wish he had not stared at you so much with those great eyes, if it makes
you feel uncomfortable, but how he could have helped admiring you,
sister mine, is more than I know,--for you were lovely beyond everything
this afternoon;" and Betty impulsively sprang up to give her sister a
hug and a kiss.

"To change the subject," she added, "how did you like Mr. Sumner's talk
this evening?"

"Oh! more than words can tell! Betty, I believe, next to our own dear
papa, he is the grandest man alive. I always feel when he talks as if
nothing were too difficult to attempt; as if nothing were too beautiful
to believe. And he is so young too, in feeling; so wise and yet so full
of sympathy with all our young nonsense. He is simply perfect." And she
drew a long breath.

"I think so too; and he practises what he preaches in his own painting.
For don't you remember those pictures we saw in his studio the other
day? How he has painted those Egyptian scenes! A perfect tremor ran over
me as I felt the terrible, solemn loneliness of that one camel and his
rider in the limitless stretch of desert. I felt quite as he must have
felt, I am sure; and the desert will always seem a different thing to me
because I looked at that picture. And then that sweet, strong,
overcoming woman's face! How much she had lived through! What a lesson
of triumph over all weakness and sorrow it teaches! I am so thankful
every minute that dear Mrs. Douglas asked us to come with her, that our
darling papa and mamma allowed us to come, and that everything is so
pleasant in this dear, delightful Florence."

And Bettina fell asleep almost the minute her head rested on her