at 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 th