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Page 68
And poor Bettina sat, a disconsolate little figure, before her
half-filled trunk, just ready to cry with sheer vexation at her
blindness. Then, the thought came that if Mr. Sumner did really love
Barbara all would be well. But, alas! the doubt followed whether, after
all, the pictures meant anything more than the artist's love for a
beautiful face, and his desire to render it on his canvas. She grew more
and more miserable in her sympathy for her sister, and at her enforced
separation from her, and the hours of that day, though of necessity busy
ones, seemed almost interminable.
The following noon found them together again.
Bettina entered her sister's room, which opened full upon the
rose-garden they had enjoyed before,--now filled with blossoms and
fragrance,--to find Barbara sitting in a big easy-chair, with a tray
before her, on which were spread toast and tea, flanked by a dainty
flask of Orvieto wine, while the same wrinkled old chambermaid who had
served them two and a half months ago stood, with beaming face, watching
her efforts to eat.
Barbara's eyes were brighter, the flush gone from her face, and she said
she did not feel like the same girl who had been half carried away from
the hotel in Rome the morning before. So much improved did she seem that
the present plan was to take a late afternoon train for Florence, for
Mr. Sumner said the sooner they could get farther north, the better it
would be. This was carried out, and night found them back in the dear
Florence home, there to spend a few days.
The city was very lovely in its May foliage and blossoms,--too lovely to
leave so soon, they all averred. But it must be, and after having taken
again their favorite drives, and having given another look at their
favorite pictures, with an especial interest in those by the Venetian
masters whom they would study more fully in Venice, they turned their
faces northward.
The journey at first took them through rich Tuscan plains, and later
through wild, picturesque ravines of the Apennines. Higher and higher
the railway climbed, threading numberless tunnels, and affording
magnificent views as it emerged into opening after opening, until
finally it passed under the height that divides the watershed of the
Adriatic and Tyrrhenian seas, and entered the narrow and romantic valley
of the Reno. Not long after they were in the ancient city of Bologna.
After a few minutes in their several rooms, all gathered in the loggia
of their hotel, which commanded a grand survey of the city.
"How fine this air is after our long, dusty ride!" exclaimed Margery,
tossing back her curls to catch the breeze.
"I did not expect to find Bologna so curiously beautiful," said Bettina,
after she had seen that Barbara was comfortable in the big chair Malcom
had wheeled out for her--for she was still languid from her recent
illness, and tired easily.
"Please tell us something about it, uncle," said Malcom. "I am afraid I
have not looked it up very thoroughly."
So Mr. Sumner told them many interesting things about the old city,--and
how it had figured largely in Italian history from the Punic wars soon
after Christ, down to the middle of the present century, when it finally
became a part of United Italy.
"What about the university?" queried Malcom again.
"It has had a grand reputation for about fourteen centuries, and thus
is among the most ancient existing seats of learning in Christendom.
During the Middle Ages students came to it from all parts of northern
Europe."
Bettina laughed. "I read a curious thing about it in my guide-book,"
said she. "That it has had several women professors; and one who was
very beautiful always sat behind a curtain while she delivered her
lectures. This was in the fourteenth century, I believe."
"A wise precaution," exclaimed Malcom, with a quizzical look. "Even I
sometimes forget what a pretty woman is saying, because my thoughts are
wandering from the subject to her face. And the men of those times could
not have had the constant experience we of this century in America
have."
"Don't be silly," smiled Bettina; and Mrs. Douglas, slipping her hand
through Malcom's arm, asked: "Do you see those towers?"
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