have done it for herself, only for Betty.  Under the circumstances she just had to fire her independence-gun, that is all.  Now there will be perfect peace on her side.  You know her.

“And,” he added in an aside to Margery, as his mother was leaving the room, “Miss Sherman will not dare to be cross openly for fear of mother and Uncle Rob.  I didn’t dare to look at her.  But wasn’t it rich?” And he went off into a peal of laughter.

“It was only what she deserved, anyway,” said Margery, who was usually most gentle in all her judgments.

It was quite a commentary on Mrs. Douglas’s judgment of Lucile Sherman’s character at this time, that she now deemed it best to tell her of Howard’s bequest to Barbara, about which she had heretofore held silence.