r the fields far away from these celestial vineyards and the waving
grain of Paradise.

Exalted by such visions, what to them were the gazing crowd and their
own rags and squalor? They entered the Porziuncola singing: they came
out at the side-door transfigured, and silent except for some
breathless "Maria!" or "Gesu!" Their arms were thrown upward, their
glowing black eyes were upraised, their thin swarthy faces burned with
a vivid scarlet, their white teeth glittered between the parted lips.
Round and round they went like a great water-wheel that revolves in sun
and shadow, and the spray it tossed up as it issued from the
Porziuncola was rapture, the fiery spray of the soul.

At last all remained outside the chapel, making two long lines from
either side the door down the nave to the open air, their faces ever
toward the chapel. Then they began to sing in voices as clear and sweet
as a chorus of birds. Not a harsh note was there. They sang some hymn
that had come down to them from other generations as the robins and the
bobo-links drop their songs down to future nestlings, and ever a
long-drawn note stretched bright and steady from one stanza to another.
So singing, they stepped slowly backward, always gazing steadily at the
lighted altar of the Porziuncola, visible through the door, and,
stepping backward and singing, they slowly drew themselves out of the
church, and the Pardon for them was over.

But though Asisi is not without its notable sights, the chief pleasures
there are quiet ones. A walk down through the olive trees to the dry
bed of the torrent Tescio will please one who is accustomed to rivers
which never leave their beds. One strays among the rocks and pebbles
that the rushing waters have brought down from the mountains, and
stands dryshod under the arches of the bridges, with something of the
feeling excited by visiting a deserted house; with the difference that
the Undine people are sure to come rushing down from the mountains
again some day. There one searches out charming little nooks which
would make the loveliest of pictures. There was one in the Via del
Terz' Ordine which was a sweet bit of color. Two rows of stone houses
facing on other streets turn their backs to this, and shade it to a
soft twilight, till it seems a corridor with a high blue ceiling rather
than a street. There it lies forgotten. No one passes through it or
looks into it. In one spot the tall houses are separated by a rod or s