ch for children, but
Raphael did not mind that as long as he could be with his father. But
three years later a blacker cloud arose and blotted out the sunshine
from his life, for his father too died, and left him all alone.

The boy had loved his father dearly, and it had been his great delight
to be with him in the studio, to learn to grind and mix the colours and
watch those wonderful pictures grow from day to day.

But now all was changed. The quiet studio rang with angry voices, and
the peaceful home was the scene of continual quarrelling. Who was to
have the money, and how were the Santi estates to be divided?
Stepmother and uncle wrangled from morning until night, and no one gave
a thought to the child Raphael. It was only the money that mattered.

Then when it seemed that the boy's training was going to be totally
neglected, kindly help arrived. Simone di Ciarla, brother of Raphael's
own mother, came to look after his little nephew, and ere long carried
him off from the noisy, quarrelsome household, and took him to Perugia.

'Thou shalt have the best teaching in all Italy,' said Simone as they
walked through the streets of the town. 'The great master to whose
studio we go, can hold his own even among the artists of Florence. See
that thou art diligent to learn all that he can teach thee, so that
thou mayest become as great a painter as thy father.'

'Am I to be the pupil of the great Perugino?' asked Raphael, his eyes
shining with pleasure. 'I have often heard my father speak of his
marvellous pictures.'

'We will see if he can take thee,' answered his uncle.

The boy's heart sunk. What if the master refused to take him as a
pupil? Must he return to idleness and the place which was no longer
home?

But soon his fears were set at rest. Perugino, like every one else,
felt the charm of that beautiful face and gentle manner, and when he
had seen some drawings which the boy had done, he agreed readily that
Raphael should enter the studio and become his pupil.

Perugia had been passing through evil times just before this. The two
great parties of the Oddi and Baglioni families were always at war
together. Whichever of them happened to be the stronger held the city
and drove out the other party, so that the fighting never ceased either
inside or outside the gates. The peaceful country round about had been
laid waste and desolate. The peasants did not dare go out to till their
fields or prune their olive-trees.