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altars, stairways, and columns, and out-of-the-way corners lighted through the stained glass of manycolored windows. There are, in all, about five hundred columns in and about this church.

In front, over the principal entrance, we see those four famous bronze horses of St. Mark's, of which you have already read in ST. NICHOLAS.* If the Venetian children, or even grown people, do not know what a horse is like, all they have to do is to look up at these high-mettled coursers, which, although rather stiff of limb, have been great travelers, having seen Rome and Constantinople, and even visited Paris.

As we come out again into the Piazza, we shall be greatly tempted to stay here, for it is a lively place. We certainly must stop long enough to allow some of our younger companions to feed the pigeons of St. Mark, which, if they see any of us with the little paper cornucopias filled with corn, which are sold here to visitors, will come to us by the hundreds, settling on our heads and shoulders, and crowding about us like a flock of chickens. For more than six hundred years pigeons have been cared for and fed here by the people of Venice, and as these which we see are the direct descendants of the pigeons of the thirteenth century, they belong to very old families indeed.

To the right of the cathedral is the Doges' palace, and this we shall now visit. We pass under a beautiful double colonnade into a large interior court, where, at about four o'clock in the afternoon, we may see numbers of Venetian girls and women coming to get water from a celebrated well or cistern here. Each girl has two bright

copper pails, in which she carries the water, and we shall find it amusing to watch them for a few minutes. There are two finely sculptured bronze cisterns in the yard, but these are not used now. We then go up a grand staircase, and ascend still higher by a stairway called the Scala d'Oro, once used only by the nobles of Venice. We now wander through the great halls and rooms where the doges once held their courts and councils. Enormous pictures decorate the walls. One of them, by Tintoretto, is said to be the largest oil-painting in the world. We shall take a look into the dreadful dungeons of which we read so much in Venetian history, and we shall cross the Bridge of Sighs, although we can not enter the prison on the other side; the doors there are closed and locked, the building still being used as a prison.

Ever so much more shall we do in Venice. We shall go in gondolas, and see the old dockyards where the ships of the Crusaders were fitted out; we shall visit the Academy of Fine Arts, where we may study some of the finest works of that most celebrated of all Venetians, the painter Titian; we shall take a steamboat to the Lido, an island out at sea where the citizens go to bathe and to breathe the sea air; we shall go out upon the broad Giudecca, a wide channel between Venice and one of its suburbs; we shall explore churches and palaces; and, above all, we shall float by daylight and by moonlight, if there happens to be a moon, over the canals, under the bridges, and between the tall and picturesque walls and palaces, which make Venice the strange and delightful city that she is.

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DAINTY frosty paintings

On the glass:

PANE-PICTURES.

Wooded slopes and forests,

Mountain pass,

All in snowy splendor

Glistening white,— Clear across them shining Sunbeams bright!

By A. C.

We within the cities
Cannot see

Winter's royal landscape,

Field and tree.

But he paints them for us,
Hill and plain,

In the dainty pictures
On the pane!

ST. NICHOLAS DOG STORIES.

FOR several years, ST. NICHOLAS has been collecting material for a series of stories, sketches, and anecdotes, illustrating the intelligence, sagacity, devotion, and usefulness of what the great naturalist Cuvier calls "the completest, the most singular, and the most useful conquest ever made by man". the domestic dog. For ages the dog has been the friend and helper of man. Thousands of years ago the hound, the greyhound, and the watchdog were kept in Egyptian homes. More than this, the dog was worshiped, under the name of Anubis, as the god of the Nile, and the city of Cynopolis was built in its honor. The fifty war-dogs of Corinth saved that famous Grecian city by detecting and defeating a night attack, though every dog died in the fight. The splendid Molossian dogs of Alexander the Great would fight only with lions. The plucky little spaniel of William the Silent, saved the life of that great prince from his foes. The dogs of St. Malo were the only garrison of that beleaguered city. other incidents could be related, telling of the watchfulness, self-denial, and heroism of this faithful animal, which a poet has well called,

And many

"The joy, the solace, and the aid of man."

The world's literature is full of testimonials to the devotion and sagacity of the dog. Boys and girls would find Robinson Crusoe almost as uninteresting without his dog as without his man Friday, and they could better spare some of the adventurous doings of the Swiss Family Robinson, than the faithful Turk and Juno, who were at once the protectors, the hunters, and the packhorses of that now classic family. And many a boy and girl,

indeed, might be drawn to the reading of the great authors did they but know of the prominent and delightful part that the dog plays in literature. There is Argus, the hound of Ulysses, of whom Homer writes, who knew his master after twenty years of separation; there are the dogs that Shakspere speaks of in many of his plays; while the pages of Scott fairly echo with the barkings and bayings of the dogs Fangs in "Ivanhoe" and Roswal in "The Talisman," Bevis in "Woodstock" and Juno in "The Antiquary," Wasp and Yarrow and Plato and Hobbie in "Guy Mannering," brave Lufra in the "Lady of the Lake,"

