At the sunlit threshold a woman sat sewing. Before her was a table with photographs, and a stalk of lilies in a blue earthern pitcher upon it. The sun streamed over the sunken pavement to the neglected little altar with its coarse mosaics and paper flowers, over the rickety little pulpit and the traces of Byzantine gilding, and over the quaint old effigy of the founder. It fell, soft and brilliant and caressing, on the frescoes of Giotto. They were as pure and fresh and holy as the very lilies; and as the lilies revealed the innermost meanings of Sant' Antonio's Day to the hearts of the worshippers, so the frescoes symbolized the deepest reverence, the hidden longing of the whole brilliant, noisy Middle Age life of Padua. Their very crudeness, their nakedness, their barrenness of accessory, their sharp, brilliant coloring, cause them to stand out in strong relief. Never did the mystery of Holy Writ receive better interpretation than at the hands of Giotto. The characters in the sacred writings stand out sharp, bold, naked, crude, and Giotto caught the bare emotional and intellectual nature of every personage. He painted their souls and not their bodies, and therefore he painted well. Each character might stand for the personification of some one emotion. What can be more full of sweetness and humble adoration than the Annunciation! what more awe-inspiring, more faithful in its horror, than the miracle of Lazarus, where the corpse, swathed in its bandages, stands upright among the multitude with its hollow eyes gazing in mingled gratitude and terror at the Saviour! what more full of grotesque sternness than the Last Judgment! what more nobly imagined, more faithfully executed, than the Last Supper! The simplicity and sublimity of revelation shine down from them, and make the beholder speechless with the thought of divine love. Let us go no farther. Let us end our holiday here. Under the altar sleeps the old knight who built the chapel, and outside the door the peasants sit upon the threshold of his palace. The butterflies saunter in on the sun-filled breeze and flutter about the lilies on the table and the painted lilies on the wall. The dark sweet faces shine down from the frescoes, as they have shone down upon the worshippers through the ages, with a blessing on their holy, sentient mouths. A deep reverent hush is in the air--a nameless expectancy fills our hearts. We stand on the threshold of all that is best and worthiest in the human life of centuries, with the shades of the great and noble pressing about us. The announcing angel has brought unto us the lilies of revelation, and we feel with glad humility that we are for ever one with all the high souls that have joined earth with heaven. CHARLOTTE ADAMS. A LAW UNTO HERSELF. CHAPTER VI.