you not ask them,
dear Barbara? You are braver than I, and can talk better about it all.
How can we bear to have them say 'no'--to give up all the lovely thought
of it, now that once we have dared to dream of its coming to us--to you
and me, Barbara?" and color flushed the usually pale cheek of the young
girl, and her dark eyes glowed with feeling as she hugged tightly the
arm of her sister.

Barbara and Bettina Burnett were walking through a pleasant street in
one of the suburban towns of Boston after an afternoon spent with
friends who were soon to sail for Italy.

It was a charming early September evening, and the sunset glow burned
through the avenue of elm trees, beneath which the girls were passing,
flooding the way with rare beauty. But not one thought did they now give
to that which, ordinarily, would have delighted them; for Mrs. Douglas
had astonished them that afternoon by a pressing invitation to accompany
herself, her son, and daughter on this journey. For hours they had
talked over the beautiful scheme, and were to present Mrs. Douglas's
request to their parents that very night.

Mrs. Douglas, a wealthy woman, had been a widow almost ever since the
birth of her daughter, who was now a girl of fifteen. Malcom, her son,
was three or four years older. An artist brother was living in Italy,
and a few years previous to the beginning of our story, Mrs. Douglas and
her children had spent some months there. Now the brother was desirous
that they should again go to him, especially since his sister was not
strong, and it would be well for her to escape the inclemency of a New
England winter.

Barbara and Bettina,--Bab and Betty, as they were called in their
home,--twin daughters of Dr. Burnett, were seventeen years old, and the
eldest of a large family. The father, a great-hearted man, devoted to
his noble profession, and generous of himself, his time, and money, had
little to spare after the wants of his family had been supplied, so it
was not strange that the daughters, on sober second thought, should feel
that the idea of such a trip to the Old World as Mrs. Douglas suggested
could be only the dream of a moment, from which an awakening must be
inevitable.

But they little knew the wisdom of Mrs. Douglas, nor for a moment did
they suspect that for weeks before she had mentioned the matter to them,
she and their parents had spent many hours in planning and contriving so
that it might seem possible to give th