The house, which was of tan stucco with the usual, red tiled roof, stood on a tiny plot of ground over which were strewn all sorts of things. A broken cart, with one wheel gone, sagged in a corner, and near the tiny, shed-like barn, through the window of which an interested horse stuck its head, was a grindstone. Ground-scratching hens, who chattered in gentle clucks to their puffy, soft broods, walked in the house and out again as they pleased, and a red rooster stood on a crumbling stucco wall that was topped with broken glass, to flap his wings and crow. . . . Down back of the house every inch of ground was terraced, for it seems that it is best used that way on hillsides, and because of this the Italian country, in most places, looks like unending flights of green-grown steps. Up under the eaves was a really beautiful figure of Christ nailed on the cross, and when people passed below that they bowed and crossed themselves. Of course the sun was over everything, and there were some smells that weren’t exactly pleasant, but the whole place was pleasing, and a lot of its picturesque look came from the disorder and dirt. And the guests! They were all dressed in their peasant best, and were laughing and joking, and telling Beata that they wished her many, strong children--this is quite a proper wish in Italy, and I really don’t know why it shouldn’t be anywhere; but people _would_ think it queer, I suppose, if you said it at a wedding in Pennsylvania, or in New York--and before we started for the church, which was down in the valley below us, we all joined hands and circled Beata and Pietro who stood in the center, holding hands and smiling at each other shyly. Then every one sung while we did this and it was very pretty to hear and to see and to join in. Then we went, arm in arm, down a winding way, over slopes that were grown with small, gently green olive trees, or between fields of green that were already beginning to show the brightest growing hue; past a high-walled villa, and several tumbling houses of the poor. And whenever we met a person, or a group of them, they--knowing Beata or not--would call out a blessing upon the pair, and then stand, heads uncovered, until we had gone from sight. . . . There is something very warming in the frankness of the Italians’ hearts; I think perhaps, in the United States, we keep our hearts too heavily covered. In the church many candles were burning, and there was a little boy swinging an incense pot, and it was dark and cool and mysterious, after all the blaze of the sunshine outdoors. I liked the service--in spite of the fact that it was very long--and I enjoyed seeing how it was done.