embarrassment between herself and husband became more painful than before. On the next day the sun broke forth, like an exile returning to his own land. The Nevils availed themselves of his brightness to visit Milan cathedral, the _chef-d'œuvre_ of Gothic architecture: it is built in the form of a cross--fair, melancholy image in the midst of wealth. Lofty as it is, the ornaments are elaborate as those lavished on some minute object of admiration. What time and patience must it have cost! This perseverance towards the same aim is transmitted from age to age, and the human race, stable at least in thought, can leave us proofs of this, imperishable almost as thought itself. A Gothic building engenders true religion: it has been said that the popes have consecrated more wealth to the building of modern temples than devotion to the memory of old churches. The light, falling through colored glass, the singular forms of the architecture, unite to give a silent image of that infinite mystery which the soul forever feels, and never comprehends. Lord and Lady Nevil left Milan when the earth was covered with snow. This is a sadder sight in Italy than elsewhere, because it is unusual: the natives lament bad weather as a public calamity. Oswald was vain of his favorite country, and angry that it would not smile its best for Lucy. They passed through Placenta, Parma, and Modena. The churches and palaces of each are too vast, in proportion to the number and fortune of the inhabitants: all seems arranged for the reception of the great, who as yet have but sent some of their retinue forward. On the morning of their reaching Taro, the floods were thundering from the Alps and Apennines, with such frightful rapidity, that their roar scarce announced them ere they came. Bridges are hardly practicable over rivers that so often rise above the level of the plain. Oswald and Lucy found their course suddenly checked. All boats had been washed away by the current; and they were obliged to wait till the Italians, who never hurry themselves, chose to bring them back. The fog confounded the water with the sky; and the whole spectacle rather resembled the descriptions of Styx than the bounteous streams lent as refreshments to the burning south. Lucy, trembling lest the intense cold should hurt her child, bore it into a fisher's hut, in the centre of which a fire had been kindled, as is done in Russia.