The morning after the party, Lewis sneaks out of the house before sunrise, carrying a rolled-up bed-quilt. He encounters his sister, Mary Adeline, who is also sneaking out with a basket of food for their impoverished neighbor, the dying Mrs. Poe. Lewis gives Mary Adeline a dollar for Mrs. Poe and asks her to convey a message of admiration to the woman about her husband, Edgar Allan Poe, whom he calls a “Great Poet.” Mary Adeline is frightened, as their father considers Poe a blasphemer.

Lewis proceeds to a nearby cove, where he rigs the quilt as a sail on a rowboat and travels down the Sound to meet Treeshy Kent. He expresses his frustration at being financially dependent on his father, while Treeshy worries he will meet more beautiful women in Europe. Lewis reassures her of his love, and they promise to marry upon his return and to write to each other faithfully.

Lewis dreads his final interview with his father, reflecting on Mr. Raycie’s total control over the family’s finances, including his wife’s inheritance. Mr. Raycie’s greatest ambition is to establish a powerful family dynasty with Lewis as his heir.

In his study, Mr. Raycie outlines his expectations for the Grand Tour: Lewis is to return a “cultivated gentleman” prepared to become a leader in New York society. He then reveals the tour’s primary mission: a travel allowance of $10,000 and a separate $5,000 budget for acquiring original masterpieces by Italian painters such as Domenichino, Albano, Carlo Dolci, Guercino, Carlo Maratta, and Salvator Rosa. These works will form the nucleus of a prestigious “Raycie Gallery” of family heirlooms.

Lewis is ecstatic, seeing the commission as a great honor. Overwhelmed with gratitude, he momentarily forgets his anxieties and his secret plans for Treeshy, relieved that his father has not mentioned arranging a marriage for him.

A year later, a transformed Lewis stands before Mont Blanc in the Alps. His travels through England, the Mediterranean, and West Asia have made him feel mature and confident, and his fear of his father has greatly diminished. He still feels affection for Treeshy but now sees her as a child he has outgrown.

He encounters a charismatic young Englishman who, though initially aloof and dismissive, approaches Lewis on the rock and engages him in conversation about art and nature. Lewis is captivated by the man’s intellect and imaginative perspective, which adds new depth to his own travel experiences. The two dine together and become fast friends. Before parting, the Englishman promises to meet Lewis in Italy to help him truly “see” the country’s art.

In Venice, Lewis’s perspective on art is revolutionized by his English friend. In an obscure chapel, he discovers paintings that move him deeply, particularly one depicting a young woman with round cheeks, high cheekbones, and wide-set eyes who strongly resembles Treeshy Kent. The portrait is identified later as the little Saint Ursula, the peerless princess.

Lewis is transformed by the early Renaissance style and now rejects the famous High Renaissance and Baroque masters his father admires, such as Guido Reni and Carlo Dolci. After two years, he returns to New York, eager to preach this new artistic gospel. The first thing that strikes Lewis is the smallness of the house on the Sound and the largeness of Mr. Raycie. He meets with his father, who must remain seated on the sofa because he has gout. Mr. Raycie is eager to see the collection and mentions plans for a grand party to unveil the gallery and possibly announce Lewis’s engagement to one of the Huzzard daughters.

Lewis and his father go to the family’s Canal Street house to view the newly unpacked paintings. Mr. Raycie is immediately bewildered. He asks to see the Raphael and the Sassoferrato, but Lewis explains he could not afford the former and that the latter is no longer in fashion. The conversation grows tense when Mr. Raycie mistakes a Piero della Francesca for a Carlo Dolci.

Upon learning that Lewis bought neither a Carlo Dolci nor any other artist on his approved list, Mr. Raycie becomes enraged. Lewis tries to explain the recent shift in artistic taste, naming masters like Giotto da Bondone, Piero della Francesca, Fra Angelico, and Carpaccio, and citing John Ruskin and the Pre-Raphaelites as his advisors, but his father mocks the unfamiliar names and derides the art as ugly, even comparing the Madonnas to “a bad likeness of poor Treeshy Kent” (59).

Mr. Raycie accuses Lewis of having been swindled by his new acquaintances and declares he would have preferred if Lewis had wasted the money on women or gambling. Disgusted, he leaves Lewis and drives home alone.

Within a year, Mr. Raycie dies, an event society blames on the shock of seeing the art collection. His new will leaves the pictures to Lewis but bequeaths his vast fortune to his daughters, Sarah Anne and Mary Adeline. After his mother dies six months later, Lewis is left with only a $5,000-a-year allowance for his lifetime, per Mrs. Raycie’s will.

Lewis marries Treeshy Kent, and for four years they live in obscurity in Tarrytown. After inheriting a house on Tenth Street, they move back to New York, where Lewis converts the ground floor into a public museum called the “Gallery of Christian Art,” charging an admission fee. The press ridicules the venture. Treeshy gasps at the public sign but swiftly rallies, flinging her arms around Lewis and declaring she is glad the pictures will at last be properly lighted. When Lewis finds her crying over a newspaper article, she expresses that she is less concerned about the mockery than she is about the expense of running the gallery.

The Gallery of Christian Art initially draws crowds out of novelty and scorn, but attendance soon dwindles to nothing. Lewis refuses to give up, acting as his own doorkeeper and waiting for a visitor who will understand the paintings’ genius.

One day, Lewis’s wealthy sister, Sarah Anne Huzzard, arrives and declares the gallery a humiliating “spectacle” and an insult to their father’s memory. On behalf of her husband, she offers to double Lewis’s allowance if he will close the gallery for good. Lewis politely refuses.

After she leaves, Treeshy reveals that his other sister, Mary Adeline, had visited earlier. Lewis first announces that he cannot raise a mortgage on the pictures, and Treeshy then discloses that this was precisely what Mary Adeline had come about: She and Donald Kent will lend enough to keep the gallery open for another year. Lewis, moved to tears by his sister’s unwavering faith, asks Treeshy if they should accept. She agrees without hesitation.

Half a century later, the narrator recalls childhood visits to an elderly relative, Miss Alethea Raycie, the last surviving member of the family. He remembers seeing a crayon drawing of Lewis and Treeshy’s only child, a sad little girl named Louisa, who died at age 11.

Years later, at a dinner, the narrator is stunned to see a masterpiece by Macrino d’Alba at the home of his friend, the banker John Selwyn. Selwyn explains it is the only work he managed to acquire from the long-lost Raycie collection; other pieces, including a Piero della Francesca, went to the National Gallery in Europe, and the Carpaccio went to California. The paintings were discovered in Miss Raycie’s attic after her death. She died without a will, and her next of kin, Netta Cosby, inherited the collection. Unaware of its value, Netta nearly sent the art to auction with old furniture. Deciding instead to clean a painting herself with hot water and soap, she was stopped just in time by a dinner guest connected with the Louvre, who revealed she owned a priceless collection. Netta sold the paintings for a fortune, using the money for pearls and cars. The narrator is left to ponder the fate of Louisa, who would have inherited it all.