Yet another interior remains with me, the workshop of a cobbler below Porciano. Here a number of houses stood huddled together against the slope of the hill. The word _vino_, roughly painted in red on a wall that faced the road at an angle, attracted our attention, for we were thirsty, as one often is in a country where one feels suspicious of the water, and we entered. The hale, white-haired cobbler rose from his stool and motioned us to a seat with a certain formality. He then reached two glasses and a huge straw-covered flagon from the shelf, drew out the bit of tow that closed its mouth, and flicked on the floor the drops of oil that floated on the wine, and a little of the wine itself. Here was a reasonable basis for the offer of a libation! Then he filled our glasses, and resuming his work spoke of a son in America, and of the love of change and the growing desire for travel in the younger generation. We too were travelling: whence had we come, whither were we bound? His caustic aptness of speech recalled the saying that the smell of leather sharpens a man’s wits. We had been puzzled that day by a roadside shrine dedicated to a saint Mona Giovanna, and I asked about her, hazarding the remark that his trade was known to go with love of reading. He seemed pleased, and pointing to a small store of books he said he could oblige us, and drew forth the story of the saint in the cheap form in which these stories circulate among the peasantry. In this case it was the question of a woman whose claim to holiness the folk endorsed, while the clergy refused to accept it. Finally the bells at Stia tolled of their own accord as she entered the town, and the candle she was carrying to the shrine was miraculously set alight. In the pantheon of the saints Giovanna has found a place in connection with Bagno on the further side of the hills, but the cobbler was sure about the miracle happening at Stia, and the book confirmed his belief.