ection of payment for his
painting, doing it unto God and not unto men. They talked of his
beginning all his work with prayer for inspiration, and how, in full
faith that his prayer had been answered, he absolutely refused to alter
a touch his brush had made; and of the old tradition that he never
painted Christ or the Virgin Mary save on his knees, nor a crucifixion
save through blinding tears; and their voices grew very quiet, and they
looked upon each fresco almost with reverence.

"Fra Angelico stood apart from the growth of art that was taking place
about him," said Mr. Sumner. "He neither affected it nor was affected by
it. We should call him to-day an 'ecstatic painter'--one who paints
visions; the Italians then called him 'Il Beato,' the blessed. There are
many other works by him,--although a great part, between forty and
fifty, are here. You remember the _Madonna and Child_ you saw in the
Uffizi Gallery the other day, on whose wide gold frame are painted those
angels with musical instruments that are reproduced so widely and sold
everywhere. You recognized them at once, I saw. Then, a few pictures
have been carried away and are in foreign art galleries, as I told you
the other day. During the last years of his life the Pope sent for him
to come to Rome, and there he painted frescoes on the walls of some
rooms in the Vatican Palace. From that city he went to Orvieto, a little
old city perched on the top of a hill on the way from Florence to Rome,
in whose cathedral he painted a noble _Christ_, with prophets, saints,
and angels. He died in Rome."

"And was he not buried here?" asked Barbara; "here in this lovely inner
court, where are the graves of so many monks?"

"No. He was buried in Santa Maria Sopra Minerva, a church close by the
Pantheon in Rome, and the Pope himself wrote his epitaph. But it is
indeed a great pity that he could not lie here, in the very midst of so
many of his works, and where he lived so long."

"Did Fra Angelico live before or after the prophet Savonarola, uncle?"
asked Margery. "We came here a little time ago with mother to visit the
latter's cell, and the church, in connection with our reading of
'Romola.'"

"He lived before Savonarola, about a hundred years. So that when
Savonarola used to walk about through these rooms and corridors, he saw
the same pictures we are now looking at."

* * * * *

"I say, uncle, don't you think I am having the best