is an unpretentious, ugly building of the chalet period of design. It has, however, much to recommend it in hot weather. It stands pleasantly surrounded by green trees, and its sides may be opened wide to cool evening breezes. The best seats are comfortable wicker armchairs placed so far apart that between them the longest legs in the world can be stretched

easily. Sitting so at one's ease, would it be reasonable to expect as well a performance of the

highest merit? The vaudeville and the operettas of midsummer would not perhaps stand much chance at

the summer capitals of the world, but the Lido audience, like most audi

ences in Italy, is

simply and easily The

pleased.

season of opera, real opera, with which the summer begins is more characteristically Italian, more interesting to the stranger. Italy remains the country where pathetically poor, struggling little en

foreigners may not yet have arrived in throngs, but the critics of the Venetian press vivaciously sharpen their pencils,

as

over

the grand air. An opera season in Italy is always an opera season. The stalls at the Lido may cost only three francs, the

to dine, as, indeed, it has been pleasant earlier just to lunch. There are restaurants in plenty, and generally tables un

der the trees or on a terrace, where snuffbrown awnings may be let down and heavy canvas curtains banded with white pulled when the sun is too hot. Perhaps the prettiest place to dine is at the big hotel, where the salle à manger is up two or three stories. The view extends on all sides, out to sea, north beyond the tiny pointed roofs of the capanne, westward to where Venice sparkles in the dying day. The food is excellent, the head waiter points out to you the young royal duke and his brother the prince who are dining at a nearby table. The Hungarian lady whom you had thought you perhaps might learn to love enters in an incredible dress of emerald green which, though it ought not to, suits her.

July 19th the Venetian populace streams across the famous bridge of boats over the broad canal to the great Palladian church of the Giudecca, or sits gaily at supper in the thousands of illuminated boats which lie tight-packed on the neighboring waters. But before the dawn

The waiter, bending attentively at your side, murmurs suggestions in French; he is far too fashionable a waiter to speak mere Italian, even to Italians. Your spirits rise and your bill discreetly mounts. There is a charming broad elevated terrace outside, with wicker chairs and tables, with trees, and blossoming plants in huge jars, and actual beds and parterres of flowers set here and there upon the tiled floor. From below drifts up the sound of music at the skating, and beyond the illuminated fountain tosses its parti-colored spray. It is all prettily gala and Aladdin'spalace-like.

There are night fêtes in Venice, too festegiamenti, with illuminations and fireworks and serenate upon the Grand Canal, to which one may drift from the Lido in a gondola. And, indeed, in the greatest of summer festivals, that of the Redentore, the Lido has its own traditional part. All through the night of

of

streaks the east it is the immemorial custom to cross the lagoon and watch the sunrise from the Lido sands. And, going back across the centuries, the most famous all Venetian festivals, that splendid sailing of the Doge in the Bucentaur to the Wedding of the Sea, was concluded by a landing at the Church of St. Nicolas on the Lido, where the great prince of the republic worshiped and venerated the relics of the saint.

The church, often affectionately called San Nicoletto-the little St. Nicolas-is the goal of one of the pleasantest of Lido walks. It lies near the old red brick fort which guards, or used to guard, the entrance to the port. Here in the old days they despatched armed fleets across the seas and welcomed conquering heroes home. Here, too, foreign princes were met by the representatives of the State, and here took place that famous reception of Henry III., King of France and Poland, when temples and arches rose to honor the republic's guest. Venetian galleries are filled with pictures of the great days of San Nicolo, of the crowded lagoon on Ascension Day, when the Sposalizio del Mare took place, and of the land thronged and gay for some popular festival. The little St. Nicolas is a sunny, sleepy, quiet place now, the fort is half disused, and the crowds now go to the landing of Sta. Elisabetta, the tram-cars, and the big hotels. Nicolas

lives with memories. Near his church in a corner of the fort is the queer, neglected little cemetery of the Protestants, where Byron wished that he might sleep one day. By the lagoon's edge is that queer burying-ground of the Venetian Jews, under whose cypresses one cold, gray morning George Sand, seated on an ancient tombstone, sobbed out to Alfred de Musset the confession of her unfaithfulness to him. Through these green ways of the Lido went Goethe, Shelley, half the figures that make modern letters memorable. The history of this stretch of dunes is a long one. The market - gardeners who in the warm hollows raise early vegetables for the Venetian markets only do what their grandfathers did, and their

grandfathers' grandfathers back to the Middle Ages. Malamocco prospered, was engulfed by the sea, was rebuilt, and is now ancient again. Yet through it all, Venice rises from the sea like a phenix from ashes, with renewed life and fresh impulses-even lately real-estate speculation along the Grand Canal has paid better than in some boom towns of our own West. She is the perpetual delight of the world, the carnival ground of the nations. Her renown is such that for her sake pilgrims come even in winter when she is bleak and shivering, when she is not Venice, and there is no Lido. They should learn that in summer the lotus blooms as nowhere else in Venetian gardens and upon the Lido's sands.

O

RDINARY men and women made up Carnavon's audience-shopkeepers, artisans, doctors, lawyers, clerks; and he held them breathless, spellbound. They leaned forward in their seats, every one of the two thousand of them avaricious of each vibrant word. In obedience to his genius they swayed with laughter, rewarded his pathos with tears, gasped at the daring of his climaxes. And yet he attacked what many of them held most dear-their God.

From the instant of Carnavon's appearance on the platform the audience had been his, conquered before he uttered a word by the potency of his presence, by the excellence of his physical self, by the magnificence of the animal. At his first utterance there seemed to arise a collective sigh, and thenceforward until he ceased speaking his hearers were not their own, but Carnavon's.

