  New Gemini mid-infrared spectroscopic observations together with Spitzer
Space telescope archival data, are used to study the properties of the dusty
torus and circumnuclear star formation in the active galaxies NGC 7213 and NGC
1386. Our main conclusions can be summarised as follows. Polycyclic aromatic
hydrocarbon (PAH) emission is absent in the T-ReCS nuclear spectra but is
ubiquitous in the data from Spitzer at distances above 100 pc. Star formation
rates surface densities are estimated from the 12.8 $\mu m$ [Ne{\sc ii}] line
strengths leading to values close to 0.1M$_\odot\,\,{\rm yr}^{-1}\,\,{\rm
kpc}^{-2}$. Analogous estimates based on photometric fluxes of IRAC's 8 $\mu m$
images are higher by a factor of almost 15, which could be linked to excitation
of PAH molecules by older stellar populations. T-ReCS high spatial resolution
data reveal silicate absorption at $\lambda$ 9.7 $\mu m$ in the central tens of
parsecs of the Seyfert 2 NGC 1386, and silicate emission in the Seyfert 1
galaxy NGC 7213. In the case of NGC 1386 this feature is confined to the inner
20 pc, implying that the silicate might be linked to the putative dusty torus.
Finally, by fitting CLUMPY models to the T-ReCS nuclear spectra we estimate the
torus physical properties for both galaxies, finding line of sight inclinations
consistent with the AGN unified model.
