There were about a dozen people at table with us. The men ate with their hats on, and began by asking for a “very little” of everything. Then the hostesses (the two pretty daughters) would press them, would push meat on their plates by force, would fill their glasses with a struggle, and beg them not to make _complimenti_. They finished by doing full justice to the fare. It was indeed such as to invite justice, being well-cooked, well-served, and with all the appointments of the table clean if very rough. The profusion was truly barbaric. There were seven courses, with fruit and excellent coffee, served after the fashion of the place in glasses, to finish off with. I entertain to this day an astonished admiration for those simple peasant women, who cooked all that dinner without help, who yet found time to go to mass and take a short walk in the village in their best clothes, and who did the honours of their table with such inborn grace, without haste, or flurry, or bustle. We had scarcely finished dinner when a little girl came to ask me if I would care to hear some improvisation. My companion and I went into a house close by and found a small party assembled round a bright-eyed, good-looking woman. She was said to have “raised the glass a little”—a Tuscan euphemism for having been somewhat assiduous at the wine-flask. She had not drunk enough to make her foolish, but just sufficient to make her sing. And sing she did; _stornello_ after _stornello_, composing words and music as she went on; singing with that curious monotonous drawl at the end of the verses, which all visitors to Tuscany know so well. She had a fine voice, and could become quite dramatic on occasion, as when she was describing the thunder-storm of the night before, and how she had awaked to find her bed soaked by the rain. She had to sing in church afterwards, however, and wanted to save her voice; so we left her and wandered into the fields till it was time for mass and procession. After these were over I sat down at the door of one of the houses to watch the crowd surging on the little open space which served as piazza. Everybody was pushing, laughing, joking, and getting very hot in the blazing sun and the dust. Near me a small acquaintance of mine was shouting himself black over a basket of figs which he was selling, if I remember rightly at ten a halfpenny; further on, the villainous-looking pear-seller was alternately crying his ware and devouring it before the eyes of the people, to prove how good it was; “lying pears” (_pere bugiarde_) the kind is called in Italian, but it was not the pears but the man that lied. The dominant voice, however, was that of one of the “_cialde_” sellers. Upright against the corner of the last house, steelyard in hand, this man had adopted a kind of recitative which pierced the shouts of the others by its more musical intonation:— “_An’iamo Giovinotti! An’iamo Giovinotti! da quelle buone cialde, O—— h._”[4]