"What fine clothes will you wear to-morrow?" "I shall put on the faldetta." She brought the faldetta from a press, and put it on; the girl looked very beautiful in it. The faldetta is a long garment, generally black, the end of which is thrown up behind over the head, so that it has some resemblance to the hooded cloak of a nun. To elderly women, the faldetta imparts dignity; when it wraps the form of a young girl, its ample folds add the charm of mystery. The women asked me what I was. That was difficult to answer. I took out my very unartistic sketch-book; and as I turned over its leaves, I told them I was a painter. "Have you come into the village," asked Giulia, "to colour the walls?" I laughed loudly and heartily; the question was an apt criticism of my Corsican sketches. Marcantonio said very seriously--"Don't; she does not understand such things." These Corsican women have as yet no notion of the arts and sciences; they read no romances, they play the cithern in the twilight, and sing a melancholy vocero--a beautiful dirge, which, perhaps, they themselves improvise. But in the little circle of their ideas and feelings, their nature remains vigorous and healthy as the nature that environs them--chaste, and pious, and self-balanced, capable of all noble sacrifice, and such heroic resolves, as the poetry of civilisation preserves to all time as the highest examples of human magnanimity. Antigone and Iphigenia can be matched in Corsica. There is not a single high-souled act of which the record has descended to us from antiquity but this uncultured people can place a deed of equal heroism by its side. In honour of our young Corsican Giulia, I shall relate the following story. It is historical fact, like every other Corsican tale that I shall tell. THE CORSICAN ANTIGONE. It was about the end of the year 1768. The French had occupied Oletta, a considerable village in the district of Nebbio. As from the nature of its situation it was a post of the highest importance, Paoli put himself in secret communication with the inhabitants, and formed a plan for surprising the French garrison and making them prisoners. They were fifteen hundred in number, and commanded by the Marquis of Arcambal. But the French were upon their guard; they proclaimed martial law in Oletta, and maintained a strict and watchful rule, so that the men of the village did not venture to attempt anything. Oletta was now still as the grave. One day a young man named Giulio Saliceti left his village to go into the Campagna, without the permission of the French guard. On his return he was seized and thrown into prison; after a short time, however, he was set at liberty.