"The picture was known to have been painted, for Vasari described it in his 'Life of Botticelli,' but it was lost sight of until an Englishman discovered it in an old private collection which had been for many years in the Pitti Palace, suspected it to be the missing picture, and connoisseurs agree that it is genuine. There was a great deal of excitement here when the fact was made known. The figure of Pallas, in its clinging transparent garment, is strikingly beautiful, and characteristic of Botticelli. The picture was painted as a glorification of the wise reign of the Medici, who did so much for the intellectual advancement of Florence."
Then Mr. Sumner told them that he was to be absent from Florence for a week or two, and should be exceedingly busy for some time, and so would leave them to go on with their study of the pictures by themselves.
"I have been delighted," he said, "to know how much time you have spent in going again and again to the churches and galleries in order to become familiar with the painters whom we have especially considered. This is the real and the only way to make the study valuable. Do the same with regard to the pictures by Ghirlandajo and Botticelli, and if I have not given you enough to do until I am free again to talk with you, study the frescoes by Filippino Lippi in Santa Maria Novella, and compare them with those in the Brancacci Chapel; and his easel pictures in the Uffizi and Pitti Galleries. Get familiar also with his father's (Fra Filippo's) Madonna pictures. You will find in them a type of face so often repeated that you will always recognize it; it is just the opposite of Botticelli's,—short and childish, with broad jaws, and simple as childhood in expression. I shall be most interested to know what you have done, and what your thoughts have been."
"We certainly shall not do much but look at pictures for weeks to come, uncle; that is sure!" said Malcom, "for the girls are bewitched with them, and now that they think they can learn to know, as soon as they see it, a Giotto, a Fra Angelico, a Botticelli, or a Fra Filippo Lippi, they will be simply crazy. You ought to hear the learned way in which they are beginning to discourse about them. They don't do it when you are around."
"Oh, Malcom! who was it that must wait a few minutes longer, the other morning, in Santa Maria Novella in order to run downstairs and give one more look at Giotto's frescoes?" laughed Bettina.
Barbara's and Bettina's eighteenth birthday was drawing near. Mrs. Douglas had for a long time planned to give a party to them, and had fully arranged the details before she spoke of it to the girls.
"It shall be your 'coming-out party' here in Florence," she said; "not a large party, but a thoroughly pleasant and enjoyable one, I am sure."
And the circle of friends who were eager to know and to add to the pleasure of any one belonging to Robert Sumner seemed to ensure this. Mrs. Douglas further said that she did not wish them to give a thought to what they would wear on the occasion, but to leave everything with her. Every girl of eighteen years will readily understand what a flutter of joyous excitement Barbara and Bettina felt, and how they talked over the coming event, when they were alone. Finally Bettina asked:—
"Why does Mrs. Douglas do so much for us? How can we ever repay her?"