. "Look at that building! It is decorated with those dear little
babies, all swathed, whose photographs we have so often seen in the
Boston art stores. What is it? Where are we?"

"In the Piazza dell' Annunziata," replied Mr. Sumner, "and an
interesting place it is. That building is the Foundling Hospital, a very
ancient and famous institution. And the 'swathed babies' are the work of
Andrea della Robbia."

"Poor little innocents! How tired they must be, wrapped up like mummies
and stuck on the wall like specimen butterflies!" whispered Malcom in an
aside to Bettina.

"Hush! hush!" laughed she. "Your uncle will hear you."

"This beautiful church just here on our right," continued Mr. Sumner,
"is the church of the S.S. Annunziata or the most Holy Annunciation. It
was founded in the middle of the thirteenth century by seven noble
Florentines, who used to meet daily to sing _Ave Maria_ in a chapel
situated where the Campanile of the Cathedral now stands. It has been
somewhat modernized and is now the most fashionable church in Florence.
It contains some very interesting paintings, which we will visit by and
by."

"Every step we take in this beautiful city is full of interest, and how
different from anything we can find at home!" exclaimed Bettina. "Look
at the color of these buildings, and their exquisite arches! See the
soft painting over the door of the church, and the sculptured bits
everywhere! I begin, just a little, to see why Florence is called the
_art city_."

"But only a little, yet," said Mr. Sumner, with a pleased look. "You are
just on the threshold of the knowledge of this fair city. Not what she
outwardly is, but what she contains, and what her children have
wrought, constitute her wealth of art. Do you remember, Margery, what
name the poet Shelley gives Florence in that beautiful poem you were
reading yesterday?"

"O _Foster-nurse_ of man's abandoned glory,
Since Athens, its great mother, sunk in splendor,
Thou shadowest forth that mighty shape in story,
As ocean its wrecked fanes, severe yet tender,"

dreamily recited Margery, her sweet face flushing as all eyes looked at
her.

"Yes," smiled her uncle. "Florence, as _foster-nurse_, has cherished for
the world the art-treasures of early centuries in Italy, so that there
is no other city on earth in which we can learn so much of the 'revival
of art,' as it is called, which took place after the barrenness of the
Dark Ages, as in t