"The Tiber, the yellow Tiber," she answered gaily. "You ought to remember, Arthur, that father read us the poem a few days ago about the guarding of the bridge. It made a shiver creep down my back when I thought of the three men holding the bridge against the army of their enemies. It stretched across this very river." "It was hundreds of years ago," Lucy went on, turning toward Tessa, "that those brave men saved the city. They kept the enemy from entering until the bridge was cut down. The last one stood on guard until he felt the supports give way. Then he cried out to the river: "'O Tiber, Father Tiber, to whom the Romans pray, A Roman's life, a Roman's arms take thou in charge this day.' "An instant afterward he jumped into the rushing stream and swam with all his might back to his people and the city he had saved." "Did he escape?" Beppo asked. "I should think his enemies would have killed him before he was able to get out of the reach of their weapons." "They admired his bravery so much they had mercy on him and did not try to hit him after he jumped into the water. Then they turned away, for they could not reach Rome now that the bridge was destroyed." As Lucy finished the story she could not help saying to herself, "I do hope Tessa and Beppo will be able to go to school and study about this grand country of theirs. They love it as dearly as I love America, but they do not know as much of the history of its great men as I do now." Her father was thinking at the same time, "What a pity it is there are so many poor and ignorant people in Italy. How I wish the children of to-day could grow up and make the country what it was once." The sun was shining so brightly by this time that the girls had to raise their parasols to shade their eyes as they looked along the crowded street. It was filled with carriages all going in the same direction as themselves. The sidewalks, too, were packed closely. There were all kinds of people; lords and ladies, priests in their shovel hats, cardinals in their elegant robes. All would soon enter the great church. Their faces looked happy and full of joy. "Shall we not be crowded worse than we were last night?" asked Mrs. Gray. She looked a little bit worried. "O no, you need have no fear about that," her husband replied. "Forty thousand people can easily gather in Saint Peter's and then it will not be full, by any means." The carriage stopped in front of a long covered archway built of marble. They stepped down and, entering it, soon found themselves in the court in front of the church. The church itself is built in the shape of an immense cross, and where the four lines of the cross meet, there is a huge dome overhead. "I can see the dome of Saint Peter's from my home on the mountain," Tessa said to Lucy. "If I were far away in another part of the world, I am sure I should picture it in my mind whenever I thought of Rome." CHAPTER V. SAINT PETER'S