"There were a great many persons in the painting gallery at work copying the paintings," continued Rollo. "Some were girls, and some were young men. There was one boy there not much bigger than I."
"I don't see how so small a boy could learn to paint so well," said Jennie.
"Why, he was not so very small," said Rollo. "He was bigger than I am, and I am growing to be pretty large. Besides, they have excellent schools here where they learn to draw and to paint. We went to see one of them."
"Did it look like one of our schools?" asked Jennie.
"O, no," replied Rollo; "it seemed to me more like a splendid palace than a school. We went through an iron gate into a court, and across the court to a great door, where a man came to show us the rooms. There were a great many elegant staircases, and passage ways, and halls, with pictures, and statues, and models of cities, and temples, and ruins, and every thing else necessary for the students."
"Were the students there?" asked Jennie.
"No," replied Rollo; "but we saw the room where they worked, and we saw the last lesson that they had."
"What was it?" asked Jennie.
"It was a subject which the professor gave them for a picture; and all of them were to paint a picture on that subject, each one according to his own ideas. We saw the paintings that they had made. There were twenty or thirty of them. The subject was written on a sheet of paper, and put up in the room where they could all see it."
"What was the subject?" asked Jennie.