"I think it would be a good thing for both you girls," said Fru Bjork. "Perhaps Dr. Ferrati may be able to recommend me a good drawing-master for you?" "I think I can, Madame. There is a young artist, a friend of mine, who, owing to reverses of fortune in his family, has been thrown on his own resources, and would be glad of the lessons. He is an excellent draughtsman, and I am sure the young ladies would learn more with him in a short time, than with a professor of the classic school." "I like that idea," said Fru Bjork. She felt that it would be good for both girls to have some interest. Astrid's light-hearted flirtations in Rome, and Ragna's long solitary rambles appeared almost equally reprehensible, besides, drawing was a harmless, ladylike pursuit. She determined to push the matter and after some further discussion it was arranged that Dr. Ferrati should bring his artist friend to meet the ladies, the second evening after their arrival in Florence. Ragna listened to it all, taking no part in the conversation, assenting listlessly to Fru Bjork's good-natured questions; her first eagerness had passed and she had fallen again into the slough of indifference. Ferrati had not failed to notice her too eager assent to his random suggestion, and her subsequent apathy. "She needs some occupation," he thought, and urged the project more than with his habitual prudence, he would have thought advisable. "It will be an excellent thing for Valentini, too," he said to himself; "it will give him an interest and take him out of himself." CHAPTER VIII Egidio Valentini was a young man of about thirty, a Roman born, full of the civic pride that even now stirs the bosom of those who can say: "_Civis Romanus sum_"--flaunting the superiority conferred on her children by the Eternal City, in the face of less fortunate mortals.