y mountain horns, and along
the low shores between the olive-grey hills and the blue sea, till at
last he came in sight of a great and beautiful city glittering on the
slopes and ridges of seven hills.

"What golden city may this be?" he asked of the dark-eyed market folk
whom he met on the long straight road which led across the open country.

"It is the city of Rome," they answered him, wondering at his
ignorance. But the Saint, when he heard those words, fell on his knees
and kissed the ground.

"Hail to thee, most holy city!" he cried; "hail, thou queen of the
world, red with the roses of the martyrs and white with the lilies of
the virgins; hail, blessed goal of my long wandering!"

And as he entered the city his eyes were bright with joy, and his heart
seemed to lift his weary feet on wings of gladness.

There he sojourned through the autumn and the winter, visiting all the
great churches and the burial-places of the early Christians in the
Catacombs, and communing with the good and wise men in many houses of
religion. Once he conversed with the great Pope whose name was
Gregory, and told him of his brethren in the beloved isle in the
western waters.

When once more the leaf of the fig-tree opened its five fingers, and
the silvery bud of the vine began to unfurl, the Saint prepared to
return home. And once more he went to the mighty Pope, to take his
leave and to ask a blessing for himself and his brethren, and to beg
that he might bear away with him to the brotherhood some precious relic
of those who had shed their blood for the Cross.

As he made that request in the green shadowy garden on the Hill
Caelian, the Pope smiled, and, taking a clod of common earth from the
soil, gave it to the Saint, saying, "Then take this with thee," and
when the Saint expressed his surprise at so strange a relic, the
Servant of the Servants of God took back the earth and crushed it in
his hand, and with amazement the Saint saw that blood began to trickle
from it between the fingers of the Pope.

Marvelling greatly, the Saint kissed the holy pontiff's hand, and bade
him farewell; and going to and fro among those he knew, he collected
money, and, hiring a ship, he filled it with the earth of Rome, and
sailed westward through the Midland Sea, and bent his course towards
the steadfast star in the north, and so at last reached the beloved
green island of his home.

In the little graveyard about the fair church of his broth