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need of aught. The rest of my dower, and all that I may subsequently become possessed of, I leave in equal portions to my children, should I have any. When I depart this life, I wish to be wrapped in the habit of the Madonna della Conception, for to that guild I belong." Lucrezia's phrase about her children, "se ne haverò," leaves some doubt as to whether any had yet been born, or whether those born had died. A letter written by Gabriele to his kinsman, Lelio Montalerio, and dated August 19, 1570, sufficiently explains the position of the family at that date. "I have two sons," he writes, "one sixteen rising seventeen, the other eight; and I have four daughters, one fifteen, another twelve, another ten, and another seven. This makes up the half dozen. Another half dozen are in heaven. That makes twelve in all, and now we intend to rest, if so it shall please God. And may he grant us to live all together till they be old enough to govern themselves without our aid." Under their mother's guidance the Giolito family was brought up in all the exercises of piety. Gabriele's friends in the world of religious letters bear testimony to their appreciation of her rule. Fra Remigio Fiorentino dedicated his translation of the Imitatio to Lucrezia, that she might be able to place it in the hands of her youthful family. Tommaso Porcacchi sent a reproduction of the same work to Lucrezia, with a letter in which he praises the piety and discipline of the Giolito household, "which seems a sainted Paradise, made glorious by the beauty and goodness of those little angels who day by day sing psalms and lauds and hymns to the honor of God;" and, making all allowance for the florid emphasis of the period, we can quite believe that the family of Gabriele was distinguished for its piety. We find a sober confirmation of the religious atmosphere in which they lived in the words of Bonaventura Gonzaga, who records the daily celebra

tion of the divine offices in a chamber set apart in the house for that purpose.

Among the daughters born to Gabriele and Lucrezia, the one of whom we hear most was called Fenice, doubtless in memory of the famous sign over Gabriele's house. She was born in 1555, and, under her mother's care, became the chief centre of the religious fervor which characterized the family. When a little girl, seven years old, she one day asked her father's friend, Fra Remigio, to recommend a work which should teach her how to acquire and keep the divine grace. Remigio replied by publishing, and dedicating to Fenice, Girolamo Sirino's Modo dele d'Acquistare la Divina Gratia. Fenice's pious bent of mind acquired force with her growing years, until she at last announced her resolve to become a nun. This occasioned a display of Gabriele's sound sense. Writing to Montalerio, he says: "My eldest girl is fifteen years old, and God has inspired her with the wish to be a nun. Though it is now two years that she has been begging me to place her in a convent, I have always refused my consent until she should have reached a ripe age and shown me that her resolve is permanent. As yet she is at home with the others. But she is to enter a convent for three or four months, and then I will bring her home again for a month more, to see whether her resolve is firm, and whether she likes a convent better than her own home." The experiment was tried; but Fenice's resolve held firm, and she became a nun in the Benedictine convent of Santa Marta.

If Gabriele's sons were employed in their father's business at all, it was not as partners; for Gabriele's name alone continues to appear on the Giolitan titlepages till his death. There is a note of lassitude in the first letter to Montalerio from which we have quoted, and, as it were, a summing up of his life's work by a man who felt that his career was drawing to a close. Old age and wea

riness were creeping over Gabriele, and showed their presence in the gradual relaxing of that activity which had characterized his press. As to the exact date and cause of Giolito's death we have no information. But it appears that he escaped the plague, which was raging in 1576 and 1577, only to die the year after its cessation. The Corporation Rolls of the Booksellers, Printers, and Binders prove that Gabriele was already dead before the 3d of March, 1578. Nor did his wife survive him long. In the year 1581, their sons Giovanni and Giampolo raised, in the church of Santa Marta, where Fenice, their sister, was a nun, a monument to the memory of Gabriele and Lucrezia, with this inscription:

GABRIELI IOLITO DE FERRARIIS NOBILI VIRO, ET INTEGERRIMO, LVCRETIÆQE BINÆ MATRI HONESTISSIMÆ IOANNES ET IOANNES PAVLVS FRATRES PARENTIBVS OPTIMIS ET B. M. SIBI IPSIS, AC POSTERIS MONVMENTV HỌC PONENDVM CVRARĪT ANNO DNI 1581.

Giovanni Giolito, the elder son, assumed the direction of the business; but in the brief space of ten years he too died, and Giampolo became the head of the house. He found the business little to his taste. He allowed the press to remain idle throughout entire years at a time; and the appearance of the Giolitan editions was more and more infrequent. Indeed, it would appear that soon after his brother's death Giampolo resolved to withdraw from printing and publishing; and for that purpose he issued the only catalogue of Giolitan editions ever put forth by the firm. The prices were added in order to facilitate the disposal of the stock. In the year 1606, while the republic was in the very heat of its famous quarrel with Paul V., the Giolitan editions finally ceased, and the famous press, after a brilliant career of seventy years, no longer occupied a place in the annals of Venetian printing.

