water from the mountains to Rome, but of this I was soon weary; so I then began to torment the others with a thousand questions about the great fires which the peasants had made around the piled-up grave-stones, and would have an exact explanation of the vast flocks of sheep, which the wandering drivers kept together in one place by stretching a fishing-net, like a fence, around the whole herd.

From Albano we were to go on foot for the short and beautiful remainder of the way through Arriccia. Resida and golden cistus grew wild by the roadside; the thick, juicy olivetrees cast a delicious shade; I caught a glimpse of the distant sea, and upon the mountain slopes by the wayside, where a cross stood, merry girls skipped dancing past us, but yet never forgetting piously to kiss the holy cross. The lofty dome of the church of Arriccia I imagined to be that of St. Peter, which the angels had hung up in the blue air among the dark olive-trees. In the street, the people had collected around a bear which danced upon his hind legs, while the peasant who held the rope blew upon his bagpipe the selfsame air which he had played Christmas, as Pifferaro, before the Madonna. A handsome ape in a military uniform, and which he called the corporal, made somersaults upon the bear's head and neck. I was quite willing to stop there instead of going on to Genzano. The flower-festival was really not till to-morrow, but my mother was resolute that we should go and help her friend, Angeline, to make garlands and flower-tapestry.

We soon went the short remainder of the way and arrived at Angeline's house; it stood in that part of the neighborhood of Genzano which looks on Lake Nemi; it was a pretty house, and out of the wall flowed a fresh fountain into a stone basin, where the asses thronged to drink.

We entered the hostel; there was a noise and a stir. The dinner was boiling and frizzling on the hearth. A crowd of peasants and town-folk sat at the long wooden tables drinking their wine and eating their presciutto. The most beautiful roses were stuck in a blue jug before the image of the Madonna, where the lamp would not burn well, because the smoke drew towards it. The cat ran over the cheese which

lay upon the table, and we were near stumbling over the hens, which, terrified, hopped along the floor. Angeline was delighted to see us, and we were sent up the steep stairs near the chimney, where we had a little room to ourselves, and a kingly banquet, according to my notions. Everything was magnificent; even the bottle of wine was ornamented; instead of a cork, a full-blown rose was stuck in it. Angeline kissed us all three; I also received a kiss whether I would or not. Angeline said I was a pretty boy, and my mother patted me on the cheek with one hand, whilst with the other she put my things to rights; and now she pulled my jacket, which was too little for me, down to my hands, then again up to my shoulders and breast, just as it ought to have been.

After dinner, a perfect feast awaited us; we were to go out to gather flowers and leaves for garlands. We went through a low door out into the garden; this was only a few ells in circumference, and was, so to say, one single bower. The light railing which inclosed it was strengthened with the broad, firm leaves of the aloe, which grew wild here, and formed a natural fence.

The lake slept calmly in the great, round crater, from which at one time fire spouted up to heaven. We went down the amphitheatre-like, rocky slope, through the great beech and the thick plantain wood, where the vines wreathed themselves among the tree-branches. On the opposite descent before us lay the city of Nemi, and mirrored itself in the blue lake. As we went along, we bound garlands; the dark green olive and fresh vine-leaves we entwined with the wild golden cistus. Now the deep-lying, blue lake, and the bright heavens above us, were hidden by the thick green and the vine-leaves; now they gleamed forth again as if they both were only one single, infinite blue. Everything was to me new and glorious; my soul trembled for quiet joy. There are, even yet, moments in which the remembrance of these feelings come forth again like the beautiful mosaic fragment of a buried city.

The sun burned hotly, and it was not until we were by the lake side, where the plantains shoot forth their ancient trunks from the water, and bend down their branches, heavy with enwreathing vines, to the watery mirror, that we found it cool

enough to continue our work. Beautiful water-plants nodded here as if they dreamed under the deep shadow, and they, too, made a part of our garlands. Presently, however, the sunbeams no longer reached the lake, but played upon the roofs of Nemi and Genzano; and now the gloom descended to where we sat. I went a little distance from the others, yet only a few paces, for my mother was afraid that I should fall into the lake where it was deep and the banks were sudden. Not far from the small stone ruins of an old temple of Diana there lay a huge fig-tree which the ivy had already begun to bind fast to the earth; I had climbed upon this, and was weaving a garland whilst I sang from a canzonet,

when I was suddenly interrupted by a strangely whistling voice,

"Per dar al mio bene!"

and as suddenly there stood before me a tall, aged woman, of an unusually slender frame, and in the costume which the peasant women of Frascati are so fond of wearing. The long white veil which hung down from her head over her shoulders contributed to give the countenance and neck a more Mulatto tint than they probably had naturally. Wrinkle crossed wrinkle, whereby her face resembled a crumpled-up net. The black pupil of the eye seemed to fill up the whole eye. She laughed, and looked at the same time both seriously and fixedly at me, as if she were a mummy which some one had set up under the trees.

