“Yes, the first figs of the season, and perfect; just soft enough to flatten on the plate and against each other, yet firm; and, withal, sweeter than honey. You should see the woman who brings them to me—a rosy, russet creature, with eyes as black as sloes, and pounds of gold on her neck and hands. That gold she wears always. It is their way. She has four gold chains, one hanging below the other, and each bearing a medallion. Through these shines a large gold brooch. Her earrings are immense hoops, and she wears gold rings on every finger, piled up to the joints. She was once so ill that they thought best to give her Extreme Unction, and, when the priest came to administer the sacrament, he found her lying, pale and speechless, but with all her rings and lockets on. These people do not value stones, but they glory in pure, solid gold.” “Might it not be their dowry?” Mr. Vane asked. “Very likely; sometimes it certainly is. Sometimes the dowry is in pearls, and a _contadina_ will have strings and strings of them. I am told, however, that the common people in Rome have a saying that pearls are for butchers’ wives. I don’t know why, and one has been pointed out to me as owning half a dozen strings of them. They are not a good investment, however, for they are easy to spoil and easy to steal. A very safe and sensible way for providing a girl’s dowry exists in one of the towns near Rome. All along the river-bank is level land divided into small lots. When a girl is born, the father buys one of these, if he is able, and plants it full of a sort of tree that grows rapidly, and is much used for certain kinds of wood-work. While the girl grows her dowry grows; and when she marries, the trees are cut down and sold. I have often wished that American fathers of families would make some provision for their children when they are born, setting aside a sum, if it should be ever so small, to increase with their years, and be a help in giving them a start in the world. It seems a sin that parents should bring a family of children into the world, all dependent on one life, and, if that life be cut off, be thrown out helpless and unprovided for. How often we see, by the death of a father whose labor or salary maintained his family in comfort, the whole family plunged in distress and left homeless! How would Bianca, here, like to have her dowry in pearls?” “She has a mouth full of them,” said Marion hastily. He could not bear that his lady should be thought in want of a dowry, when she was a fortune in herself. “And those are not her only jewels.” He reached, and, taking her hand, gathered together the little pink finger-tips like a bunch of rosebuds. “She has ten rubies fit for a crown,” he said, and touched his lips to the clustered fingers, while the girl laughed and blushed.