But let it not be supposed that the mirthful Neapolitans marched stiffly, or walked sedately into the city at the close of the festival. Oh, no! the whole procession danced into the town with all the varying steps of the tarantella, the men wheeling and circling round the women, and shaking and striking the tambourines above their heads; and on the glorious afternoon in question, the Madonna was propitious, and across the whole city was thrown a rainbow of immense magnitude and brilliant colours, framing with its prismatic arch one of the most glorious pictures that can be imagined, and promising to the happy citizens a fertile and beautiful season. The arrangement of the hours of the day at Naples during the summer was a source of great amusement to us. The belfry of a neighbouring church tolled the hours, but only as far as six, so that when, according to our English reckoning, it was 7 P.M., the clock struck one, and the hour was called twenty-four. One more curious experience befell me at Naples—Naples the delight of her citizens, as the old carbonari song says, which strangers are enjoined to see before they die. I slept in a corner room opening into those of my mother and my sister, the two doors being in an angle close to each other, and, of course, always open during the summer months (they were all passage rooms). I had not slept there very long, before I came to the conclusion that my apartment was haunted. Every night there passed through from one door to the other the figure of a woman, so hastily, so softly, that I was only aware of the movement and the scarcely perceptible flutter of a garment. At first I supposed it was my sister, and called out, but received no answer. I said very little—I am not sure, but I believe I kept silence altogether on the subject; the servants would have been terrified, the rest of the family sceptical, so I and my ghost kept our own counsel. I had not the slightest fear, or feeling even bordering on excitement, but I was curious, and determined to test myself whether the vision was a fancy of my own; so I used to look up and think, “Now I shall see it,” but that did not succeed, and afterwards when I was thinking of something else there she was, or rather there she went, her movements being visible to me by the glimmer of outside _cafés_, etc., which were never extinguished till dawn, and my curtains were closed. [Sidenote: THE PALAZZO CALABRITTI GHOST]