tle parleying and many inquiries as to
whether I was perfectly sure that I myself wished to go, it was decided
that I might do so.

We passed through several streets of more or less considerable houses,
and at last turning round a corner we came upon a large piazza, at the
end of which was a magnificent building, of a strange but noble
architecture and of great antiquity. It did not open directly on to the
piazza, there being a screen, through which was an archway, between the
piazza and the actual precincts of the bank. On passing under the
archway we found ourselves upon a green sward, round which there ran an
arcade or cloister, while in front of us uprose the majestic towers of
the bank and its venerable front, which was divided into three deep
recesses and adorned with all sorts of marbles and many sculptures. On
either side there were beautiful old trees wherein the birds were busy by
the hundred, and a number of quaint but substantial houses of singularly
comfortable appearance; they were situated in the midst of orchards and
gardens, and gave me an impression of great peace and plenty.

Indeed it had been no error to say that this building was one which
appealed to the imagination; it did more--it carried both imagination and
judgment by storm. It was an epic in stone and marble; neither had I
ever seen anything in the least comparable to it. I was completely
charmed and melted. I felt more conscious of the existence of a remote
past. One knows of this always, but the knowledge is never so living as
in the actual presence of some witness to the life of bygone ages. I
felt how short a space of human life was the period of our own existence.
I was more impressed with my own littleness, and much more inclinable to
believe that the people whose sense of the fitness of things was equal to
the upraising of so serene a handiwork, were hardly likely to be wrong in
the conclusions they might come to upon any subject. My feeling
certainly was that the currency of this bank must be the right one.

We crossed the sward and entered the building. If the outside had been
impressive the inside was even more so. It was very lofty and divided
into several parts by walls which rested upon massive pillars; the
windows were filled with glass, on which had been painted the principal
commercial incidents of the bank for many ages. In a remote part of the
building there were men and boys singing; this was the only disturbi