rough a forest aisle and looking up through
the interlaced branches of trees.

They visited the Cathedral Library, whose walls are covered with those
historical paintings by Pinturrichio, the little deaf Umbrian painter,
in whose design Raphael is said to have given aid.

But Mr. Sumner wished that the time they could give to the study of
paintings be spent particularly among the works of the old Sienese
masters. So they went again and again to the Accademia delle Belle Arti
and studied those quaint, half-Byzantine works, full of pathetic grace,
by Guido da Siena, by Duccio, Simone Martini, Lippo Memmi, and the
Lorenzetti brothers.

Here, too, they found paintings by Il Sodoma, a High Renaissance artist,
which pleased them more than all else. _The Descent into Hades_, where
is the exquisitely lovely figure of Eve, whose mournful gaze is fixed
on her lost son, toward whom the Saviour stoops with pity, drew them
again and again to the hall where the worn fresco hangs; and after they
had found, secluded in its little cabinet, that fragment which
represents _Christ Bound to a Column_, of which Paul Bourget has written
so tenderly, they voted this painter one of the most interesting they
had yet found.

To Bettina, the "saint-lover," as Malcom had dubbed her, the city gained
an added interest from having been the home of St. Catherine of Siena,
and the others shared in some degree her enthusiasm. They made a
pilgrimage to the house of St. Catherine, and all the relics contained
therein were genuinely important to them, for, as Betty averred again
and again:--

"You know she did live right here in Siena, so it must be true that this
is her house and that these things were really hers."

They admired Palazzo Publico within and without; chiefly from without,
for they could never walk from the Cathedral to their hotel without
pausing for a time to look down into the picturesque Piazza del Campo
where it stands, and admire its lofty walls, so mediaeval in character,
with battlemented cornice and ogive windows.

They walked down the narrow streets and then climbed them. They drove
all over the city within its brown walls; and outside on the road that
skirts them and affords such lovely views of the valley and Tuscan
hills. They were sincerely sorry when at last the day came on which they
must leave it and continue on their way.

"Why are we going to Orvieto, uncle?" asked Malcom, as they were waiting
at Chiusi for their