A little bell tinkles. There is a murmur of voices and a rustle of garments throughout the church. The golden lights of the altar die away, one by one. The people rise from their prayers with the wide-eyed, unseeing gaze of those who have been wandering in a far land. They have crossed the sea with the blessed Antonio; they have followed him into the presence of the terrible Ezzelin, the feudal enemy of Padua; they have heard him command the tyrant to set his captives free; they have accompanied the saint to his hermitage among the purple olive-hills about the city; they have struggled and suffered and died with him, and have rejoiced at last in his apotheosis and canonization. And then, the war being over, the race of Ezzelin expelled, and the lords of the soil, the Carraras, strong in power, they see how the holy body is brought into the town to protect it for ever, and a fair temple is built above its resting-place to prove the people's gratitude to the power that set them free. They press about the marble sarcophagus that holds his poor skeleton, and stoop and kiss the clammy surface with reverent looks, or take the benediction from the hand of some neighbor who stands nearer the shrine, and utter a petition for the coming year. See that high-bred young girl in her simple black dress, with her nurse by her side, and her dark eyes bright and soft under their long lashes. It is some sweet Bianca, who has left her home to escape sister Katharine's taunts and make Heaven knows what blushing vow at the shrine of the kind saint. See how her soft lips caress the feet of the bronze angel with the lilies in his hand. Do you mark those bold, black, handsome eyes devouring her face from across the crowd of low-statured peasants? It is some wild youth from the university, you say? Ay, one Lucentio of Pisa, a noble gentleman, whose father has sent him to Padua to study those parts of philosophy that treat of happiness. Bianca knows not how near her fate lies--knows not that to-morrow the new master of music and languages will present himself at her father's door and try his skill in translation, and carry off the sweet prize under the very beards of the reverend wooers of Padua. [Illustration: CHURCH OF SANT' ANTONIO.] Oh horror! there comes sister Katharine! Blessed Virgin, help us to escape before she sees us, or there will be no peace in the house for a week. Come, nurse! quick! And Bianca flutters off in affright, and is lost in the crowd.