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eters and attended by the Cardinals and the ambassadors and other dignitaries in the full dress of their ceremonial costumes and their orders, the reality is less impressive. Some feminine enthusiasts fare forth at the heroic hour of eight, although the procession is not announced to pass until a quarter after ten (which in Italy should be translated as a quarter after eleven, at the earliest, if not after twelve, which would be the more probable), in order to secure good standing room. For everybody is to stand--of course, comfort being a thing conspicuous only by its absence in Italy! Those of us too well aware by the experiences of previous visits to Italy that no Italian function was ever on time, from the starting of a railway train to the crowning of a king, only betake ourselves to the glories of the Palazzo Vaticano at the hour named, and we have then--as one's prophetic soul or his commonplace memory warned him--to wait more than an hour wedged into a dense crowd of all nationalities, none of whom seem at this particular juncture, at least, to be at all overburdened with good manners. And what went they out for to seek? Instead of an impressive spectacle--a thing to remember for a lifetime--one merely sees Pius X walking, surrounded by his Cardinals in a group,--not a procession,--he alone in the centre with his mitre on his head,--the whole scene hardly lasting over a minute, and as his Holiness is not as tall as most of his Cardinals, he is almost hidden from view. It had been rumored that the Pope was to be borne aloft in the Papal chair, preceded by the traditional white fan and the silver trumpets; but the present Pope is temperamentally inclined to minimize all the ceremonials investing his sacred office. Yet there is always a thrill in entering the Vatican. To ascend that splendid _Scala Regia_ designed by Bernini, with one of the most ingeniously treated perspective effects to be found, it may be, in the entire world; to cross this _Scala_ with its interesting frescoes by Salviati and others; to see at near range the picturesque Swiss Guard,--surely any pretext to enjoy such a morning is easily accepted of whatever occurrence one may grasp in order to obtain the hour. One curious feature of the past is to-day equally in evidence in Rome. Strolling at any time into the Church of San Agostino one beholds a curious spectacle. It is in this church that is placed the beautiful bronze statue of the Virgin
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