We cannot study the story of any Umbrian town without experiencing the feeling that it belongs to the past and was built in an age, which can only dimly be realised in the pages of old chronicles, by a people who were ever hurrying to battle, bent on glory and conquest for their cities. The character of the inhabitants has changed, and though the wonderful little cities they built upon the hills remain much as in mediæval times, they have a peaceful and quiet loveliness of their own which could not have existed in those days of fevered struggle and unrest. The word Assisi brings up, even to those who have seen the town but for a day, a host of sunlit memories; of way-side shrines with fading frescoes, whence Umbrian Madonnas smile down upon the worshippers; of ravines and forest trees; of vineyards where the peasants greeted you; of convent and Basilica glowing golden and crimson in the sudden changes from afternoon to sun-down, as they lie bathed in the last rays of light upon the hill above the darkness of the valley. All these things and many more pass through our minds, but the picture would be incomplete if we fail to recall two days in August when the undying power of St. Francis once more reaches across the centuries, arousing the people to a sudden return to mediæval times of expiation, prayer and strong belief in the power of a great saint's intercession. [Illustration: AN ASSISAN GARDEN IN VIA GARIBALDI] The very mention of a feast savours in Italy of delightful things, of songs, of crowds of happy-looking people bent on the pleasures of a holiday as well as on praying for the good of their souls, and as a feast at Assisi sounded fairer than any other, we determined to become for the moment pilgrims and seek with them for the "Pardon of St. Francis." So as the days drew near to August we stood once more on the terrace of the Hotel Subasio, and as we felt the cool air of the early morning coming from the mountains, long days of interminable heat at Florence were forgotten, and Assisi, with her gardens full of sweet-scented summer flowers, her streets resounding only with the plash of the water of many fountains, seemed to us indeed to possess more beauty, variety and brilliancy of colour than we had realised before. Never had the nights been so still as in that late July, when the peasants had gathered in their harvest and were waiting for the time of vintage; only the shrill notes of the crickets answered each other occasionally along the valley, and the frogs croaked on the margin of the rills below the town. But soon this calmness ceased as the country roused itself for the annual spell of madness; there were voices in the vineyards during the night, bonfires in the plains, and a general tremor of excitement filled men and animals, setting the thin Assisan cocks crowing at unearthly hours in the morning. A night of sounds and wakefulness preceded a day when the people of all the