We set sail in the morning, and find ourselves almost immediately under the enchanting influence of the new atmosphere. The ripples sparkle in the sun; a few sea birds wheel on lazy wing and bear us company; now and again a fish leaps from the water; the white gulls scream and dart upon it; there is a splash in the track of the sun where the sea is paved with gold, and we rouse ourselves from a reverie as deep almost as the sea. Nothing comes of it; we fall upon a basket of fruit and launch a fleet of orange peel caiques in our wake; we roll the famed tobacco of the land in wrappers of rice paper, and sweeten the air with the aroma thereof. No one talks much; every one seems to be looking with contented eyes into the future or the past.

We swing up to a shallow shore, under green hills, where a narrow dock reaches far out into the deep water. This is Khalki, one of the fairest islands of the group; but we don't land here to-day. We lean over the rail, and see the rope thrown lazily ashore, and as lazily caught and slipped over the one post on the dock. Somebody goes on shore very quietly, some other body steps noiselessly on board; we are cast off without comment, and so drift on toward Prinkipo.

We see the three grassy hills of Khalki, crowned with the convents of the Blessed Virgin, St. George, and the

Holy Trinity. We learn that there are students there Greeks, many of them; that there is also an Ottoman naval college over the hill, and that Khalki is much resorted to by the rayahs -the non-Mussulman subjects of the sultan. It seems to us that nothing can be finer than to be a rayah and a student, and to lie all day on those green, green slopes, looking off upon the sparkling sea, and listening to the study bell growing ever fainter and fainter as we fall asleep, lapped in a meadow of sweet clover.

Prinkipo is the largest of the Prince's Islands. It has its village and its hotels, with baths along the shore just under them. A high road, in capital repair, makes the circuit of the island; a swarm of donkey boys light upon you as you come to land; and it were vain to waive them back or seek to fly from them, for they will track you to the grave or get their fee.

The summer village-a colony of play houses— is so neat, so pretty, so untroubled! Wreaths of flowers hang over the doors and the windows of almost every house. So they welcome the return of the spring in Prinkipo. Stately Turks are borne up and down the village streets in sedan chairs. Pipe bearers follow them, and from time to time, as the pompous effendi waves his hand, his box is turned toward the sea in a shady spot; the stalwart carriers dash the sweat from their foreheads, and squat at the feet of

their master; the pipe boy uncoils the pliant tube, lays a live coal upon the bowl of the nargileh as it sits in the grass, and the next half-hour is given to serene and secret thoughts. A prince in the Isle of Princes is a man to put your faith in; you will always know just where to look for him, and you may be sure that he takes no interest in the affairs of other men, and that nothing can disturb the placidity of his life unless the bottom should suddenly drop out of his sedan chair.

We hired a set of donkey boys to walk behind us at a respectful distance. Alone we did it, one after the other, idling here and there, getting astray in the vineyards, hiding among rose gardens, pausing to inhale the warm odors steeping in the sun, or to catch the refrain of some singer buried in the wood.

There is a Greek convent above the road, hidden like a nest in the deep hollow. When the Empress Irene, a contemporary of Charlemagne and Haroun al Raschid, was dethroned, she was robbed of all the treasures of the crown, and then banished to this convent, which herself had built. Later she was sent to Lemnos, and there died; but her body was brought hither, and is still treasured in this convent.

High on a summit of a peak in Prinkipo there is a cloister and a kitchen. Our path lay through a fragrant forest; we caught glimpses of broad blue seas and of

islands that swam below us as we climbed toward the summit of the peak. Here, in an arbor that hung upon the edge of space, a monk served us bread and wine and omelet. He also brought the consoling nargileh, and as we feasted and fattened we looked down upon a picture that can never fade from memory. If ever island floated, these islands float. They are the haunts of flying islanders, and that is why the air is so still and so restful and so magical. On the one hand, the sea and sky lie down together, and on the other the glamour of Stamboul illuminates the horizon like a mirage. In the distance we discover the little boat returning for us. She sits like a bird upon the water, with foam-white tail feathers and long, dark wings of smoke. Think of saying farewell to these dream nooks of the world think of plunging again. into new fields, with the consciousness that you have, in all human probability, seen the best, and that one experience laid so soon upon another is sure to deaden the flavor of both!

Like sea-flowers, the islands seem to drift away from us, and in secret I am half convinced that yonder, between sea and sky, lies Avalon; and yonder, within the magic circle of the waves, sleep the Happy Isles, the Islands of the Blessed!

- CHARLES WARREN STODDARD.

POPE LEO XIII

Quite to the north of what we call the central part of Italy, in among the hills and mountains, hangs the old town of Carpineto. Built on the rocks and surrounded by scenery wild and rugged the little town looks down upon the valley below. Carpineto like all other towns has its history, and, if we stop for a a moment, we may read. Here we find many poorly built houses which tell their own story and here we find the remains of palaces built long ago which take the traveler back to times when those of wealth and noble birth held sway.

The Pecci belonged to the nobility and it was in the Pecci palace, March, 1810, that the little Joachim Vincent Pecci was born. He, who was later to become one of the greatest men the world has ever known, was the youngest child of a family of six. Little Vincent, for this was the name by which he was called while his mother lived, had much in his favor throughout his whole career. He came into the world with good and noble blood, with a great mind which needed little except proper nourishment and with a will even in his youth for seeing and doing which has seldom been equaled.

Count and Countess Pecci belonged to influential and noble families of many years' standing. Both families