of the Lowther—with specimens of English
cutlery that would astonish the worst workman
in Sheffield—and then the arcade
recommences again. But there is such a variety
in the different shops of the same species, that
you are insensibly led on through street after
street, always under cover, piercing through
the shifting crowd of priests, soldiers, women,
and workmen, and getting glimpses of the
upper classes as they fly past in broughams
and coupés.

At every corner you turn there is a shoe-
black eagerly watching as you approach, and
if there is a patch of dirt on your shoe, mind
lest you should be taken off your legs; for he
will instantly pounce upon you, and transfer
the sole from the ground to his blacking-stand
in that fraction of time popularly known as a
jiffy. Come out into the square to avoid him.

Why, it is just in front of the market-
place. Heavens, what a gay place! Iris
herself seems to have come down here and
thrown her cloak over the whole population.
What piles of fruit! Great loggerheaded
pumpkins lying on the ground like decapitated
common-councilmen; rich, pulpy, luscious
melons, split open, with the sweet juice
flowing round in clammy streams; walnuts
heaped up by the barrel; chestnuts roasted
on a scale that would drive the old woman
with the iron plate at Temple Bar mad with
envy; apples by cart-loads; pears, like stumpy
cucumbers, by the waggon-full; peaches—such
hard fellows—and apricots, and pomegranates,
welling over great wicker-work hampers and
baskets; mounds of ripe figs; rich, brown,
black, and green. And then the grapes!—can
there be any left for making wine this year?

We had heard much of the grape-rot, and
had seen some specimens of it by the roadside
along the Val d'Aorta, but here men and
big women moved up to the middle through
walls of the glorious clusters, with the silky
velvet blush of full health upon them. Then
here are groups of the country people buying
and selling at the tents and stalls all kinds of
strange stuffs and articles, while the bullocks,
with their mild suffering faces, stride through
the midst of the uproar, carting along blocks
of stone or marble for building, rearing aloft
the great horned yoke-collar of wood, which
seems so picturesque but so absurd an addition
to their harness. They are an early people, and
most of the fruit-sellers are at dinner—simple
enough, but odorous. They are all devouring
vermicelli or maccaroni boiled down
with garlic and vegetables into a sort
of soup over their little portable stoves,
which serve beside for stewing pears and
apples, and roasting chestnuts. Here is a
strange oriental-looking dame, almost buried
behind her fruit-stall—a bright yellow
handkerchief struggling in vain to confine the
masses of her wild black ringlets, and her
dark eyes flashing with energy, as with mouth
wide open she yells through a fence of snow-
white teeth all sorts of Italian Billingsgate at
an awkward droner who has just emerged
from a whole heap of her pumpkins and
melons. Approach with an outstretched
franc, and see the bright smile into which
that angry face breaks from chin to temple,
welcoming the forestiere purchaser. And lo!
she raises a ponderous scale with a yard or
sliding weight, and flings in pounds of grapes,
and then you cram all your pockets with
peaches and pears, and having filled your hat
besides, staggering away with great balloons
of fruit in paper bags, you imagine she must be
a maniac, for she has given you in change a
whole waistcoat-pocketful of coins that, at the
lowest calculation, ought to be worth twice
what you gave her. So distribute your treasures
among the chocolate-coloured half-naked little
boys, who are rushing about like a settlement
of young Ojibbeways, and who will infallibly
reject your first advances, believing them a
gigantic swindle, and that when they stretch
out their hands for the offering it will be
immediately transferred to the bag again—
and then turn into a café, for the heat is almost
intolerable, and—pondering over a great dish
of chocolate—look out on the restless changing
kaleidoscope effect, as the crowd turns, and
twirls, and shouts before you in all the energy
of idle life.

It is a relief from all this glare and bustle
to step into a quiet chapel for a moment.
The heavy red cloth curtain that hangs at
the door drops behind with a dead flop, as if
to shut out the world, and the stranger is in
comparative solitude for a moment. There is
sure to be a blind beggar at the door, but a
little practice enables one to evade him by a
rapid rush among the pillars. The chapel
appears filled with a soft crimson light,
mingled with the pale but gorgeous hue of
the wax lights—for there are red silk curtains
to all the windows. The ceiling is all blue
and gold mouldings, with paintings highly
coloured and badly drawn of saints and angels
in the compartments, and through the whole
dreary waste of the building—dreary in spite
of its battalions of gold and silver candlesticks,
and its new lines of altars all splendidly
decorated. You see but some half-dozen of
persons dotting the pavement as they pray
before the different shrines. A marionette
performance and a café conclude the day; and it
is with a confused head you retire to rest to
dream of priests and soldiers putting you to
death under cart-loads of grapes and figs.

Shortly will be Published, Price 3s. 6d.,
THE SECOND VOLUME OF
A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND,
BY CHARLES DICKENS.
To be completed in three Volumes, of the same size and price.
Collected and revised from "Household Words,"
With a Table of Dates.
The First Volume may be had of all Booksellers.
BRADBURY AND EVANS, 11, BOUVERIE STREET.