After all the gaudy brilliancy of the feast-day, after all the hot unrest of the streets and the stifling atmosphere of the churches, it was pleasant to stroll toward the gray walls of the town in the late afternoon. The bells were calling from tower to tower. Along the grass-grown streets no footfall save our own broke the stillness. Here and there a goddess or a couple of cherubs bearing an escutcheon smirked at us from the high garden-walls. Sometimes from within the wrought-iron gates came the rustling of trees or the plash of a fountain. We paused at a wide weatherbeaten door, rang the bell and were admitted by a brown smiling contadina, who preceded us up the narrow path that had vines stretching out on either side, with flowering peas and beans climbing, all crimson and scarlet blossom, over the jagged stakes. The air was rilled with perfume and the eager buzzing of bees. At the end of the path stood a large square house, on the portico of which sat two blue-frocked peasants smoking and drinking red wine. There was a broad patch of green sward in front, on which three yellow-haired children and a small tawny dog were rolling in play. Under the great fig tree at the side of the house sat three brown-faced women, two knitting, the third dressing her hair. There were cool shadows under the broad leaves of the fig tree, and bars of slanting sunlight falling through the foliage on to the grass. At the right of the house stood a little Gothic chapel with the sunlight streaming across the threshold. On the arch of the door the birds were singing, and there was a growth of purple cabbages and kingly artichokes by the side of the chapel, and low in the hollows near by lay patches of brake and fern.