who, administering a revivifying thump, held him by the heels in the air until all the water had escaped from his mouth, whereupon she brought him home crumpled up in her apron like a dead rabbit. But next day he was valiantly fighting with the dogs, the geese, and the cocks and hens-the same devil-maycare little imp as ever!

Luigi, it must be owned, has a pleasant enough life of it with his little sister, whom he beats à volonté, unless when his young aunt Filomela (a tall, wellfavoured lass who counts some fifteen summers, and carries loads of bricks on her head all day to the labourers below repairing the wall) chances to catch him in a quiet corner, when she fails not to administer her practical opinion of his conduct and principles with such emphatic arguments in the shape of blows as cause poor Luigi to wake the deepest echoes of the Rocca. A wicked little soul is Filomela, and quite up to any mischief.

But an agreeable holocaust to Luigi's feelings is shortly offered by Maria, who, rushing down at the noise, beats her sister in return, sending her off-with abundant objurgations-to carry bricks on her head.

Not to be forgotten is our landlady, the Sora Nena, a huge, bulky woman of some forty years old, who amuses her leisure by drinking the good vino sincero all

day. This excellent lady is distinguished by a certain unsteadiness in her legs, and a misty, vague expression in her eyes, when (a gaudy handkerchief flying from her head) she descends into the yard to take the air after the sun has set. She generally grunts out a few inarticulate words, quite unintelligible to any one but the fowls and the disconsolate geese, which all flock around her in a joyous chorus, and jump on her head and shoulders-a delicate attention she rewards with some corn. She settles down finally near the hen-house door into a state of drowsy unconsciousness, and faintly calls at intervals for Rosa, her maid, who at length comes to fetch her home. Her husband, L, the nouveau riche, is a study in his line. He began life as a shepherd, and either by finding a treasure on Monte Cavo, or egregiously cheating his employers, has made an immense fortune, bought lands and woods, flocks and herds, and become a grand signore, without the wildest notion of how to spend or to enjoy his money, except by grinding and oppressing the poor. He has skulked about in the woods for weeks, to escape being murdered by those he has injured, dozens of men having sworn to take his life; as in the republican days of Roman freedom the patrician youth vowed to cut off their country's foe, the Etruscan Porsenna.

Such is the home circle in our villeggiatura. Outside

is a street mounting up in an almost perpendicular line towards the topmost mass of rock, where a few ancient trees-scathed and worn by the winds of centuries— wave over the remnants of a fortress, once the property of the Orsini, but now a feudo of their deadliest enemies, the Colonna. Besieged and taken by the Duke of Calabria in 1484, and by the Caraffeschi and the Duke of Alba afterwards, this now desolate and remote ruin has often resounded to the thunder of artillery. The rock on which it stood was originally formed by vast deposits of lava from what was once a great volcano. The village is now perched on the outermost lip of the ancient crater; the ground, the banks, the rocks are all lava. Under the shadow of the medieval citadel, the Duomo squeezes itself in on the top of the single street, its deep melodious clock giving time to the whole village, and reminding us, though we lie still and dream-pleasant dreams on distant mountain-tops -that the busy world still rushes on, eager, feverish, impetuous; that death and joy, hatred and love, and every changing passion still rule the passing hour in that world stretched beneath our feet.

VI.

Monte Cavo-Home Life-Maria-The Geese-The Dance-Marino, and Gossip about its History—A Night at a Convent.

THE great sight of our savage fortress-home is Monte Cavo, which rises, as I have said, majestically behind the Rocca. Troops of visitors come daily through the chestnut forest to visit this highest summit of the Alban Mount. I was naturally all impatience until I also had addressed myself to the ascent. The road lay through the fair forests that overmantled all around, save the grim sides of the Latin valley and the bleak heights of Tusculum. On I went by a rough track through that charmed wood, passing by clearings where those dusky squatters, the charcoal-burners, sit month after month by their smouldering fires, undermining the magnificent old trees spared by time from bygone centuries when Diana ruled the woods. On I go through parting walls of lava rock which rise like gigantic fortifications on either hand, the stone of a ruddy glowing colour, warmed as it were by internal fires, and ever palpi

tating with a subdued heat. How grandly these ravines open-laced and embroidered with as rich undergrowth of vines, clematis, and wild roses, and diademed with sombre trees and shrubs! Grottoes yawn in the deep sides, leading down into unfathomable depths—perhaps to Tartarus and the ghastly circle where Lucifer sits enthroned amid blue fires. The

merry light is subdued and oppressed in this mysterious pass, where eternal twilight reigns. After a time the defile terminates, and I emerge into light, and life, and sunshine, on an elevation above the Rocca. The ever-glorious prospect opens far and wide. Around me a valley, or rather plateau, appears, carpeted with the finest, greenest grass-a great space, perhaps four miles in circuit, bordered by low hills, bare and unwooded, suggesting bitter, piercing winds; -a strange, lonely region.

This plain, so singular in aspect, is said to have been the mouth of an ancient volcano. For that fact no one can vouch; nor does it matter. But it matters much to know that it was the camp of Hannibal, where that eccentric one-eyed hero encamped with his army during his memorable scappata from the South, when he hoped, by threatening the very gates of Rome, to create a diversion in favour of Capua, then besieged by the Consuls. But the stern Romans budged not from