stirs the mind of the listeners, mere children of to-day though they be, to a faith akin to that which conceived the tales. Where is there place for facts in such a scene, in such an experience? Or, if facts must be, are not all that are requisite easily to be gleaned from the poems themselves? Why state that Francesca is the daughter of an American artist, or that she has spent her life in Italy, when the artist inheritance, the Italian atmosphere, breathes in every poem our little book contains? Why make mention even of Ruskin's enthusiastic heralding of her work, when the very spirit of it is so essentially that which the great idealist was seeking all his life that he could scarcely have failed to discover and applaud it had it been ever so retiring, ever so hidden? Nor does it matter that the Alexander home chances to be in Florence rather than in Venice, since it is Italy itself that lives in Francesca's work; nor that she is Protestant rather than Catholic, when it is religion pure and simple, unrestricted by any creed, that makes vital each line she writes or draws.

Imagine a quiet, green-latticed room in Venice overlooking the Grand Canal whose waters keep time in gently audible lappings to the lilt of the verse,—that lilt that is apparent even in the printed line, but which only a voice trained to Italian cadences can perfectly give. Imagine that voice half chanting, half reciting, these old, old legends, and with an absolute sincerity of conviction which stirs the mind of the listeners, mere children of to-day though they be, to a faith akin to that which conceived the tales. Where is there place for facts in such a scene, in such an experience? Or, if facts must be, are not all that are requisite easily to be gleaned from the poems themselves? Why state that Francesca is the daughter of an American artist, or that she has spent her life in Italy, when the artist inheritance, the Italian atmosphere, breathes in every poem our little book contains? Why make mention even of Ruskin's enthusiastic heralding of her work, when the very spirit of it is so essentially that which the great idealist was seeking all his life that he could scarcely have failed to discover and applaud it had it been ever so retiring, ever so hidden? Nor does it matter that the Alexander home chances to be in Florence rather than in Venice, since it is Italy itself that lives in Francesca's work; nor that she is Protestant rather than Catholic, when it is religion pure and simple, unrestricted by any creed, that makes vital each line she writes or draws.

Yet of the poems, if not of the writer, there remained still something to learn, and accordingly a letter of 

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