"Whom from Douglas' side

Nor bribe nor threat could e'er divide; The fleetest hound in all the North,"-

these and many more give interest and excitement to the stories of this foremost lover of the dog. And who would wish to give up the dogs of Dickens: Diogenes, the pet of Florence Dombey, "a blundering, ill-favored, bullet-headed dog, with hair all over his eyes, and a comic nose, an inconsistent tail, and a gruff voice"; Jip in "David Copperfield," the black-and-tan pet of Dora, the "child wife," and Bull's Eye, the faithful dog of the ruffian Bill Sykes, in that gloomiest of gloomy boy stories, "Oliver Twist." Dr. John Brown's "Rab" is the hero of that most charming of dog stories, "Rab and his Friends," and is a dog that every boy and girl should know, Wolf, the companion and friend of poor Rip Van Winkle, "as henpecked as his master," is as much a feature in Irving's well-known story as is lazy, good-for-nothing Rip himself. And so, from that very disreputable Snarleyow, in Captain Marryat's

while

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story, to the noble Royal in Annie Keany's "Blair Castle" a book which Mr. Ruskin says contains "the best picture of a perfect child, and of the next best thing in creation, a perfect dog"-many a book now famous in the world's literature will be found to owe much of its fame to the dog that is one of its leading characters.

But "Truth is stranger than fiction," and it is probable that each one of the dogs that become familiar to us in the works of the great story-writers, is a picture of some dog that the story-writer knew. And as you read the ST. NICHOLAS dog stories, you will agree that the dogs of real life can be as wonderful and as interesting as the dogs of fiction, and that they are as capable of devotion, watchfulness and care-taking as was Flush, the pretty brown spaniel so dear to Mrs. Browning, and of which she wrote a well-known poem,, including these stanzas:

"But of thee it shall be said,
This dog watched beside a bed
Day and night unweary;
Watched within a curtained room,
Where no sunbeam brake the gloom
Round the sick and dreary.

"Other dogs in thymy dew

Tracked the hare, and followed through
Sunny moor or meadow;
This dog only crept and crept
Next a languid cheek that slept,
Sharing in the shadow.

"And this dog was satisfied

If a pale thin hand would glide Down his dew-laps slopingWhich he pushed his nose within, After platforming his chin

On the palm left open."

The mute loyalty of pretty little Flush has been shown by many another dog, and grat

itude for favors is a trait often exhibited by dogs. A remarkable instance of it is given in the following sketch, with which this series opens.

I. GIPSEY.-THE BIOGRAPHY OF A DOG. BY THOMAS W. KNOX.

ONE day, several years ago, a gentleman, in company with a friend, was searching the dog-pound in New York, for a missing retriever. As they passed along the rows of boxes where the inmates of the canine prison were tied, they were greeted with many marks of affection by the animals that were hoping to find friends to release them. "Please take me away with you," was plainly expressed by many a pair of doggish eyes; and sometimes when the visitors paused to pat the head of a prisoner, their attentions were so warmly reciprocated that it was not easy to tear themselves away. Frequently, as they moved along the narrow space between the rows of boxes, some of the dogs they left behind were almost frantic in their despair at being abandoned to the fate awaiting them, which they seemed to realize.

The missing dog was found and rescued. While its owner was settling the terms of its release, the attention of the other gentleman was drawn to a small terrier, of the "black-and-tan" variety, that was balancing itself on the edge of the high board which formed the front of its prison cell. It was held by a cord, which prevented its jumping to the floor outside; when at the bottom of the box it was invisible, owing to the height of the front, and hence its efforts to retain a position where it could be seen. An attendant rudely pushed the dog inside the box, but it immediately climbed again to the edge of the board and mutely appealed to the stranger for his friendship. The painful attitude, and something in the face of the little terrier, awakened the gentleman's sympathy; he patted and talked to the animal for a few moments, noted the number of its prison, and then hastened away to the house of a friend whose daughter had recently expressed a wish for a pet dog. Fortunately he found the young lady at home.

"Come with me, Fanny," said he. "I have found a dog for you."

Fanny needed no second invitation, and in a few minutes they were on their way to the pound, accompanied by a servant carrying a small blanket.

