The Carnival of the kitchen-gardens is now commencing. Peas are already an old story, strawberries are abundant, and cherries are beginning to make their appearance, in these first days of May; old women sell them at every corner, tied together in tempting bunches, as in "the cherry-orchard" which Miss Edgeworth has made fairy-land in our childish memories. Asparagus also has long since come; and artichokes make their daily appearance on the table, sliced up and fried, or boiled whole, or coming up roasted and gleaming with butter, with more outside capes and coats than an ideal English coachman of the olden times. _Finocchi_, too, are here, tasting like anisette, and good to mix in the salads. And great beans lie about in piles, the _contadini_ twisting them out of their thick pods with their thumbs, to eat them raw. Nay, even the _signoria_ of the noble families do the same, as they walk through the gardens, and think them such a luxury that they eat them raw for breakfast. But over and above all other vegetables are the lettuces, which are one of the great staples of food for the Roman people, and so crisp, fresh, delicate, and high-flavored, that be who eats them once will hold Nebuchadnezzar no longer a subject for compassion, but rather of envy. Drowned in fresh olive-oil and strong with vinegar, they are a feast for the gods; and even in their natural state, without condiments, they are by no means to be despised. At the corners of the streets they lie piled in green heaps, and are sold at a _baiocco_ for five heads. At noontide, the _contadini_ and laborers feed upon them without even the condiment of salt, crunching their white teeth through the crisp, wet leaves, and alternating a bite at a great wedge of bread; and toward nightfall, one may see carts laden high up with closely packed masses of them, coming in from the Campagna for the market. In a word, the _festa_ of the vegetables, at which they do not eat, but are eaten, and the Carnival of the kitchen-garden have come.