the Loire, the Rhine and the Middle Danube lords of the vintage for all time. Yet there is no more pacifying industry than wine-making, whatever may be said of wine-drinking; and the French anxiety to turn the Kabylian caves into wine-vaults is sensible and laudable.

Edward C. Bruce.

A PADUAN HOLIDAY.

On the morning of Sant' Antonio's Day we strolled through the streets of Padua, side by side with the country-folk who had come from miles around to offer up their prayers at the shrine of the saint. Some rode jaded mules or were packed close in great market-wagons. Others trudged on foot, with their dinners tied up in blue cotton handkerchiefs. There were bronzed men in homespun, who pushed steadily on, aiding themselves with mighty umbrellas; dark-eyed girls, with bright kerchiefs knotted about their heads or carnations in their glossy braids; smart young contadini, with their hats tied afresh with ribbons and their long blue hose darned anew. The murmurs of the crowd, loud and merry and full of bursts of laughter, softened into a solemn whisper as the multitude pressed onward to the broad piazza where the sanctuary of Sant' Antonio stands.

One by one the people lifted the leathern curtain of the church-door. The men doffed their hats, the women told their beads. An awed hush fell upon those simple peasants as they gazed up at the vastness of the arches. The world of the winepress and the silk-weaving and the soup-pot vanished from their hearts, and in its place came the illimitable calm which holds them bowed for hours against the altar-steps. But now they press on toward the shrine of the saint. The choir bursts into a triumphant shout that seems to come from the throats of the bronze angels about the altar. The chancel is a blaze of light, against which stand two great dark bronze candelabra like sentinels of the tabernacle. The steps before Sant' Antonio's shrine are half buried under the great white lilies that bear his name, and the tall dark angels that keep guard about his tomb bear sceptres of fresh lilies. There is no need of the swinging silver censers. Myrrh and frankincense rise, sweet and strong, from the depths of the snowy chalices. The children kneeling about the altar bear stalks of the lilies like tall waxen tapers, that wave to and fro over the surging heads of the multitude. There are carved pillars around the shrine brought from Byzantium, and great white marble heads of saints and holy men stand out in relief from the walls. Silver lamps, beautiful with shining chains and the winged heads of cherubim, hang from the low vault, warming all the pale figures into life with the crimson glow of the flame within.

A little bell tinkles. There is a murmur of voices and a rustle of garments throughout the church. The golden lights of the altar die away, one by one. The people rise from their prayers with the wide-eyed, unseeing gaze of those who have been wandering in a far land. They have crossed the sea with the blessed Antonio; they have followed him into the presence of the terrible Ezzelin, the feudal enemy of Padua; they have heard him command the tyrant to set his captives free; they have accompanied the saint to his hermitage among the purple olive-hills about the city; they have struggled and suffered and died with him, and have rejoiced at last in his apotheosis and canonization. And then, the war being over, the race of Ezzelin expelled, and the lords of the soil, the Carraras, strong in power, they see how the holy body is brought into the town to protect it for ever, and a fair temple is built above its resting-place to prove the people's gratitude to the power that set them free. They press about the marble sarcophagus that holds his poor skeleton, and stoop and kiss the clammy surface with reverent looks, or take the benediction from the hand of some neighbor who stands nearer the shrine, and utter a petition for the coming year.

See that high-bred young girl in her simple black dress, with her nurse by her side, and her dark eyes bright and soft under their long lashes. It is some sweet Bianca, who has left her home to escape sister Katharine's taunts and make Heaven knows what blushing vow at the shrine of the kind saint. See how her soft lips caress the feet of the bronze angel with the lilies in his hand. Do you mark those bold, black, handsome eyes devouring her face from across the crowd of low-statured peasants? It is some wild youth from the university, you say? Ay, one Lucentio of Pisa, a noble gentleman, whose father has sent him to Padua to study those parts of philosophy that treat of happiness. Bianca knows not how near her fate lies—knows not that to-morrow the new master of music and languages will present himself at her father's door and try his skill in translation, and carry off the sweet prize under the very beards of the reverend wooers of Padua.

CHURCH OF SANT' ANTONIO.

Oh horror! there comes sister Katharine! Blessed Virgin, help us to escape before she sees us, or there will be no peace in the house for a week. Come, nurse! quick! And Bianca flutters off in affright, and is lost in the crowd.

There she comes, bonny Kate—a small, slight consequential person, dressed in a robe of that brilliant green of the northern Italian painters. She wants no nurse—not she! She would go from Padua to the farthest country on Fra Paolo's map on the strength of her biting tongue and her snapping green eyes. "Make way," she orders, "you low, vile brutes!" and the peasants draw back and look askance at her, and the women mutter under their breath, and the girls laugh a low laugh. See her kiss her hand and lay it on the marble. She will not touch her lips to it for fear of contamination. She hurls an angry oath at the market-woman standing near with her hens tied up in her kerchief, because she crowds so close that the hungry birds peck at the silver galloon of her sleeve. Ay, pretty Kate, you are arrogant now. But wait a little. Here comes Petruchio, a most unwholesome sight for a summer's day. Get thee gone in haste, fair Kate!

See how he stalks on through the crowd, with his riding-whip in his hand, now cutting good-humoredly at a small boy's legs, now playfully throttling a ruddy peasant-girl with the long lash. His clothes are torn and muddy. He wears a new hat and an old jerkin, and a pair of old breeches, thrice turned. He has ridden into town on the sorriest nag ever bred on the plains of Lombardy. See him stride up to the shrine of Sant' Antonio. Do you think he will kiss that filthy stone, with the impress of so many foul mouths upon it? He cuts at it with his whip until the people start back in affright and the wind blows half the lamps out, and the priest would gladly launch a malediction at his head, but that he knows his man, for Petruchio's pranks with the clergy are the talk of all Padua.

He is the delight of the university lads, this mad fellow from Verona. See how they crowd about him as he stalks down the nave, and crave a look or a salute from their bully hero! They lay bets in lecture-hours as to whether he will succeed in taming that young shrew, Baptista's daughter.

Be sure the Moorish prince and he of Arragon stopped with their trains to ask the saint's protection when they went to woo fair Portia. And the lady herself, after that good deed done in Venice, when she went praying about at holy crosses, craved the saint's blessing on her lord, Bassanio. He too, I wager, meditated here on his lady and his friend. They crowd, a shadowy multitude, about the gleaming sepulchre