The showman moves his puppets with invisible threads, so that they dance and posture and contort themselves as he wills; Carnavon's invisible threads reached not from his fingers to the limbs of his audience, but from his mind to their brains and hearts and they comported themselves according to his desires. He was such an orator as the world hears once in many generations. He held sacred matters dangling before men and women in whom religion had been planted and watered from the cradle, yet under his relentless logic, his flashing wit, his acid irony, they shriveled and crackled to ashes and were sacred no more. Out of curiosity, men firm in their faith came to see and hear him; they departed doubting God, if not denying Him; groping for a foothold in a world he had deprived of its firm foundation.

This thing Carnavon did for a price for one thousand dollars a lecture.

After his address Carnavon was driven to his hotel, and went at once to his apartments. Scarcely had he made him

self comfortable, with a book to compose himself before retiring, when a knock sounded on his door. He closed his volume impatiently.

"Come in," he said.

The door opened reluctantly, and Carnavon was startled to see on his threshold an old man-embarrassed, hesitating -an old man white of hair, with patriarchal beard, clothed in the garb of the Salvation Army.

"Mr. Carnavon," he said, diffidently, "may I come in?"

Carnavon recovered himself and motioned to a chair. "How can I serve you?" he asked, rising with always ready courtesy.

The old man paused a moment before replying, and fumbled the vizor of his

cap.

"You can give a few of the many minutes yet before you to an old man whose course is nearly run," he said at length, and his voice was singularly gentle, "a few minutes leavened with patience."

Carnavon bowed assent, and again motioned to a chair, which the old man declined, but smiled in the declining.

"I heard you speak to-night," he said; then paused. "You were like the picture I have loved to make of young Saul of Tarsus before his feet trod the road to Damascus."

Carnavon was astonished. Not infrequently had he been compelled to listen privately to his opponents, to ministers of the gospel, to zealots who forced themselves upon him to convert or condemn. To all alike, whether they came in humility and love, or in heat and with invective on their lips, he had comported himself with the same dignity, the same courtesy, the same self-restraint. But none had been like this little old man in uniform; about none had hovered this spirit of gentle sweetness, of fatherly affection.

"Sir," continued the aged warrior of

God's Army of the Streets, "I have not come hoping to convert you to my belief. You are a greater man than I, blessed with greater gifts, and I could not prevail. I have come to ask you one question. Sir, are you sincere? Do you believe in your heart the things you say with your lips?"

structure to delight the fancy, stood among acres whose loveliness was wrought by art that aided and followed, rather than sought to lead nature. Within the house, wherever the eye rested, were paintings, statues, tapestries, furnishings that made one eager for a longer scrutiny. Vases of exquisite form, an

The old man regarded him steadily, his expression one almost of affection. "Sir," he said presently, "can perfect sincerity and one thousand dollars a lecture go hand in hand? When I am gone I ask you to consider this. One, believing in the Master, betrayed Him for thirty pieces of silver; you, not believing in Him, cannot betray Him, but you war on Him with the weapons He gave you for many times thirty pieces of silver. With your honest unbelief I have no quarrel; when you pass it on to others for gain you do an ill thing. God may forgive the honest doubt the thirty pieces of silver He cannot forget."

The stranger spoke as to one he loved, without rancor, softening criticism with gentleness. Carnavon was not offended; indeed, he was moved, but waited, making no reply.

Again the old man spoke, this time as he retired toward the door.

"Sir, I have liked to think of Saul as I see you. So have I pictured him when he went out in his young strength against the followers of the Master. He traveled his road to Damascus and saw his vision. One day a vision may come to you." He paused in the open door and stretched out his hand with the gesture of one who asks a thrice-valued favor. "If the vision comes, and I am yet alive, will you seek me out? I have not far to go before my race is done, but that would be sweet knowledge for me to carry yonder with me."

Carnavon rose, smiling the smile that drew men to him. "If Saul sees his vision and becomes Paul, he will come to you," he said.

Then the door closed on the ancient soldier of peace and he was gone.

Carnavon, having no heaven to look forward to, strove to make his plot of earth more beautiful. His home, a

ters, medallions wrought by the great Cellini himself, made splendid nook and niche. Indeed, Carnavon loved his medals with a particular affection; they were his avocation, they and their baser kindred born to commerce-coins.

No common coin-collector was he; not for age or rarity or country did he seek, but for beauty alone. A coin no bigger than the nail of one's finger, if it but presented the face of beauty, gave him greater joy than a canvas made immortal by Titian or a statue hewn by the chisel of the demigod Michael Angelo. In every human creature is a store of love; love in desuetude is unthinkable it must have an object, worthy or unworthy, virtuous or depraved. No woman had nestled into Carnavon's life; religion he rejected; his medals and coins remained, and he loved them for their loveliness.

ww

He sat in his library when a servant entered, saying: "There is a man at the door who asks to see you. He had no card."

"Ask him his business with me," directed Carnavon.

The man returned presently. "It is about a coin, sir—a rare coin, he says." "Show him in," said Carnavon. He arose as the caller entered. The

man

was of doubtful age; evidently a Hebrew. "Mr. Carnavon?" he asked. Carnavon nodded.

"I have brought for your inspection a rare, and I consider beautiful, coin. I understand you are interested in such.” "Yes," replied Carnavon, "provided they are beautiful."

The Hebrew drew a tiny parcel from his pocket, removed a paper wrapping, and disclosed a small metal box. Raising the cover of this, he extracted a small silver coin and extended it to Carnavon.

The master of the house accepted it and moved closer to the light, scrutinizing it jealously. A puzzled expression