(2) The painting of our Lady of the Angels by Perugino, in the choir behind the high-altar.

(3) Two large paintings of great value on the walls just outside the sanctuary, viz., the Martyrdom of St. Sebastian, by Domenichino and the Baptism of our Lord, by Carlo Maratta.

(4) The chapel of the relics on the left of the sanctuary, where are venerated the remains of seven hundred and thirty martyrs.

(5) The large paintings in the transept, brought here from St. Peter's, where they were replaced by copies in mosaic.

(6) The enormous pillars in the transept, 53 feet high, 16 feet in circumference; eight are of granite and ancient, the other eight are mere imitation.

(7) The marble pavement laid down by Gregory XIII, on which is the meridian line made in 1703.

The interior is vast and impressive, the walls and arched roof are as solid as in the days of Diocletian.

XXVI. THE BATHS OF DIOCLETIAN, BUILT BY CHRISTIAN
PRISONERS.

An interesting description of the Christian prisoners erecting these baths will be found in "Fabiola," Part II, chap. 20.

The Roman Martyrology makes mention on July 9th of the martyrdom in Rome of St. Zeno and 10,203 companions. These were the Christians condemned to work in the erection of this stupendous mass of buildings. It is said that crosses and other Christian marks have been found stamped on some of the bricks. When the gigantic work was completed, the poor toilers were all dragged to the Temple of Mars outside the present Porta S. Sebastiano and there cruelly massacred by order of Diocletian, A.D. 305. Their mangled remains were afterwards buried at Tre Fontane and in the Catacombs, those of St. Zeno and 2,200 of the martyrs being transferred to S. Prassede by Pope Paschal I in the ninth century, as stated above. The church and adjoining ruins have thus a special and a holy interest. It is said that these baths contained 3,000 marble basins, a swimming piscina of 2,400 square feet; also a library, gymnasia, club rooms, lecture rooms, dining rooms and spacious gardens.

Cardinal Baronius says that 40,000 Christians were employed in the work. The Baths are supposed to have been partly destroyed during the Gothic invasion of A.D. 410.

XXVII. THE GREAT CLOISTER OF SA. MARIA DEGLI ANGELI

-RELIGIOUS MEMORIES.

Behind the church is the noble cloister designed by Michael Angelo, transformed (since the expulsion of the monks in 1872) into a national museum, in which objects of art and antiquities discovered on government land and in government works are preserved. The cells of the Carthusians, where so many holy religious lived and died, may be seen, each with a little garden and fountain. Alas, they are now tenantless, used only as receptacles for sarcophagi and fragments of ancient sculpture. The objects exhibited are nearly all of pagan times though there are a few Christian ornaments, chiefly of gold, made by the Goths and Lombards. Of especial interest are the AngloSaxon coins of the tenth century, 400 in number, found in 1884 in the Atrium Vestæ, or Vestals' house in the Forum. This money was probably brought to Rome as Peter's Pence, and concealed to save it from plunder during one of the frequent tumults of those stormy times.

This Carthusian monastery is connected with an event in the life of St. John Berchmans. A fellow scholastic had asked the saint to accompany him to Sa. Maria degli Angeli. St. John there discovered that the scholastic wished to leave the Society and join the Carthusians. Returning home he reported the matter to Superiors and the words. he repeated on his death-bed, "Let us go home, let us go home," are supposed to refer to this incident.

One day as St. Philip Neri was passing the ruins of the baths of Diocletian, he saw, as he thought, a young man sitting on a low wall; but on looking more closely and steadily at him, he perceived that his face was constantly changing, at one moment he looked young, and at the next, old. Philip knew it was an evil spirit, and making the sign of the cross, he went boldly up to him and bade him depart. Since the expulsion of the Carthusians and seizure of all their property by the Italian government in 1872, the church has been served by the Minims, or Religious of St. Francis de Paula.

In the piazza in front of the church is a large fountain, where the irreligious municipality of Rome erected in 1901 some bronze figures that are repulsive and scandalous in the extreme. No good Christian would look at them, and even a pagan with any self-respect would turn away disgusted. There will be much to throw into the Tiber when Rome is restored to the Pope. S. J.

A STORY OF THE CAROLINAS.

CHAPTER VII.

In two years' time Father Honoré felt justified. He had been absent for several days, and therefore observed Dace with somewhat unaccustomed eyes as he made ready for the field one morning, stopping on the porch to pin up the wavering tendril of an encroaching vine.

The long, blond hair that had given him his Chopin look of effeminate daintiness had been ruthlessly shorn off, displaying to advantage his handsome, well-set head. At Mrs. Weldon's insistence-for he had a fine voice—a daily practice in scales and exercises had strengthened his lungs, deepened his chest and rounded his throat. The keen air gave him an appetite that soon filled out the blue hollows in cheek and temple and covered up the projections of ribs and hips. His work in the field developed the muscles of leg and arm, and most effectually obliterated the delicate fairness of his skin.

