“Ah, you must talk to Flora about pictures.  I have no doubt that she will tell you a good deal that even you do not know.  We have some very interesting pictures up in Scotland.  My husband is Colonel Brodie of Hootawa (no relation to the Brodie of Brodie).  His grandfather was a great collector, and originally we possessed seven Raphaels.”

“Indeed,” I replied, eagerly, “might I ask the names of the pictures?  I should know them at once.”

“I have never seen them,” said Mrs. Brodie; “they were not left to my husband, who quarrelled with his father.  Fortunately none of us cared for Raphaels; but the most valuable pictures, including a Vandyck, were entailed.  Flora is particularly attached to Vandyck.  He is always so romantic, I think.”

Flora, embarrassed by her mother’s eulogy of family heirlooms, leaned across, as if to address me, and said, “Oh, mamma, I don’t think they really were Raphaels; they were probably only by pupils—­Giulio Romano, Perino del Vaga, or Luca Penni.”

“As you never saw them, my dear,” said Mrs. Brodie, severely, “I don’t think you can possibly tell.  Your grandfather” (she glared at me) “was considered the greatest expert in Europe, and described them in his will as Raphaels.  It would be impious to suggest that they are by any one else.  There were two Holy Families.  One of them was given to your grandfather by the King of Holland in recognition of his services; and a third was purchased direct from the Queen of Naples.  But your father is getting impatient for his cigar.”

They rose, and bowed sweetly.  I joined them in the glass winter-garden a few minutes later.

“Have you been to the Pincio?  But I forgot, of course you know Rome.  I do love the Pincio,” sighed Mrs. Brodie over some needlework, and then, as an afterthought, “Do you know the two things that have impressed me most since I came here?”

“I could not dare to guess any more than I dare tell you what has impressed me most,” I replied, gazing softly at Flora.

“The two things which have really and truly impressed me most,” continued Mrs. Brodie, “more than anything else, more than the Pantheon, or the Forum, are—­St. Peter’s and the Colosseum.”  She almost looked young again.

The next day we visited the Borghese; and I was able to explain to Flora why the circular “Madonna and Angels” was not by Botticelli.  And, indeed, there was hardly a picture in Rome I was unable to reattribute to its rightful owner.  In the apt Flora I found a receptive pupil.  She even grew suspicious about the great Velasquez at the Doria, in which she fancied, with all the enthusiasm of youth, that she detected the handling of Mazo.  I soon found that it was better for her training to discourage her from looking at pictures at all—­we confined ourselves to photographs.  In a photograph you are not disturbed by colour, or by impasto.  You are able to study the morphic values in a picture, by which means you arrive at the attribution without any disturbing aesthetic considerations.