the crimson draperies with which the nave is dressed.

A soft fluttering of fans agitates feathers, lace, and ribbons. Fumes of incense mix with the scent of strong perfumes. Not the smallest attention is paid by the ladies to the mass which is celebrating at the high altar and the altar of the Holy Countenance. Their jeweled hands hold no missal, their knees are unbent, their lips utter no prayer. Instead, there are bright glances from lustrous eyes, and whispered words to favored golden youths (without religion, of course—what has a golden youth to do with religion?) who have insinuated themselves within the ladies seats, or lean over, gazing at them with upturned faces.

Peal after peal of musical thunder rolls from the double organs. It is caught up by the two orchestras placed in gilt galleries on either side of the nave. A vocal chorus on this side responds to exquisite voices on that. Now a flute warbles a luscious solo, then a flageolet. A grand barytone bursts forth, followed by a tenor soft as the notes of a nightingale, accompanied by a boy on the violin. Then there is the crash of many hundred voices, with the muffled roar of two organs. It is the Gloria in Excelsis. As the music rolls down the pillared nave out into the crowded piazza, where it dies away in harmonious murmurs, an iron cresset, suspended from the vaulted ceiling of the nave, filled with a bundle of flax, is fired. The flax blazes for a moment, then passes away in a shower of glittering sparks that glitter upon the inlaid floor. Sic transit gloria mundi is the motto. (Now the lighting of this flax is a special privilege accorded to the Archbishop of Lucca by the pope, and jealously guarded by him.)

CHAPTER III.

THE THREE WITCHES.

Many carriages wait outside the cathedral, in the shade near the fountain. The fountain—gushing upward joyously in the beaming sunshine out of a red-marble basin—is just beyond the atrium, and visible through the arches on that side. Beyond the fountain, terminating the piazza, there is a high wall. This wall supports a broad marble terrace, with heavy balustrades, extending from the back of a mediaeval palace. Over the wall green vine-branches trail, sweeping the pavement, like ringlets that have fallen out of curl. This wall and terrace communicate with the church of San Giovanni, an ancient Lombard basilica on that side. Under the shadow of the heavy roof some girls are trying to waltz to the sacred music from the cathedral. After a few turns they find it difficult, and leave off. The men in livery, waiting along with the carriages, laugh at them lazily. The girls retreat, and group themselves on the steps of a deeply-arched doorway with a bass-relief of the Virgin and angels, leading into the church, and talk in low voices.

A ragged boy from the Garfagnana, with a tray of plaster heads of Victor Emmanuel and Garibaldi, has put down his wares, and is turning wheels upon the pavement, before the servants, for a penny. An old man pulls out from under his cloak a dancing dog, with crimson collar and bells, and collects a little crowd under the atrium of the cathedral. A soldier, touched with compassion, takes a crust from his pocket to reward the dancing dog, which, overcome by the temptation, drops on his four legs, runs to him, and devours it, for which delinquency the old man beats him severely. His yells echo loudly among the pillars, and drown the rich tide of harmony that ebbs and flows through the open portals. The beggars have betaken themselves to their accustomed seats on the marble steps of the cathedral, San Martin of Tours, parting his cloak—carved in alt-relief, over the central entrance—looking down upon them encouragingly. These beggars clink their metal boxes languidly, or sleep, lying flat on the stones. A group of women have jammed themselves into a corner between the cathedral and the hospital adjoining it on that side. They are waiting to see the company pass out. Two of them standing close together are talking eagerly.

"My gracious! who would have thought that old witch, the Guinigi," whispers Carlotta—Carlotta owned a little mercery-shop in a side-street running by the palace, right under the tower—to her gossip Brigitta, an occasional customer for cotton and buttons, "who would have thought that she—gracious! who would have thought she dared to shut up her palace the day of the festival? Did you see?"

"Yes, I did," answers Brigitta.

"Curses on her!" hisses out Carlotta, showing her black teeth. "Listen to me, she will have a great misfortune—mark my words—a great misfortune soon—the stingy old devil!"

Hearing the organ at that instant, Brigitta kneels on the stones, and crosses herself; then rises and looks at Carlotta. "St. Nicodemus will have his revenge, never fear."

Carlotta is still speaking. Brigitta shakes her head prophetically, again looking at Carlotta, whose deep-sunk eyes are fixed upon her.

"Checco says—Checco is a shoemaker, and he knows the daughter of the man who helps the butler in Casa Guinigi—Checco says she laughs at the Holy Countenance. Domine Dio! what an infamy!" cries Carlotta, in a cracked voice, raising her skinny hands and shaking them in the air. "I hate the Guinigi! I hate her! I spit on her, I curse her!"

There is such venom in Carlotta's looks and in Carlotta's words that Brigitta suddenly takes her eyes off a man with a red waistcoat whom she is ogling, but who by no means reciprocates her attention, and asks Carlotta sharply, "Why she hates the marchesa?"

"Listen," answers Carlotta, holding up her finger. "One day, as I came out of my little shop, she"—and Carlotta points with her thumb over her shoulder toward the street of San Simone and the Guinigi Palace—"she was driving along the street in her old Noah's Ark of a carriage. Alas! I am old and feeble, and the horses came along quickly. I had no time to get into the little square of San Barnabo, out of the way; the wheel struck me on the shoulder, I fell down. Yes, I fell down on the hard pavement, Brigitta." And Carlotta sways her grizzly head from side to side, and grasps the other's arm so tightly that Brigitta screams. "Brigitta, the marchesa saw me. She saw me lying there, but she never stopped nor turned her head. I lay on the stones, sick and very sore, till a neighbor, Antonio the carpenter, who works in the little square, a good lad, picked me up and carried me home."

As she speaks, Carlotta's eyes glitter like a serpent's. She shakes all over.

"Lord have mercy!" exclaims Brigitta, looking hard at her; "that was bad!" Carlotta was over eighty; her face was like tanned leather, her skin loose and shriveled; a handful of gray hair grew on the top of her head, and was twisted up with a silver pin. Brigitta was also of a goodly age, but younger than Carlotta, fat and portly, and round as a barrel. She was pitted by the small-pox, and had but one eye; but, being a widow, and well-to-do in the world, is not without certain pretensions. She wears a yellow petticoat and a jacket trimmed with black lace. In her hair, black and frizzly as a negro's, a rose is stuck on one side.—The hair had been dressed that morning by a barber, to whom she paid five francs a month for this adornment.—Some rows of dirty seed-pearl are fastened round her fat throat; long gold ear-rings bob in her ears, and in her hand is a bright paper fan, with which she never ceases fanning herself.

"She's never spent so much as a penny at my shop," Carlotta goes on to say. "Not a penny. She'd not spare a flask of wine to a beggar dying at her door. Stuck-up old devil! But she's ruined, ruined with lawsuits. Ruined, I say. Ha! ha! Her time will come."

Finding Carlotta