"Lucy! Lucy! What's that book? Who's been taking a book out of
the shelf and leaving it about to spoil?"
"It's only the library book that Cecil's been reading."
"But pick it up, and don't stand idling there like a flamingo."
Lucy picked up the book and glanced at the title listlessly,
Under a Loggia. She no longer read novels herself, devoting all
her spare time to solid literature in the hope of catching Cecil
up. It was dreadful how little she knew, and even when she
thought she knew a thing, like the Italian painters, she found
she had forgotten it. Only this morning she had confused
Francesco Francia with Piero della Francesca, and Cecil had
said, "What! you aren't forgetting your Italy already?" And this
too had lent anxiety to her eyes when she saluted the dear view
and the dear garden in the foreground, and above them, scarcely
conceivable elsewhere, the dear sun.
"Lucy--have you a sixpence for Minnie and a shilling for
yourself?"
She hastened in to her mother, who was rapidly working herself
into a Sunday fluster.
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