His alabaster complexion had long since disappeared under a fine veneer of tan that made the unusual brilliance of eye more soft and natural and harmonized the too vivid tinting of cheek and lip.

He had also increased in stature and now overtopped the priest, who regarded him with musing eyes of appraisement and affection. In fine, he began at twenty-one to give promise of a vigorous and normal manhood.

The unruly vine reduced to order he drove the plough afield, piping a concerto upon a leaf as he tramped the furrows.

The small patch near the cabins had been converted into a vegetable garden, and Dace, with his inherited craving for gain, had followed the example of his neighbors, and had planted his waste land in tobacco. The soil of the Cove in this particular tract was richer than usual from its low level and protected position; but beyond the tobacco field the ground was stony and sterile, fit for nothing from a farmer's viewpoint.

Dace was therefore not a little surprised at coming upon a group of men at the end of the furrow, to overhear one say:

"But who is the lucky owner of the land?"

Dace went up to them.

"Lucky? Why, the people hereabouts would tell you 'hit's thet pore ye kaint even raise a moggige on hit.' Why lucky, mein Herr?" The one who held a bit of stone in his hand inspecting it through a magnifying glass looked up as if to examine in turn the speaker. "Are you the landlord?"

"I am."

"Then be glad if you haven't a mortgage on it.”

"And why?"

"These gentlemen belong to the United States Engineer Corps they are geological surveyors of these mountains. I am George toe Laer of the Smithsonian. This," holding up the bit of stone, "is the purest specimen of gold ore we have come across on this side of the continent.”

Dace took the stone in hand and turned it over upon his palm, only half hearing what those around him were saying.

They looked curiously at him in his suit of mountain-jeans, quickly divining the incongruity between his appearance and his language and bearing.

He invited the surveyors to return with him to the cabin and there, in the quick explanation and rapid cross-fire of question and answer that followed their introduction to Mrs. Weldon and Father Honoré, the young man sat apart from them, staring at the stone which he had put in the middle of the table. The chief of the corps and Professor toe Laer began to think the young farmer lost his wits.

Presently, Dilsey came in with native wine for the visitors. They pledged the health of their host.

Dace smiled as he put the glass of scuppernong to his lips, then picked up his violin from the piano, stood at the head of the table and began to play. The men were silent at once; even the phlegmatic Hollander put down his glass, leaned forward, chin in hand, motionless, mute, the world forgotten under the spell of that wondrous bow.

The children crept in from the adjoining schoolroom and huddled together in large-eyed groups upon the floor; a mocking bird flew in at the casement, perched upon the player's shoulder and burst into a shrill rapture of challenge and delight. A squirrel leaped tamely upon the window-sill; in the yard, under a spreading tree, Ginevra, in a coarse, blue gown that displayed her shapely brown ankles and feet, flung back her tempestuous hair and danced, snapping her fingers like castanets, graceful as the tossing tree limbs above her head.

What a passionate procession of renewed hopes, revived ambitions and fresh desires paraded the mind of the musician. He had given up the world in his first fierce hatred of life, and then in his ardor for a different and nobler existence. But now that health was assured and wealth in prospect, how seductive the allurement of the other life. The Cove, with its gray cabins, its limpid spring in whose stony niche the Blessed Mother held out sweet hands of invitation, its surrounding forest where the birds fluted in the leafage, its amphitheatre of granite whence one looked into the eternity of the west; the woodland walks, the morning school, the evening conferences when one fair star hung in the darkling azure, or when lamps were lighted and rosy curtains drawn against the storm of hail over the shroud of snow, when icicles hung their glistening poniards from eave and roofpoint-all these things suddenly lost their magic.

Again he beheld the crowded concert-hall, the eager crush of keen, critical faces, the background of jewelled ease in silk attire. He would breathe again that tingling atmosphere of excitement, of artistic strife, of sensuous enjoyment.

He would be again in the noble city, in the Jüdenstrasse, with Vorontzoff at the grand piano, Von Vollmar, with his eternal despair in pastel. He would hear again the Norwegian nightingale, Natalie Bergen, with her hyacinth curls, her heaven-colored eyes, her golden voice.

The pilgrimages to Weimar, to Beyrouth, to Vienna-the debonnair delight of mere existence, once his and now again to be, in fresher colors, keener edge, more vital meaning.

He put aside the violin and again took up the bit of rock with its significant glittering points, as he conjured up these fairy phantoms of projected joys.

He scarcely heeded the exclamations of wonder and delight from those around him. He bade them adieu with an absent eye and scarcely knew that they were gone.

CHAPTER VIII.

Summer had just placed a fairy foot upon the emerald heights but lately glistening beneath a veil of frozen fog. The crisp green of the young foliage gave the woods a serene and luminous transparency, but Dace did not observe it. Nature no longer spoke to his soul. Late one delightful afternoon he climbed upon the ledge and there sat and improvised upon his violin until nearly dusk.