"Rosemary flowers," she said, at length, "become more beautiful in thy hands; thou hast a lucky star in thy eyes." I looked at her with astonishment, and pressed the garland which I was weaving to my lips.

"There is poison in the beautiful laurel-leaves ;1 bind thy garland, but do not taste of the leaves."

1 Prunus laurocerasus, which grows abundantly among these mountains. Author's Note.

"Ah, the wise Fulvia of Frascati !" exclaimed Angeline, stepping from among the bushes. "Art thou also making garlands for to-morrow's festival? or," continued she, in a more subdued voice, "art thou binding another kind of nosegay while the sun goes down on the Campagna?"

"An intelligent eye," continued Fulvia, gazing at me without intermission; "the sun went through the bull he had nourished, and there hung gold and honor on the bull's horns."

"Yes," said my mother, who had come up with Mariuccia, "when he gets on the black coat and the broad hat we shall then see whether he must swing the censer or go through a thorn-hedge."

That she intended by this to indicate my being of the clerical order, the sibyl seemed to comprehend; but there was quite another meaning in her reply than we at that time might imagine.

"The broad hat," said she, "will not shadow his brow when he stands before the people, when his speeches sound like music, sweeter than the song of nuns behind the grating, and more powerful than thunder in the mountains of Albano. The seat of Fortune is higher than Monte Cave, where the clouds repose upon the mountains among the flocks of sheep."

O God!" sighed my mother, shaking her head somewhat incredulously, although she listened gladly to the brilliant prophecy, "he is a poor child - Madonna only knows what will become of him! The chariot of Fortune is loftier than the car of a peasant of Albano, and the wheel is always turning: how can a poor child mount it?"

"Hast thou seen how the two great wheels of the peasant's car turn round? The lowest spoke becomes the highest, and then goes down again; when it is down, the peasant sets his foot upon it, and the wheel which goes round lifts him up : but sometimes there lies a stone in the path, and then it will go like a dance in the market-place."1

"And may not I, too, mount with him into the chariot of Fortune?" asked my mother, half in jest, but uttered at the

1 The peasants mount into their tall cars by standing upon the spoke of the ascending wheel. — Author's Note.

same moment a loud cry, for a large eagle flew so near us down into the lake that the water at the same moment splashed into our faces from the force with which he struck it with his great wings. High up in the air his keen glance had discovered a large fish, which lay immovable as a reed upon the surface of the lake; with the swiftness of an arrow he seized upon his prey, stuck his sharp talons into the back of it, and was about to raise himself again, when the fish, which, by the agitation of the waters, we could see was of great size and almost of equal power to his enemy, sought, on the contrary, to drag him below with him. The talons of the bird were so firmly fixed into the back of the fish, that he could not release himself from his prey, and there now, therefore, began between the two such a contest that the quiet lake trembled in wide circles. Now appeared the glittering back of the fish, now the bird struck the water with his broad wings, and seemed to yield. The combat lasted for some minutes. The two wings lay for a moment still, outspread upon the water, as if they rested themselves; then they were rapidly struck together, a crack was heard, the one wing sank down, whilst the other lashed the water to foam, and then vanished. The fish sunk beneath the waves with his enemy, where a moment afterwards they must both die.

We had all gazed on this scene in silence; when my mother turned herself round to the others, the sibyl had vanished. This, in connection with the little occurrence, which, as will be seen, many years afterwards had an influence on my fate, and which was deeply stamped upon my memory, made us all somewhat silently hasten home. Darkness seemed to come forth from the thickset leaves of the trees, the fire-red evening clouds reflected themselves in the mirror of the lake, the mill-wheel rushed round with a monotonous sound; all seemed to have in it something demoniacal. As we went along, Angeline related to us in a whisper strange things which had been told to her of the old woman, who understood how to mix poisons and love-potions; and then she told us about poor Therese of Olevano - how she wasted away day by day from anxiety and longing after the slender Guiseppe, who had gone away beyond the mountains to the north; how the old woman had