hought by keeping close to Aunt Kathryn and
Beechy there would be no danger that he would trouble me. Unfortunately,
the pattern of our progress arranged itself a little differently from my
plan.

All was simple enough in the churches, which we visited first, not to
give them time to close up for their afternoon siesta. Mr. Barrymore was
of the party, and we all listened to him--the Prince because he must, we
others because we wished--while he ransacked his memory for bits of
Paduan history, legend or romance. He showed us the Giottos (which he
had done well to call adorable) at the Madonna of the Arena; he took us
to pay our respects to St. Anthony of Padua (that dear, obliging Saint
who gives himself so much trouble over the lost property of perfect
strangers) in his extraordinary and well-deserved Basilica of bubbly
domes and lovely cloisters. He guided us to Santa Giustina, where I
would stop at the top of the steps, to pet two glorious old red marble
beasts which had crouched there for four centuries. One of them--the
redder of the two--had been all that time wrestling with an
infinitesimal St. George whom he ought to have polished off in a few
hours; while the other--the one with an unspeakable beard under his chin
and teeth like the gearing of our automobile--had been engaged for the
same period in eating a poor little curly lion.

The inside of the church--too strongly recommended by Baedeker to
commend itself to me--made me feel as if I had eaten a lemon water-ice
before dinner, on a freezing cold day; and it was there that the
Chauffeulier departed to get ready the motor-car. There it was, too,
that the pattern disarranged itself.

When we had finished looking at a splendid Paolo Veronese, we hurried
out into the Prato della Valle (which has changed its name to something
else not half so pretty, though more patriotic), and Sir Ralph took
Beechy away, so that Aunt Kathryn and I were left to the Prince. He
hardly talked to her at all, which hurt her feelings so much that she
turned suddenly round, and said she must speak to Beechy.

I could have cried, for the piazza was so beautiful that I wanted some
one congenial with me, to whom I could exclaim about it. It was girdled
by a belt of clear water, with four stone bridges and a double wall on
which stood a goodly company of noble gentlemen. There was the history
of Padua's greatness perpetuated in marble--charming personages, one and
all, if you could believ