ime," he said. "I am not too old to learn, I find, and a man
would indeed be a great fool if he could not learn in such a place
as this. But though art can never mean much to me now, your case is
different, and I am thankful to know that these things will be a great
addition and interest to your future life. I'm a Philistine, and shall
always so remain, but I'm a repentant one. I see my mistake too late."

"It's a new world, father," she said, "and it has done a great deal
for an unhappy woman--not only in taking my thoughts off myself, but in
lessening my suffering, too. I do not know why, or how, but music, and
these great, solemn pictures painted by dead men, all touch my thoughts
of dear Tom. I seem to see that there are so many more mighty ones dead
than living. And yet not dead. They live in what they have made. And Tom
lives in what he made--that was my love for him and his for me. He grows
nearer and dearer than ever when I hear beautiful music. I can better
bear to think of him at such times, and it will always help me to
remember him."

"God bless art if it does so much," he said. "We come to it as little
children, and I shall always be a child and never understand, but for
you the valuable message will be received. May life never turn you away
from these things in years to come."

"Never! Never!" she assured him. "Art has done too much for me. I shall
not try to live my life without it. Already I feel I could not."

"What have you seen to-day?" he asked.

"I was at the Pitti all the morning. I liked best Fra Bartolommeo's
great altar piece and Titian's portrait of Cardinal Ippolito dei Medici.
You must see him--a strange, unhappy spirit only twenty-three years old.
Two years afterwards he was poisoned, and his haunted, discontented
eyes closed for ever. And the 'Concert'--so wonderful, with such a
hunger-starved expression in the soul of the player. And Andrea del
Sarto--how gracious and noble; but Henry James says he's second-rate,
because his mind was second-rate, so I suppose he is, but not to me. He
never will be to me. To-morrow you must come and see some of the things
I specially love. I won't bore you. I don't know enough to bore you yet.
Oh, and Allori's 'Judith'--so lovely, but I wonder if Allori did justice
to her? Certainly his 'Judith' could never have done what the real
Judith did. And there's a landscape by Rubens--dark and old--yet it
reminded me of our woods where they open out above the v