train, even if it had been of any use to do so, and we were driving along one half the time in tunnelsthere are forty-five of them between Bologna and Florence-no dwelling near, nor could we get liquid of any kind to give the child. It is needless to say that we were all not a little concerned, both for Ada and her mother, for it was plain the child was very ill, her pulse being so low that the Flemish gentleman, who held her in his lap, said he could not feel it beat. She lay as if in a stupor; but having satisfied ourselves that what she had thrown up was not blood but chocolate, and having found the pencil her mother had given her to play with, our fears were somewhat allayed. At length we came to a station where the train stopped, and the lady with her child changed her seat to another compartment that she might be in company with some of her own country people. With us she was indeed a stranger in her own land; and had she been traveling in a country where not a word of her own language was spoken or understood, she could hardly have been more helpless. Before leaving, Ada began to revive a little, and when we reached Pistoria her mother came, much to our relief, and reported her out of danger, expressing many grazias for our sympathy and efforts to assist her in her trouble.

To-day,

Florence is most beautifully situated. pioneered by Rev. Mr. Merriman, President of Ripon College, who had preceded us here, we took a pleasant walk to San Miniato, an elevated part of the city on the south side of the Arno, a fine plateau, in the center of which is the new monument of Michael Angelo, which was unveiled with great pomp and ceremony a few weeks before our arrival. The central figure is a colossal statue of his "David" in

bronze, below which, at the four corners, are copies, also in bronze, of four others of his celebrated statues "Day" and "Night," "Morning" and "Evening" -all elevated on an elaborate base of granite or marble. A short distance beyond this monument and higher up is a National Observatory, near which stands the observatory or tower from which Galileo made his astronomical observations. On our way back to our hotel, on the north side of the river, we passed through one of the old gate ways of the city, several of which, as well as portions of the old city wall, remain as grim monuments of ages far back in the past. Just before coming to the river we found ourselves in front of the house in which Elizabeth Barrett Browning lived and died. It is one of a continuous block, and over the main doorway, in Italian, is an inscription showing it to have been her residence.

Just after twilight last evening we heard from our sitting room singing or chanting in the street, and looking to see the occasion of it, a sight so novel met our eyes that the writer seized his hat and ran into the street to obtain a better view of what was passing. It was a funeral procession, and a few minutes brought him to the head of it. All were on foot. First, three men in masks supporting a high banner surmounted by a cross; next, two lads in white frocks; then, in double file, some sixteen priests in long white robes and broad-brimmed chapeaux, chanting the litany; next, the coffin, covered with a pall and borne by four men in close masks, three pall-bearers on either side and two in the rear, also wearing masks; and these were followed by one hundred men, more or less, in citizens' dress, all, except those who bore the coffin and the standard

bearer, carrying torches. This singular mode of burial, it seems, dates back to the year 1240, the date of the origin of the Society of the Misericordia, to which these masked members belong.

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

FLORENCE, NOVEMBER 16.—We spent this fore

noon in the Church of Santa Maria Novella, which was completed in 1470, and "from the elegance of its form and proportions" Michael Angelo called it La Sposa, the bride. It contains many very striking fresco paintings, representing "Heaven," "Hell," "The Last Judgment," etc., and there are also some old and some modern paintings on canvas, possessing much merit. In the painting of "The Last Judgment," which is some twenty feet square, various modes of punishment and torment are depicted-some poor creatures being in a lake. of fire, only their lower limbs visible, showing that they were plunged head foremost into the seething lake; others in the most terrible outer darkness of despair, we cannot tell in how many forms; but the kind of sins for which each group was suffering was set down in words. The arch fiend himself, or his executioner, in the form of a raging lion, appeared in the midst of the largest group, and as he had the head and shoulders of Judas in his mouth, the inference was that all were to be thus devoured. So far as Judas was concerned, no one seemed to have any sympathy for him.

In the afternoon we visited the studios, all near

together, of Powers, Ball, and Fuller, the latter of whom died a year or two ago. The two brothers, sons of the late Hiram Powers, have their studio in the same place where the writer saw their father in 1867. The elder brother has just completed a beautiful bust of a maiden, giving it the name "Star of Bethlehem," and the younger is engaged on a bust of General Grant. Whether either son will ever become as famous as their father, time will tell. They evidently possess a good deal of artistic talent. They continue to multiply, as they find sale therefor, the more popular statues and busts modeled by Hiram Powers; for instance, those of "Washington," "Franklin," "Eve," "The Greek Slave," "Faith," "The Fisher Boy," "Genevra," "America," "Diana," "Charity," "Proserpine," "Clytie," "Hope,' and others. We were highly gratified with a view of all these works of art. We were equally well pleased with the works exhibited in Ball's studio, where we were happy to meet his young and promising pupil, Daniel French, who has already made his mark by his statue of "The Minute Man," lately erected in Concord, Massachusetts- a work regarded by the best judges as possessing great merit. We were delighted with Ball's "L' Allegro" and "Il Penseroso," two revolving busts, with children's faces, a joy to behold; and his statue (full size) of "St. John" is one of the grandest we have anywhere seen. It represents the Apostle as standing with eyes raised toward heaven-in his right hand a pen and in his left a book—as if listening to the words: "And I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, write, Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth." The statue in which we were more interested, perhaps, was one of Lincoln and