There is lightness and brightness, music, laughter, merry jests, masks, bouquets, flying flowers, and _confetti_ around you; you are in the Corso, no longer the sober street of a solemn old city, but the brilliant scene of a pageant, rivalling your dreams of Fairy land, excelling them; for it is fresh, sparkling, real before your eyes. From windows and balconies wave in the wind all-colored tapestries, flutter red, white, and golden draperies; laugh out in festal garments gay revellers; fly through the golden sunlight showers of perfumed flowers; beam down on you glances from wild, loving eyes, sparkling with fun, gleaming with excitement, thrilling with witching life. Hurrah for to-day! _Fiori, fiori, ecco fiori_! Baskets of flowers, bunches of flowers, bouquets of flowers, flowers natural and flowers artificial, flowers tied up and flowers loose. _Confetti, confetti, ecco confetti_! Sugar plums white, sugar plums blue, bullets and buckshot of lime water and flour. Whiz! down comes the Carnival shower: '_Bella, donzella_, this bouquet for thee!' Up go the white camellias and blue violets: 'down comes a rosebud for me.' What wealth of loveliness and beauty in thousands of balconies and windows; what sheen of brilliance in the vivid colors of the varied costumes! The Carnival has come! Right and left fly flowers; and here and there dart in between wheels and under horses' legs, dirty, daring Roman boys, grasping the falling flowers or _confetti_. From a balcony, some wealthy _forestiero_ ('Ugh! how rich they are!' grumbles the coachman) scatters _baiocchi_ broadcast, and down in the dirt and mud roll and tumble the little ragamuffins, who never have muffins, and always have rags--and 'spang!' down comes a double handful of hard _confetti_ on Caper's head, as he rides by in an open carriage. He bombards the window with a double handful of white buckshot; but a woman in full Albano costume, crimson and white, aims directly at him a beautiful bouquet. Not to be outdone, Caper throws her a still larger one, which she catches and keeps--never throwing him the one she aimed! He is sold! But 'whiz, whir!' right and left fly flowers and _confetti_; and--oh, joy unspeakable!--an Englishman's chimney-pot hat is knocked from his head by a strong bouquet; and we know 'There is a noun in Hebrew means 'I am,' The English always use to govern d----n,' and that he is using it severely, and don't see the fun, you know--of _throwing things_! Who cares? _Avanti!_