whitening fast and his hands are wrinkled and horny, his face is seamed; though so tall and strong a frame scarce will have need to stoop yet a while. But for all he has been on the ground, pruning the vines and the fruit-trees, and tilling the soil these many years, Giovanni has rarely yet had occasion to grumble much at his land's produce, though neighbours do tell him oftentimes the place lies with an unprofitable aspect. The terraced fields and little plantations where he grows the maize and peas and fine asparagus in season, lie one above another in patches, on the steep, with the rising ground behind to shield them from untoward winds, and the sun full to their front; and beyond, where the hill curves round to westward, his cherry trees and pear and plum trees grow, with peach and almond trees between for a good sprinkling, and aloes faintly grey and stiff on the rocky wall above; silver-lined olive-leaves wave from knotted boughs where wheat grows, with gladiolas blooming in its midst; fig trees spread widely, and vines twine around wildly wherever there is room amongst all the cultivation : truly, Giovanni has no need to complain.

The old manente lives lonely; he has few friends so close as the crops and the fruit-gathering that he labours so fondly for. The tender-leaved lettuce and early asparagus are more to him than neighbours, and the ripening of the red tomatoes is of keener interest than

anything that happens in the village, for the weatherworn man has none at home to care for him: his wife is dead, and, of his children, the sons are about the world, fishing at sea, and selling pasta in Genoa; the daughters are well married in distant towns and villages. It is better so; and to heave the pickaxe in the upturned field, to train the vines while thinking on Marrina's lastborn babe or on Pietro's success a-board the merchant vessel, is dearer to the husbandman's heart than the sound even of loved voices around his hearth.

This is the full time

The day is a July day; the wheat is waving yellow and near to the harvesting; the melons have ripened well, and it is a good year for all the fruit; the peaches have even been so many that manenti have given them away in baskets-full. Fine and tender spring crops have had their day, and it is over. when nature is the most lavish-not a time of sharpest interest, perhaps, but the husbandman joys in his reward. It will be a good vintage, and the green autumn figs crowd thick on their trees' branches; they are swelling fast, and will streak their soft green skins ere long with pink, as they come to full maturity. People say there will be a falling-off in the chestnutharvest on the other hand, but that matters less to this manente of whom I write, because his riches are greater in olive-woods.

Giovanni has been to Camogli this early morning already, and he is an old man, but he means to go to Rappallo in the forenoon yet. 'Fair Madonna, and it

is the old ones must work whether they will or no,' says he to neighbours who greet him on the steep and stony way, with some comment on his toil; 'the young have all gone to the devil, and to the city trades; what would the soil do if it weren't for us, whose bones are oiled to the labour?' But though he fret and fume a bit now and then, if truth were told, Giovanni would ill brook even a day's idleness! What if the path be bad, and the burthen on an old man's shoulder makes the sweat to steal down his brow? Do not the fig-leaves cast broad shadows where one sits awhile on the flints by the roadside to rest, and is it not consolation enough to note how the fruit waxes full, and how the olives are rich in berries? Besides even at three hours after dawn, when Giovanni was climbing the hill again from market, dews were still moist and breezes fresh off the sea from behind; it is of a hot sultry night, or with a fierce midday sun overhead, that one fears the mount a bit, and wearies of the secret stillness amid trees, or of the silver dazzle on that blue sheet of Mediterranean that one leaves behind and below. No one can say that in Ruta there is a hardier labourer than the manente who rents the larger portion of his villa from

those silk-mercers of Genoa-owners of the white house on the ridge. It is sale-time and profit-time now; and though Giovanni may silently love the season best that is for tilling and sowing and reaping, it is not he who will shrink from any day's work. Just an hour to eat the breakfast that a little neighbour's wench will have prepared him, who comes in from hard-by to do such jobs at a modest price, just another little halfhour to go the dearly-loved round of his property and pluck more fruit and herbs for the new market, just a grim jest or two with the children of the signori from the house, who frolic around and get many a handful of garden spoil-then Giovanni is away again, for Rappallo is a bit of way off, and one must be there not too late at the stabilimento, or others will have gotten the custom.

The sun glitters on the pale sea that is down and away a mile or more, beyond the sloping fields and gardens, and the dipping valley. Giovanni's villa is above that part of Ruta's village lying along the roadside, above the church too, and close upon the bend of a path that turns away from the sea into turf and chestnut woods; nevertheless, he keeps a hold on the great white water still, and can look over the valley that is rich of careful cultivation, can see churches standing cypress-guarded, and palaces where the land drops shore

ward-can see as much, and even more, of the sea-view than they can from the top windows of the old tavern in the village, where carriage-folk used to stop when carriages were many along the highway, and Ruta was a place for the horses to bait at and vetturini to feed at, while their signori got dinner on the terrace beneath the vines. For all he never remembers thinking of it, Giovanni would not like to have his back to the sea, not though it dazzle old eyes, even from far, as it dazzles them to-day, for no clouds have come up to make walking lighter beneath a burthen by the time Giovanni shoulders his fruit-baskets anew and comes down the steps upon the high road. The church bells ring a chime as he passes, and Maria, the pedona who sells eggs, comes down the paved way behind to go to Rappallo as well. She is a woman of years, and fit to join company with Giovanni, to whom her tongue can wag none the less fast for his economy of response. The old manente is a heavy-jawed and tough-hided specimen of contadino; one can see at a glance his words will be few, but Maria's chatter flows not the less merrily because his deep-set eyes show no sign, and the wrinkles that strew his ancient face do not let themselves be displaced into smiles. Maria is an old woman in whose yellow cheeks the lines seem to have no rhythm, so purposeless is she; but every seam on the old husbandman's countenance