procure one for the night of the great Veglione. And so, dancing and flirting and jesting, the hours grow old again into day, the gas-lights burn yellow in the grey light of morning, the paint and the powder have lost their excellence, the dresses are marred and tarnished. But are spirits grown weary, is merriment spent, though the Last of the Carnival is dead, and the sun has risen on AshWednesday? Ah-everything is changed,' moans out some old lady of the old school; 'so used the Martedì Grasso to be in my young days, or even a few years ago, but now-non c'è Carnevale!'

La Fioraja.

The Flower Girl.

SUNSHINE is full on this picture even as it first climbs the horizon of our memory: full on the shifting Mediterranean, that is bluer for its presence, full on the white walls of new houses, on the yellow shutters of old palaces inland, strong amid fleeting clouds that are the whiter for its power, fitful on these girl-faces, that shine the merrier for its sake. Because the wind has blown cold from the mountains these three days past-the sharp Tramontana that sweeps down the northward valleys to blight the budding trees, to whirl the dust in clouds, to lash the sea's water into bristling crests—and if the cheering sun shine not, we, who must ofttimes meet the wind's greeting at street corners, and shiver out the daylight hours beneath palace porticoes, shall have but a sorry time of it indeed! For even the flowers that make our livelihood have a hard fight and a poor success of it in this weather. One must have patience!' Only 'tis pity the enemy could not just have waited till a little further into Lent, when good Catholics having had their

fill of amusement, see fit to waken conscience to a little necessary obedience and expiation: when camellias could therefore no longer fetch so good a price! For so early in the Church's penance season as this, society makes Carnival still in her private homes; we are grown lax about fasts nowadays, as we have grown wisely cynical over feasts and processions, and who would drown merriment to wear sackcloth forty days long, unless it were with a much surer hope of reward than modern Romanists think prudent to believe? No, no; the last Lenten week, when there is plenty of excitement in mission preaching, sepolcri and masses— when Easter's sun, moreover, begins already to lighten the horizon before us, the six days of Holy Week make up the sum of all the fasts we do in our enlightened generation! Let the camellias bloom fair yet awhile, and we will pray the Madonna to keep the Tramontana back for another month, say the flower-girls!

Rosina is the favourite of all the fioraje of the Carlo Felice, and that is the favourite flower street of Genoa. When the sun shines as bright as it does to-day, out of a sky that is as blue in the cold, and when it lies with a great sheet of light on the square flag stones of the Piazza S. Domenico, Rosina's face is as the sunlight itself that can be friendly even in an air so hard as this is with Tramontana. And it is merriment that pays, that wins

the loved jest from lowly swains, the soft compliment from gracious signori, that sells the camellias, and adds many a mite on to a bargain! Who cares for a pathetic face and a wistful gaze? Such cunning arts are only for 'marchesine' and ladies who can afford powder; we of the people had best trust to a healthy frame and a kindling eye, and to the jests and smiles of a light heart, for our conquests! Truly, it is in this wise that Rosina. has come to be la bella dei Portici,' and it is by simple and lighthearted devices that have made many a gallant think of her as the reflection of this cold, bright sunshine itself, that our flower-girl can keep so many and such fragrant bouquets on her stall in the gateway and such a goodly hoard of soiled old soldi in her pocket. To-day, heedless of the cruel Tramontana, she has been up with the kindly sun's return, and in her garden among the camellias. All the buds that bore any promise for immediate use were nipped off at the very flower and thrown into the common basket, and when the round of the camellia grove had been made Rosina went on her knees to pluck the purple heartsease, to strip the beds where bloom the pale Neapolitan violets, and then on her tip-toes, with upstretched, graceful arm, to tear down the 'fiorellin d'oro' from the wall, to break the blossom of the Judas tree. All the time the wind was sharp, the sky darkly blue; and the

sun had no warmth till Rosina had been awhile in the stock garden and had spoiled the straight stalks of their gaudy flowers, mixing into this basket a handful of striving carnations and a share of sweetly-scented myrtle twigs, besides large-veined and dark-hued medlar leaves, wherewith to build the outer frame of her stiff bouquets. Poor flower season! It is past, and is not come again, but we have our glory still at Genoa, in the camellias, as people have in no other town-thank the Virgin!

So the early morning is gone, and Rosina is at her post beneath the Carlo Felice door-way. The sun has outstripped the east wind in power by this time, and for those who walk within its hearty radiance, and avoid the northward corners of streets-for those who, like our Rosina, sit within reach of its rays in some sheltered corner, the Tramontana matters but little. Indeed, Rosina forgot long ago how she had grumbled at the cold in those early hours after dawn in her Villa delle Peschiere, forgot it as she came down the narrow way of the Salita Sta. Trinità, when you might have seen her tall and buxom figure swaying gently on its firm, broad hips, erect as a reed, and as a reed pliant to circumstance, while on her head and in one downward-pointed hand she carried baskets of flower-material, and on her curved left arm bore the child of some busy mother. Truly, she is a girl of much presence, as indeed all the