Social equality is possible, because among rich and poor alike there is the same social ease. Barber or donkey-driver chats to you with a perfect frankness and unconsciousness of any need of reserve. In both rich and poor, too, there is the same social taste and refinement. The coarse dress of the peasant girl is worn with as native a dignity as the robe of a queen. An unconscious elegance breathes through the very disguises of the Carnival, grotesque as many of them are. The young fellow who has wreathed himself with flowers and vine-leaves shows a knowledge of colour and effect which an artist might envy him. But there is not one among the roughest of the peasants or of the townsfolk who has not that indescribable thing we call manner, or who would betray our insular awkwardness when we speak to a lord. And, besides this social equality, there is a family equality too. In England old people enjoy fun, but it is held to be indecorous in them to afford amusement to others. A Palmerston may be a jester at eighty, but the jest must never go beyond words. But in an Italian Carnival the old claim just as much a part in the fun as the young. Grandfathers and grandmothers think it the most natural thing in the world to turn out in odd costumes to give a good laugh to the grandchildren. Papa pops on the most comical mask he can find, and walks down the street arm-in-arm with his boy. In no country perhaps is the filial regard stronger than in Italy; nowhere do mothers claim authority so long over their sons. But this seems to be compatible with a domestic liberty and ease which would be impossible in the graver nations of the North. If once we laughed at our mother's absurdities a mother's influence would be gone. But an Italian will laugh and go on reverencing and obeying in a way we should never dream of. Altogether, it is wonderful how many sides of social life and national character find their illustration in a country carnival. SKETCHES IN SUNSHINE. III. TWO PIRATE TOWNS OF THE RIVIERA.