Church of San Domenico. Masses are being
said at one or other chapel all the morning, while women in their
flapping Tuscan hats crowd round the silver image of S. Catherine,
and say their prayers with a continual undercurrent of responses to
the nasal voice of priest or choir. Others gain entrance to the
chapel of the saint, and kneel before her altar. There, in the blaze
of sunlight and of tapers, far away behind the gloss and gilding of
a tawdry shrine, is seen the pale, white face which spoke and
suffered so much, years ago. The contrast of its rigid stillness and
half-concealed corruption with the noise and life and light outside
is very touching. Even so the remnant of a dead idea still stirs the
souls of thousands, and many ages may roll by before time and
oblivion assert their inevitable sway.

_MONTE OLIVETO_

I

In former days the traveller had choice of two old hostelries in the
chief street of Siena. Here, if he was fortunate, he might secure a
prophet's chamber, with a view across tiled houseroofs to the
distant Tuscan champaign--glimpses of russet field and olive-garden
framed by jutting city walls, which in some measure compensated for
much discomfort. He now betakes himself to the more modern Albergo
di Siena, overlooking the public promenade La Lizza. Horse-chestnuts
and acacias make a pleasant foreground to a prospect of considerable
extent. The front of the house is turned toward Belcaro and the
mountains between Grosseto and Volterra. Sideways its windows
command the brown bulk of San Domenico, and the Duomo, set like a
marble coronet upon the forehead of the town. When we arrived there
one October afternoon the sun was setting amid flying clouds and
watery yellow spaces of pure sky, with a wind blowing soft and humid
from the sea. Long after he had sunk below the hills, a fading chord
of golden and rose-coloured tints burned on the city. The cathedral
bell tower was glistening with recent rain, and we could see right
through its lancet windows to the clear blue heavens beyond. Then,
as the day descended into evening, the autumn trees assumed that
wonderful effect of luminousness self-evolved, and the red brick
walls that crimson afterglow, which Tuscan twilight takes from
singular transparency of atmosphere.

It is hardly possible to define the specific character of each
Italian city, assigning its proper share to natural circumstances,
to the temper of the population, and to the monume