within which the spectator was aware of a stately and
impressive gloom. Though merely the municipal council-house and exchange
of a decayed country town, this structure was worthy to have held in
one portion of it the parliament hall of a nation, and in the other, the
state apartments of its ruler. On another side of the square rose the
mediaeval front of the cathedral, where the imagination of a Gothic
architect had long ago flowered out indestructibly, in the first place,
a grand design, and then covering it with such abundant detail of
ornament, that the magnitude of the work seemed less a miracle than its
minuteness. You would suppose that he must have softened the stone
into wax, until his most delicate fancies were modelled in the pliant
material, and then had hardened it into stone again. The whole was a
vast, black-letter page of the richest and quaintest poetry. In fit
keeping with all this old magnificence was a great marble fountain,
where again the Gothic imagination showed its overflow and gratuity of
device in the manifold sculptures which it lavished as freely as the
water did its shifting shapes.

Besides the two venerable structures which we have described, there were
lofty palaces, perhaps of as old a date, rising story above Story, and
adorned with balconies, whence, hundreds of years ago, the princely
occupants had been accustomed to gaze down at the sports, business, and
popular assemblages of the piazza. And, beyond all question, they thus
witnessed the erection of a bronze statue, which, three centuries since,
was placed on the pedestal that it still occupies.

"I never come to Perugia," said Kenyon, "without spending as much time
as I can spare in studying yonder statue of Pope Julius the Third. Those
sculptors of the Middle Age have fitter lessons for the professors of
my art than we can find in the Grecian masterpieces. They belong to our
Christian civilization; and, being earnest works, they always express
something which we do not get from the antique. Will you look at it?"

"Willingly," replied the Count, "for I see, even so far off, that the
statue is bestowing a benediction, and there is a feeling in my heart
that I may be permitted to share it."

Remembering the similar idea which Miriam a short time before had
expressed, the sculptor smiled hopefully at the coincidence. They made
their way through the throng of the market place, and approached close
to the iron railing that protected