On procession days the whole village would turn out, perhaps six priests holding a canopy over the Blessed Sacrament, the villagers with banners, flambeaux, and bells, and every one a lighted candle and a bunch of flowers; they would walk through the village and fields and lanes. There were three altars erected out of doors, before which they would stop and recite the Gospels, and then to the church for High Mass and solemn benediction; fine voices rose in hymns, taking first, second, third, and fourths, nature taught, far better than many an oratorio. On one occasion I remember a little ragged urchin, two feet high, with bare feet, one little white garment, a straw hat with a hundred holes and rents in it, and his little bit of flower, kneeling near the altar. Educated visitors from Trieste would come in, but not even salute or kneel, _to show their superiority_; and this is the way that Faith gets stamped out of the world. The peasants, when the _fête_ is over, steal the flowers to dry, and they burn them in a storm for protection, which is rather a pretty, though superstitious, idea. Here we took rooms, and put in them all in which they were deficient; and our delight was to come up alone, without servants, from Saturday to Monday, and get away from everything, wait upon ourselves more or less, and keep some literary work here. We sometimes stayed a fortnight or six weeks if we had a great work on hand. [Illustration: DANEU'S INN, OPÇINA, IN THE KARSO.] [Sidenote: _Trieste Life_.] The Trieste life was, of course, varied by many journeys and excursions; but we lived absolutely the jolly life of two bachelors, as it might be an elder and a younger brother. When we wanted to go, we just turned the key and left. We began our house with six rooms, and were intensely happy; but after some years I became ambitious, and I stupidly went on spreading our domain until I ran round the large block of building, and had got twenty-seven rooms. The joke in Trieste was that I should eventually build a bridge across to the next house, and run round that; but as soon as I had just got everything to perfection, in 1883, Richard took a dislike to it, and we went off to the most beautiful house in Trieste, where he eventually died, 1890.