ed you, but you've helped me, because I only have the strength to run when I'm carrying an innocent child on my back! You see, now I even dare step under the rays of the lamp before the Madonna picture. I can carry you anywhere except into a church, but as long as you're with me I can stand outside and look in through the open door. Don't get down off my back! If you do I shall be dead, just as you see me every day in the Porta Rossa!"

"I'll stay with you, my blessed animal," said the little boy, and then they rushed at a dizzy pace through the streets of Florence to the church of Santa Croce in the Piazza. The great folding door swung open, and the altar lights streamed through the church and out into the deserted Piazza.

A strange light blazed from a sculptured tomb in the left aisle; thousands of twinkling stars formed a sort a halo around it. The tomb was surmounted by a coat of arms, a red ladder on blue ground, gleaming like fire. This was the tomb of Galileo. It is a simple monument; but the red ladder on the blue ground is a symbol of Art, meaning that the pathway to fame is always upward on a flaming ladder. All genius soars to Heaven like the prophet Elijah.

Every statue on the costly sarcophagus in the right aisle of the church seemed endowed with life. Here were Michelangelo and Dante, with the laurel wreath on his brow; Alfieri and Macchiavelli rested here side by side - the pride of Italy. It is a very beautiful church, far more beautiful than, although not as large as, the marble Cathedral of Florence.

It seemed as if the marble raiment moved, as if those great figures once more raised their heads in the night, mid song and music, and gazed toward the altar glowing with many lights, where the white-robed altar boys swung the golden censers, while the fragrance of incense filled the church and streamed out into the open square.

The boy stretched his hands toward the lights, but at that moment the metal pig galloped on again, and he had to hold tightly. The wind whistled in his ears, and he heard the church door creak on its hinges as it closed. But immediately he seemed to lose consciousness, and felt an icy coldness - and then opened his eyes.

It was morning, and he had half slipped from the metal pig, which stood in its usual place in the Porta Rossa. Fright and terror seized the boy as he thought of the woman he called mother. Yesterday she had sent him out to get money, and he had none; he was hungry and thirsty. Once more he flung his arms around the metal pig's neck, kissed its snout, nodded to it, and walked off to one of the narrowest streets, which was only wide enough for a heavily laden ass. A big iron-studded door stood half open; he entered it and mounted a brick staircase, with dirty walls and a greasy rope for a handrail, until he reached an open gallery hung with rags. A flight of steps led into a courtyard with a fountain, from which water was drawn up to the different floors by means of a thick iron wire, with buckets hung side by side. Sometimes the pulley jerked, and the buckets danced in the air and splashed water all over the courtyard. Another dilapidated brick staircase led still higher, and two sailors, who were Russians, ran merrily down and almost upset the poor boy. A strongly built woman with thick black hair, though no longer yo

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