used to employ a donkey girl, who also could speak a little in five languages. Philippina was a bright, intelligent girl, much liked by her employers, and no doubt she found her advantage in knowing something of their different tongues. In Switzerland, for the most part, the German language prevails, and it is occasionally uncommonly hard, if one is not acquainted with German or has but a smattering of it, to get on, say, with a coachman who knows nothing else. At Ragatz, where they speak German, I put a question to a stallkeeper selling goods on the street, and was promptly answered by a young girl of the adjoining stall in English. I asked her how she came to know English. She learnt it at school. Were they all taught English, I asked. ‘Oh, no; those who desired to be taught had to pay for it.’ The shopkeepers abroad, however, have in many cases acquaintance with English sufficient to enable them to effect sale of their wares. They quickly discover us to be English, and when they speak our language they like to air it, and answer questions put in their, the shopkeepers’ language (made, we imagine, with all correctness of expression and of accent), in our own. In Rome we found that all the cab–drivers could speak French, which, of course, facilitates going about to those who cannot speak much Italian. In Italy generally, unless it might be in speaking to women–servants, and not even always in their case, we did not find much necessity for using Italian. Either French or English was in most places understood. Sometimes we have even had English landladies, as at the Grand Hotel in Sienna, and at the Tramontano at Sorrento; but this is a species of good fortune, telling on the English traveller’s comfort in many ways, which is seldom to be enjoyed. It only suggests that other English women might find Italy a good field for similar enterprise. * * * * *