which occur in the lament of La Dariola Danesi, of Zuani, who mourns her sixteen-year-old daughter Romana. Decked in feast-day raiment the damsel sleeps in the rest of death, after all her sufferings. Her sweet face has lost its hues of red and white; it is like a gone-out sun. Romana was the fairest of all the young girls, a rose among flowers; the youths of the country round were consumed by love of her, but in her presence they were filled with decorous respect. She was courteous to all, familiar with none; in church everybody gazed at her, but she looked at no one; and the minute mass was over she would say: "Mamma, let us go." Never can the mother be consoled, albeit she knows her darling fares well up there in heaven where all things smile and are glad. Of a surety this earth was not worthy to contain so fair a face. "Ah! how much more beautiful Paradise will be now she is in it!" cries the voceratrice, with the sublime audacity of maternal love. In another dirge we have pictured a troop of girls coming early to the house of Maria, their young companion, to escort her to the Church of St Elia: for this morning the father of her betrothed has settled the marriage portion, and it is seemly that she should hear mass, and make an offering of wax tapers. But the maiden's mother comes forth to tell the gladsome band that to-day's offering to St Elia is not of waxen tapers; it is a peerless flower, a bouquet adorned with ribands--surely the saint will be well pleased with such a fine gift! For the bride elect lies dead; who will now profit by her possessions--the twelve mattresses, the twenty-four lambs? "I will pray the Virgin," says the mother, "I will pray my God that I may go hence this morning, pressing my flower to my heart." The playfellows bathe Maria's face with tears: sees she not those who loved her? Will she leave them in their sadness? One runs to pluck flowers, a second to gather roses; they twine her a garland, a bridal crown--will she depart all the same, lying upon her bier? But, after all, why should there be all this grief? "To-day little Maria becomes the spouse of the Lord; with what honour will she not be greeted in paradise!" Alas for broken hearts! they were never yet healed by that line of argument. Up the street steals the chilling sound of the funeral chant, _Ora pro ea_. They are come to bear the maiden to St Elia's Church; the mother sinks to the ground; fain would she follow the body to the grave, but she faints with sorrow; only her streaming tears can pay the tribute of her love. It will be observed that it is usual for the survivors to be held up as objects of pity rather than the dead, who are generally regarded as well off; but now and then we come across less optimist presages of the future life. A woman named Maddele complains that they have taken her blonde daughter, her snow-white dove, her "Chili, cara di Mamma," to the worst possible of places, where no sun penetrates, and no fire is lit.