like simplicity, to touch the inmost heart of a man who would, with all his will, have been a voluptuary had it not cost so much, and had he not loved his place still better than his passions. Still there was no harm in looking at her, he thought; and look he did, until her grandfather's piece of plaiting being done she put her light out, closed the shutter, and left only a little dark stone house facing the great man of the commune.

Then Messer Nellemane flung the end of his cigar away with a lordly air, pushed back his iron chair, and strolled homeward.

'One could marry her to Bindo,' thought this very prudent person, as he walked away through the white moonlight past the glancing Rosa water.

CHAPTER III.

HE next day was the last day of
April, and in the remote villages

above which the Apennines brood, as in those upon the mountains themselves, there still prevails the old gracious fashion of the Calen di Maggio: the bringing in the May,' as England called it when it was merry England, and not money-grubbing and machine-ground England, with its hedgerow timber felled, and its songbirds starved and mute.

In the cities and in the little towns the old custom has quite passed away, and even in many villages the wedding-night of April

and May goes by without remembrance or celebration. But in the simpler and more remote country places Ben venga Maggio' is still said as Guido Calvacanti said it, and the time is one of harmless feasting and of tender song. In Santa Rosalia it still lingered thus, and on the memorable night the lads of the borgo went along the Rosa banks and out amongst the fields from house to house, bearing the May, and called themselves the Maggiaioli; singing the ancient song:

Or è di Maggio e fiorito è il limone,
Noi salutiamo di casa il padrone,
Or è di Maggio e gli è fiorito i rami,
Salutiam le ragazze co' suoi dami.
Or è di Maggio che fiorito è di fiori,
Salutiam le ragazze co' suoi amori.1

'Lo! now the lemons are all in flower in May,

Come too are we; we give the house and host good-day.
Now is the month of May, with blossoms on the boughs;
We salute the maidens, salute their lovers' vows.
Here is all the Maying, bud, and fruit, and flower,
We salute the maidens, their love and all its power!

This year Carmelo carried the May, a green sapling hung with flowers and lemons, and his next brother, Cesarellino (little Cæsar), bore the traditional basket of nosegays to throw to the maidens. Other youngsters were with them, with red and yellow tulips in their hats, and gay-coloured shirts, and mandolines slung on their shoulders, and they went from door to door with their salutation and song, and in turn received wine and cakes garnished with red ribbons, and now and then money, which, making the sign of the cross, they put aside to be spent in prayers for the poor souls in purga

tory.

Messer Nellemane, as he sat in the window of his room in the communal palace, saw the group of youths as they came along by the water, and he recognised the face of Carmelo, as the young man bore aloft the

lemon-hung tree and shouted with a fresh

and mellow voice the

Or è di Maggio che fiorito è di fiori

and stopped before the little Casa della Madonna, where they tossed their flowers through the open window, and Viola, smiling, brought them out the sweet cakes. The brow of the spectator of this innocent pastime grew dark. "What pagan folly!' he muttered as he

saw.

"What childishness and benightedness

in this age of reason!'

Surely it need not be allowed?

It could be put down under the head of disturbance, or unauthorised festival, or public meeting without permission of the council.

The law has smitten almost all these innocent revellers to the dust; carnival is scarce more than a name; on Ognissanti indecent crowds push laughing and jostling