With Thee, Lord, reign forever and
ever."




CHAPTER VII.

[Illustration]

YULE-TIDE IN ITALY

"O'er mournful lands and bare, without a sound,
Gently, in broadening flakes, descends the snow
In velvet layers. Beneath its pallid glow,
Silent, immaculate, all earth is bound."

-_Edmondo de Amicis._


Italy! the land of Dante, Petrarch, Bocaccio, Raphael, Michelangelo,
and a host of other shining lights in literature and art!

Can we imagine any one of them as a boy watching eagerly for Christmas
to arrive; saving up money for weeks to purchase some coveted dainty
of the season; rushing through crowded streets on Christmas Eve to
view the Bambino, and possibly have an opportunity to kiss its pretty
bare toe? How strange it all seems! Yet boys to-day probably do many
of the same things they did in the long ago during the observance of
this holy season in historic, artistic Italy.