Immediately after the baptism Sicilian Albanians dance a special dance; and when they go home they throw out roasted peas to the people. Hence: “When shall we have the peas?” is used as a periphrasis for: “When does she expect her confinement?” The water in which the “chrism,” or christening cup is washed, is accounted holy, because of the sacred oil which it has touched. It is flung out on to a hedge, so that no foot of man may tread the soil which has received it. Also the water in which the child is first washed is treated as a thing apart. It is thrown on to the highway, if the babe be a boy; under the bed, or the oven, or in some other part of the house, if it be a girl;—the one signifying that a man must fare forth, the other that a woman must bide within. When the child “grows two days in one,” and “smiles to the angels?” it is under the guardianship of certain other viewless, formless and mysterious creatures, who seem to be vagabonds and open-air doubles of the “Padrone della Casa.” These are “Le Donne di fuori.” The mother asks permission of these “Donne,” before she lifts the child from the cradle. “In the name of God,” she says, as she takes it up, “with your permission, my ladies.” These “Donne di fuori,” are not always to be relied on, for now they do, and now they do not, protect the little one. It is all a matter of caprice and humor; but certainly no mother who loved her child would omit this courteous entreaty to the, “Donne” who are supposed to have had the creature in their keeping while she was absent, and it was sleeping.