They first passed into the great Cathedral in order to give a look at
that most beautiful of all Michael Angelo's sculptures--_Mary holding on
her knees her dead Son_. Barbara and Bettina had studied it on a former
visit to St. Peter's when Mr. Sumner was not with them. Now he asked
them to note the evident weight of the dead Christ,--with every muscle
relaxed,--a triumph of the sculptor's art; and, especially, the
impersonal face of the mother; a face that is simply the embodiment of
her feeling, and wholly apart from the ordinary human!

"This is a special characteristic of Michael Angelo's faces," he said,
"and denotes the high order of his thought. In it, he approached more
closely the conceptions of the ancient Greek masters than has any other
modern artist--and now we will go to the Sistine Chapel," he added,
after a little time.

They went out to the Vatican entrance, passed the almost historic Swiss
Guards, and climbed the stairs with quite the emotion that they were
about to visit some sacred shrine, so much had they read and so deeply
had they thought about the frescoes they were about to see.

For some time after they entered the Chapel Mr. Sumner said nothing. The
custodian, according to custom, provided them with mirrors; and each one
passed slowly along beneath the world-famous ceiling paintings, catching
the reflection of fragment after fragment, figure after figure. Soon the
mirrors were cast aside, and the opera-glasses Mr. Sumner had advised
them to bring were brought into use,--they were no longer content to
study simply a reflected image.