that here was placed the wooden altar of St. Péter. (See "Fabiola," p. 222). A flight of steps leads down to a chapel with an ancient fresco of our Lady, represented as an orante (i. e., as one praying with outstretched arms), with the Divine Child in front of her. On either side of this picture is the monogram of Constantine. Near this chapel is a chamber with a spring running through it, evidently used as a baptistery. XXII. THE CEMETERY OF OSTRIANUS, WHERE ST. PETER BAPTIZED. The entrance is a little beyond S. Agnese, but it is open to the public only on January 18, the feast of St. Peter's Chair. This is a part of the Catacombs of St. Agnes, existing already in apostolic times, and where St. Peter is said to have had his "chair" or throne, exercising here his sacred office in times of danger, (A.D. 49 to 52). The chair may still be seen carved out of the living rock, as described above, and believed to have been used by the Apostle. The place was known in early ages as Fons Beati Petri, "St. Peter's baptismal font:" also Ad Nymphas Sti Petri ubi baptizabat, i. e., "The stream where St. Peter baptized." It was a place of pilgrimage in the sixth century, and drops of the oil of the lamp that here burnt before St. Peter's chair were carried away in little glass phials as relics. Among the phials of oil preserved at Monza, collected at the shrines of Rome for Queen Theodelinda by abbot John in the sixth century, is one with oil from this place. (See Northcote, Roma Sotterranea, p. 67P. 24. Grisar, S. J. I Papi, etc., vol. i, p. 414). There is some controversy, however, as to the place where St. Peter fixed his Chair, and the centre of administration of the Primitive Church. Professor Marucchi thinks it was in the ancient baptistery which has been brought to light at the Catacombs of St. Priscilla on the Via Salaria. XXIII. THE NOMENTAN BRIDGE.-NERO'S DEATH.-THE BASILICA OF S. ALESSANDRO. Half a mile beyond S. Agnese, the road reaches the "willow-fringed river Anio," which is crossed by the Ponte Nomentano, an ancient bridge, surmounted by a tower. Beyond the bridge is a hill, supposed to be the Mons Sacer, rendered famous by the secessions of the Plebs, in B. C. 549 and B. C. 449. Not far off was the Villa af Phaon, where Nero, the human fiend, to whom St. Augustine assigns the first place in the catalogue of wicked emperors, (1) closed his loathsome life by suicide on June 11, A. D. 68. The defection of the last Roman legion was announced to him while at dinner in the Golden House. On hearing the news he tore up the letter, upset the table, dashed on the floor two crystal vases of immense value, and after several attempts at suicide, his courage failing him at each attempt, he fled from Rome on horseback by the Nomentan Gate (close to the present Porta Pia). He was disguised as a domestic, with his head covered, and a handkerchief concealing his face. As he left the city, a shock of earthquake was felt; then lightning flashed in his face. The shouts of the soldiers in the Pretorian camp hard by could be heard: they were uttering curses on his head. As he rushed madly on, his horse took fright at a dead body that lay in the road, causing him to drop his handkerchief. A passing soldier recognized him and addressed him by name, thereupon he quitted his horse, forsook the highway, entered a thicket that led to the back of Phaon's house, creeping through the weeds and brambles with which the place was overgrown. Hearing that he was condemned by the senate to be scourged to death in the public Forum, with his head fixed in a pillory, he preferred suicide and expired with his eyes almost starting from his head, staring so frightfully, that the soldiers who entered the room were terrified and disgusted at the sight. Thus perished one of the worst of men, and the first great persecutor of the Church in Rome, who had put to death SS. Peter and Paul and countless other martyrs. At the seventh milestone (counting from the Forum) are the remains of the Basilica of S. Alessandro, built on the spot where that holy Pope suffered martyrdom with his companions, SS. Eventius and Theodulus, A.D. 117. The basilica, discovered in 1856, is perfect in plan, the episcopal throne remaining in its place, and the chancel and altar retaining fragments of rich marbles. A baptistery was also found with its font. The bodies of these holy martyrs were removed to S. Sabina on the Aventine in the fifth century by Celestine I. On their festival, May 3, Mass is said here in the old basilica by one of the cardinals, and there is generally a large attendance. The scene is worthy of an artist's brush, the altar, with its awning in the roofless basilica, the cardinal and assistant clergy grouped round the altar, the nave filled with worshippers, the desolate Campagna in the foreground and the blue Sabine mountains in the distance. (1) De Civitate Dei, lib. 5, cap, 19. (To be continued.) S. J. THE PIPER OF THE LEAVES. A STORY OF THE CAROLINAS. CHAPTER I. AMONG the visitors one summer at the Balsam White, in the mountains of North Carolina, near the village of Sapona, were Judge Weldon, his wife, and two daughters. It is also necessary to include the "Da," or nurse, of the youngest child, a mulattress of dignified appearance who had doffed the antique and becoming tignon of the slave for the muslin cap of the paid domestic-a woman perhaps sixtyfive years of age. These people, not omitting the Da, were intensely proud of an ancestry dating-in America at least-as far back as 1679, and were from the adjoining state that usually arrogated to itself the exclusive title of the former province, although it was much the less of the two in point of acreage. This arrogant assumption heightened the ill will between two commonwealths whose commercial interests should have been identical. Luckily the revolutionary surveyor's line had given the smaller state a triangle whose upper acute angle contained the only mountainous region in the territory, and this was but a land of promise of higher glories just beyond. Therefore a state pride that elevated the region of the Santee, with an occasional altitude of two hundred feet, into "High Hills," endured from the first of November to the last of April only. From early spring to late autumn the soft drawl of the low country could be heard in every hotel and inn of reputation from King's Mountain to Greenbrier Sulphur. The Weldons had left the rice-country early in May. As their only son had died of hemorrhagic fever the year before, their two remaining children, girls of six and sixteen years of age, were hurried away from the dangerous vicinity of fields dun with mist and musky with malaria, before the first wild azalea reddened under the pines of the uplands. The long buildings of the Balsam White lay under the lee of one of the foothills of the great Balsam range. Before the wide, airy piazzas spread an enchanting prospect; soft fields of clover and of wheat; village and farmlands, intersected by |