Horatio F. Brown.

HER PRESENCE.

I LONG in vain by day, but when the night
With all its jewels stars the waiting sky,
And vagrant fireflies like stray souls flit by,
She seeks me in the tender waning light,
And sits beside me there, a Presence white;

Her eyes yearn for me, and her dear lips sigh,
But if to clasp her cold soft hands I try
The shadows deepen, and she fades from sight.

O lost and dear! - by what strange, devious way
Does she escape? for fain I too would flee
From all the hollow pageantry of life,

And with her through immortal meadows stray.
The free winds mock my quest, stars laugh to see,
And I wait helpless till Death end the strife.

Louise Chandler Moulton.

THE DESCENDANT OF THE DOGES.

I.

He was not a descendant of all the Doges, only of one, but it pleased Miss Goodwin to speak of the boy as if he were directly related to each illustrious head of the Venetian republic. Miss Goodwin also spoke of him as il mio amico; his family and the neighbors spoke of him as Marcantonio.

Not far from where the bridge of the Rialto crosses the Grand Canal stands a magnificent palace, marked with two stars before its name in the strangers' guidebook. This was the former home of the particular Doge from whom Marcantonio had descended. Marcantonio himself lived in a narrow alley behind the garden of a house in which Miss Goodwin, the American signorina, was comfortably established for a long Italian

summer.

Miss Goodwin sat in her room one May afternoon, the faded green shutters tightly closed. According to the custom of the country, the woman behind the shutters should have been taking an afterdinner nap, but she never slept in the daytime, not even in Italy. Moreover, ever since the English lady had publicly declared at the table that, to her ears, the music of a mandolin was much like the music of a mosquito, Miss Goodwin had felt obliged to practice when the English lady was out. She was out now; gone, with paint-box and sketch-block, in search of a certain pink door having an old stone head watching over it, and a mass of green showing from a concealed garden. Herr Lindemann, the German artist, had mentioned the pink door at dinner as a simple and suitable subject for a water-color. Herr Lindemann himself was busy before his easel in a shady corner, close by the water's edge, on the other side of the canal. Miss

Goodwin had noticed him only a few moments before, as she leaned out of her high window. She had noticed likewise a small boy standing on tiptoe and stretching his neck in a dangerous manner, that he might get a nearer view of the picture growing on the canvas. The picture represented a wall rising from the water, and hung with a honeysuckle vine in bloom. Behind the wall were roof-tops with quaint chimneys, and behind the roof-tops was a church tower, about which birds were flying. When the light was favorable there were always artists sitting in the corner, under the shade of the bridge, and it was curious to see what different pictures these artists made. Some put in a great many birds, others only two or three. Very often the birds looked exactly as if they were flying; very often, also, they looked like nothing but little black specks on the canvas.

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Miss Goodwin, in her pleasantly darkened room, sat steadily practicing the Baby Polka. Hitherto she had been much encouraged by the singing of the gondoliers below her window,- a gentle, subdued singing, politely adapted to the time in which the signorina was able to perform; but to-day, when the polka was going with such delightful smoothness that there would have been no need of restraining one's singing from motives of good manners, there was no one to sing. With five exceptions, all Venice seemed to have fallen asleep. The five exceptions were the German artist and the boy tiptoeing about him, the English lady painting the pink door, the American signorina practicing the Baby Polka, and the tortoise-shell cat on her way to visit the American signorina, it being the tortoise-shell cat's habit to pay this visit precisely at three every afternoon.

It was now two minutes before three.

Herr Lindemann had just put the birds into the picture, and the birds looked, every one of them, as if they were merrily whirling around the tower, when there came the sound of a splash followed by a shriek. Miss Goodwin threw open the blinds. She saw a sailor plunging into the canal on one side, and Herr Lindemann pulling the small boy out on the other. She saw a boat dart forth from under a bridge, and a policeman, with a sleepy frown, lazily shaking a little figure, as it stood dripping on the pavement. She saw the figure, made slightly less dripping by the shaking, disappear in the nearest doorway. All these things happened in the first minute; in the second, Herr Lindemann was quietly adding a deeper bloom to the honeysuckle vine of his picture, the boat and the policeman had vanished, and the tortoise-shell cat came creeping composedly along the ledge that ran beneath the roof. It must be a very disagreeable feeling to fall into the water," said Miss Goodwin to her visitor, "especially if one is not able to swim."

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The tortoise-shell cat blinked assentingly, and the two sat in silence considering the subject, until the woman spoke again.