At first sight of the terrier, Fanny was disappointed. The dog was thin and weak; its coat was rough and staring; its feet were all torn and raw between the toes from standing so much on the edge of the board; and there was a large scar

along its side where a wound had but recently healed. But when Fanny looked into its pleading eyes, and saw how patiently and with what suffering it maintained its place where it could be seen, and how much it longed for rescue, she decided to accept it. The gentleman paid the two dollars necessary to obtain the dog's release, and the little animal was wrapped in the blanket and carried home by the servant. On the way it barely moved its head; it seemed to have abandoned hope, and lay as if half dead in the servant's arms. A bath, good food, and the tender care which Fanny gave it, quickly restored the patient. In a few days, its feet were healed; it began to recover flesh and strength; its coat grew sleek and soft; new hair covered the ugly scar; and by the end of a fortnight it was apparently as well as it had ever been in its life. Fanny named it "Gipsey," and the two were the fastest of friends. The dog preserved a friendly though dignified demeanor toward the rest of the household, and lavished its affection upon its young mistress. It obeyed her

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parlor when he arrived, but Miss Fanny was in her room. In a few minutes she came to the parlor, followed by the usually shy Gipsey. The latter looked a moment at the caller, and then at the first sound of his voice, rushed toward him with many doggish demonstrations of delight. The little creature sprang into his arms, licked his face, threw its fore-legs around his neck as though embracing him, and then, jumping to the floor, went dancing and running about the parlor. Around and around it went, till some of the spectators feared it had lost its senses; every little while it paused and renewed its demonstration toward the gentleman, and then around and around it went again. It did not stop again till fairly exhausted with fatigue, and for the rest of the gentleman's stay the dog sat upon his knee or lay in his lap, and gazed into his face with wonderfully expressive eyes. Its actions said as plainly as though spoken words, "I know it is to you I am indebted for this nice home and so loving a mistress, and I wish to thank you for it." And ever after during the five years of her life with Fanny, Gipsey always welcomed him with the same delight, while to other visitors she was, as one might say, doggedly indifferent. The only exceptions she made were to those who had shown her some special kindness or attention, and these she never forgot. For example, while Fanny was at the seaside one summer, Gipsey became separated from her on a certain afternoon and returned to the hotel. A party was about to go on a sailing excursion, and Fanny was included, but she feared to lose her dog; Doctor a gentleman of the party, offered to go and bring it. "If you will go to the door of my room," said Fanny, mentioning its number, "you'll probably find Gipsey there. She always runs there when she loses me, and she knows the way as well as the waiters do."

The doctor found Gipsey at the door, but could not persuade her to go with him; he took her in his arms and carried her, in spite of several struggles, to the dock, where the party was waiting. Immediately on finding her mistress, Gipsey seemed to comprehend the situation; she ran from Fanny to the doctor, and then from the doctor to Fanny, as though trying to say, "Excuse me, I did n't understand it; I'm so sorry I resisted; I see now that you were my friend." During the whole afternoon she divided her time between the two, and when, six or eight weeks later, the doctor called at Fanny's city residence, Gipsey recognized him, and renewed her acquaintance of that day at the seaside.

In playful tricks and ways Gipsey was not specially unlike other intelligent dogs, however much Fanny may have believed otherwise, but she cer

tainly displayed unusual appreciation and gratitude. She was easily taught to do many things. While receiving instruction she looked steadily into Fanny's eyes, as though endeavoring to comprehend what was wanted, and to reason out the desired results. Her previous history was unknown. From time to time she astonished her mistress and friends by revealing a knowledge of tricks which were probably learned in her younger days. She knew how to sit erect; Fanny taught her to sit by her side at table, and her dignity and good behavior were the admiration of everybody. From time to time she would sit up, with her fore-paws drooping at right angles in front, and patiently wait for a dainty morsel. If no attention was shown her, she would speak in the softest whisper, making hardly a sound beyond that of closing her jaws; repeating this two or three times without success, she would venture upon an audible bark, but it was always as gentle as she could make it. She never went to the table without being invited, evidently recognizing it as a privilege, and not a right. She never followed her mistress into the street without invitation; though the door was left wide open, she gazed wistfully after Fanny descending the steps, but without attempting to follow. She perfectly understood the difference between "Gipsey can go," and "Gipsey must stay at home," but even when the former phrase was uttered, she always waited for the magic words, "Come along!

Fanny cites several instances of the reasoning powers of the dog. Gipsey slept in a willow basket which contained a soft blanket; one very hot day, in the early part of the first summer of her rescue from captivity, she found the bed uncomfortable, and after vainly trying several times to lie there, she sat down in front of the basket, apparently wondering what made it so warm. For five minutes she sat there with her head dropped in meditation; then she took the blanket in her teeth, dragged it to the floor, and lay down upon the cool willow with a sigh of satisfaction. Ever afterward on hot days she repeated the performance, and with a little instruction from Fanny she learned to drag the blanket back again if the temperature fell enough to make her old bed desirable.

She slept at night in her basket in Fanny's room, but at six o'clock in the morning was privileged to go to the side of her young mistress. As the clock struck the hour, she left the basket and went to the bedside. For a long time, Fanny was puzzled to know how Gipsey knew the hour, but finally discovered that it was by a steamwhistle on a factory several blocks away. The whistle was blown at six o'clock as a signal to the workmen; but one night Gipsey mistook the whis

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