I greatly enjoyed the freedom and absence of restraint in these our rambles; for, having my brother with me, I was not afraid of gratifying my curiosity about the manners and customs of the humbler classes. I frequently stood by the fountains in the streets, where the women washed the linen, and entered into conversation with them; or I would buy _fritture_ of various kinds (which is, in fact, fried batter, sometimes sweet, sometimes savory). I did not find it always to my taste, because it was made with rancid olive‐oil quite as often as with fat. But the piles of light‐brown fritters lying on the little tables in the open streets, or being tossed about, smoking hot, in iron pans, had a very inviting appearance. Then I would get Frank to let me have a glass of lemonade from the pretty little booths that are so numerous for the sale of that delightful beverage, with festoons of fresh lemons hanging from the gayly‐ painted poles. I delighted all the more in my freedom that I knew, when I should be Emidio’s wife, and drive about Naples as the Contessa Gandolfi, I could no longer expect to enjoy these privileges. I said so one day to Emidio, when I was taking my second glass of lemonade in a peculiarly dingy and out‐of‐the‐way street in Naples. He laughed at the assertion, though he did not for a moment attempt to deny it; and meanwhile he enjoyed as much as I did the absence of all form and ceremony, which as foreigners we could allow ourselves. It was then that jestingly he asked me whether it should be put in my marriage‐settlements that he was to take me, at least once, to the Festa di Monte Vergine. I could not understand what he could possibly mean, until he explained that so much is thought of this feast by the Neapolitan peasantry that if a girl has a good _dot_, it is generally inserted in the marriage‐deeds that her husband is bound to give her this gratification. The feast takes place on Whit‐Monday, and Emidio assured me that my marriage‐portion was enough to entitle me to more than one excursion to the sanctuary of the Madonna, if such was my desire. It is held at Monte Vergine, near Avellino; and as we had not been able to attend it during our stay at Posilippo, I declared that I should expect to be taken some day, though I declined to puzzle our family lawyer by the introduction of so strange an article in my marriage‐settlements.