"If you will excuse me," she said, “I should like to go over to the Lido."

Certainly, by all means," answered the tortoise-shell cat; "don't let me detain you," or at least Miss Goodwin understood this to be the answer.

II.

The baby Angelica, crowing and cooing in her father's arms, headed the procession. If the other members of the family had not been so old, they would have crowed also. They felt like crowing. Under the circumstances they were obliged to content themselves with cooing gently in soft Italian. Marcantonio, made wise by the accident of the preceding

day, was on the way to his first swimming lesson. He intended to live in the canal during the rest of the summer, coming out occasionally to eat and sleep, and to watch the artists painting the birds.

The family procession grew larger as it approached the bridge. Angelica's crowing and cooing attracted as much attention as if she had been a man with a drum. Angelica was known in the neighborhood as a very winsome baby.

In the corner where the German artist had sat the afternoon before, broad steps led down to the water. It being high tide, only three of these were now visible. Upon the upper ones the family seated itself: the old grandmother with the contented eyes; the mother with Angelica; the two aunts, each wearing a cinnamon-colored shawl over her head; and the four little sisters, holding one another by the hand. On the lower step stood the boy with his father. The former had a rope about his waist, and a board, which the father had taken from a boat, floated near by in the water. Overhead the sky was aglow with rosecolor.

But what had happened to Marcantonio? He had never had such a dreadful feeling before in all his life. He wished the lady sitting in the balcony window of the house opposite would go away.

He wished the women would not linger as they crossed the bridge. He wished the family were at home in the alley. He wished the rose-colored sky would suddenly grow black, and the rain come down in torrents. A gentleman joined the lady at the balcony window. It was the German artist, who could make such beautiful birds. The women lingering on the bridge increased in number. The sky changed to a deep

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knew just what to do with his arms and legs, how to hold his head, and how to breathe; but swimming on dry land was a very different thing from this. How was it possible to throw out one's arms when one was clinging to a board, and how was it possible to let go the board when there was nothing certain under one's feet?

"Never mind," said the father, as the boy stood again on the lower step, "the next time we shall do better." But matters were not improved at the second trial, and at the third tears and despair had grown threefold in quantity, and hope was threefold less.

The father wrapped a cloak around the boy, and the procession turned homeward, the four little sisters still holding one another by the hand, and the old grandmother cheerfully repeating, "Things might be worse, things might be much worse." But all the rose had faded from the sky.

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Marcantonio could by no means agree with his grandmother in thinking things might be worse. Throughout the next day he sat mournfully stringing black beads, and each bead seemed to him like a gloomy shape of bitter disappointment. Late in the afternoon the German artist appeared in search of the grandmother. He wanted her to come to his studio on the following morning, and he particularly wished her to make no changes in her faded clothing.

The grandmother laughed, and said she knew enough to come as old and faded as possible. The signor need have no fear.

"Why does the gentleman wish thee to come old and faded, grandmother dearest?" asked Marcantonio.

"They say age makes things more beautiful, age softens the colors."

"Then it is beautiful to be old, grandmother mine?" observed the boy thoughtfully.

"That depends on many things," returned the woman. “If one is made of

lace, or china, or rich cloth, or carved wood, then it is very beautiful."

At this point in the conversation Miss Goodwin wandered into the alley. She was in search of a short way home, and as she was constantly in search of short ways of reaching places, she was constantly going astray. She too stopped before Marcantonio's doorway.

"It is very warm," she said to the grandmother. "Do you think it will grow much warmer? Is not this the child who is learning to swim?”

The mother came out with Angelica, and a chair for the signorina. The two aunts and the four little sisters, joining the group, settled themselves in a picturesque family circle.

"If I were President of the United States," said Miss Goodwin, with a very friendly smile, "I should make a law compelling every one to learn to swim, or else to be beheaded; but I would give the citizens plenty of time in which to learn. The older ones should be sent to Venice, because it is easy to swim in the Adriatic, there is so much salt in the sea, and there is also no danger of a chill, which is a great advantage, especially if one is troubled with rheumatism. Things ought to be made easy for old people. But one is never too old to learn. When I saw this boy fall into the water, two days ago," and Miss Goodwin placed her hand on Marcantonio's shoulder, "I thought, 'What is to prevent my falling in twenty times daily, this being a place where a near-sighted person is always in danger?' I shall go to the Lido every afternoon now for a swimming lesson; I shall learn to swim,

I have made up my mind to learn." “I had made up my mind to dive from the top of the bridge last evening," remarked the boy, somewhat cheered by the conversation. "Does the signorina expect to be able to do that?”

Miss Goodwin said she had not thought of it, but that it would certainly be a fine thing to do. Then she asked what the

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