just on the threshold of the knowledge of this fair city. Not what she
outwardly is, but what she contains, and what her children have
wrought, constitute her wealth of art. Do you remember, Margery, what
name the poet Shelley gives Florence in that beautiful poem you were
reading yesterday?"

"O _Foster-nurse_ of man's abandoned glory,
Since Athens, its great mother, sunk in splendor,
Thou shadowest forth that mighty shape in story,
As ocean its wrecked fanes, severe yet tender,"

dreamily recited Margery, her sweet face flushing as all eyes looked at
her.

"Yes," smiled her uncle. "Florence, as _foster-nurse_, has cherished for
the world the art-treasures of early centuries in Italy, so that there
is no other city on earth in which we can learn so much of the 'revival
of art,' as it is called, which took place after the barrenness of the
Dark Ages, as in this. But here we are at the Academy. I shall not allow
you to look at much here this morning. We will go and sit in the farther
corner of this first corridor, for I wish to talk a little, and just
here we shall find all that I need for illustration."

"You need not put on such a martyr-look, Malcom," continued he, as they
walked on. "I prophesy that not one here present will feel more solid
interest in the work we are beginning than you will, my boy."

When Mr. Sumner had gathered the little group about him, he began to
talk of the beauties of Greek art--how it had flourished for centuries
before Christ.