nny coast
like that of the French Riviera, and inhabited by people of the Far
East."

I think one might search the world over in vain to find just such
another fascinating street as that broad street of Ragusa, with its
exquisitely proportioned buildings that gave one a sense of gladness,
the extraordinary great fountain, the miniature palace of the Doges, the
noble churches and the colourful shops brilliant with strange,
embroidered costumes exposed for sale, Eastern jewelry, and quaint,
ferocious-looking weapons. And then, the queer signs over the shops, how
they added to the bewildering effect of unreality! Many of the letters
were more like hooks and eyes, buckles and bent pins, than respectable
members of an alphabet, even a foreign one. And the people who sold, and
the people who bought, were more wonderful than the shops themselves.

There were a few ordinary Europeans, though it was past the season now;
and plenty of handsome young Austrian officers in striking uniforms,
pale blue and bright green; but the crowd was an embroidered, sequined,
crimson and silver, gold and azure crowd, with here and there a
sheepskin coat, the brown habit of a monk, and the black veil of a nun.

Through half-open doorways we peeped into courtyards where fountains
flashed a diamond spray, all pink with sunset, between arcaded columns.
We saw the cathedral planted on the site of the chapel where Richard
Coeur de Lion worshipped; then, wheeling at the end of the street, we
returned as we had come while the rose-pink air was full of chiming
church bells and cries of gulls, whose circling wings were stained with
sunset colour.

Altogether this day had been one of the best days of my life. So good a
day, that it had made me sad; for I thought as I leaned on the rail of
my balcony after dinner, there could not be many days so radiant in my
life to come. Many thoughts came to me there, in the scented darkness,
and they were all tinged with a vague melancholy.

There was no moon, but the high dome of the sky was crusted with stars,
that flashed like an intricate embroidery of diamonds on velvet. From
the garden the scent of lilies came up with the warm breeze, so
poignant-sweet that it struck at my heart, and made it beat, beat with a
strange tremor in the beating that was like vague apprehension, and a
kind of joy as strange and as inexplicable.

Far away in the _place_ some one was singing a wild, barbaric air, with
a wonderful voi