edge is no dainty foot, for it has grown hard upon the hard stones, and tanned with the sun, and soiled with the world's work of every day. Neither contadine nor fisherwives waste their scant pence on shoes and stockings.

Lucrezia plaits her white threads swiftly-so swiftly that you might almost see the pattern growing beneath her fingers, though it is no simple design that she weaves thus from memory, but an elaborate arrangement of groundwork and spray and border, that go to make the width most used for flounces. The wooden bobbins clap together merrily when Lucrezia thus nimbly twists and crosses threads over the pink pillow's surface. She is crooning a lullaby to the bandaged bamboccio the while, and nearly mars the use of it by the loud peals of laughter that Maria's conversation provokes, who sits idling on the cottage door-step.

Marry? I wouldn't marry for worlds, and have to work as you're working now,' declares decisively that one who is yet a spinster. 'What man is worth it? For me, I like to amuse myself-in the way one should, of course! Santa Vergine! you're always at it! If you're not at the lace-pillow, you're with the fish to market or down in the villa round the tomate and the herbage! And then that marmot of yours! It's one thing to dandle him a bit for you when you're up to

Santa Margherita on an errand, but to have a thing like that of one's own—! Not for me!' 'Go to!' laughs Lucrezia. And that young man of Camogli

that I know of?' And that young man-and that young man! What young man, and what's he to do with me?' simpers the maid. 'All very fine,' replies the married woman, with a giggle so loud that Ernesto gives an ominous whine, and would probably move his limbs were they not so well secured, 'that will he know better than I for a surety!' And she rocks the cradle faster, and begins to croon afresh, till the pins on the pillow want shifting forwards, and Maria so far recovers her gravity as to continue, 'You are always up to your jokes, you! But tell me a little-wilt teach me the lacemaking if I have the patience to learn? It's the only way for us poor girls to earn a pair of ear-rings, I suppose.' 'Dear heart, you would never have patience,' says Lucrezia. A fisher-girl like you! Why, your hands are rough from the oar, and you'd never sit still a little half-hour. It's bad enough for me, who have been used to it since I was twelve years old!'

A portion of the pattern gets finished off at this point, and Lucrezia casts a handful of threads aside— the threads that have twined one kind of weft for sprays and takes up a new set to fill in the ground with. She has had a good day's work, has been at the pillow

at least five or six hours, and has completed nearly mezzo palmo of flounce, which is about five inches. If she were not the nimblest worker in all Santa Margherita's vicinity, she could never make as much lace as this in the whole twelve hours, and yet the Genoa shops will scarcely pay her more than a franc for the piece she has done, weaving since daybreak, till now that it is time to cook the cena. Indeed, if hers were not the best and smoothest made lace to be had along that shore, Lucrezia would not even earn as much. It is not without some reason that to Maria's remark about its being the best means of gain for a woman, she answers, but curtly, 'You believe it? Listen to me rather; that you, who have hard hands and slow wits, and the patience only of a spirit in purgatory, you would not make half a franc with your day at the pillow! Even the glove-sewing would suit you better, though 'tis but a poor trade! Take to yourself that young man of Camogli, and go in peace! He has a house above his head, and you are fit for nothing so well as to sell his fish for him at Santa Margherita, and harvest his wheat and his olives.'

Lucrezia rises to stretch her arms, for the shadows are creeping longer and a filmier light dims the sun's dazzle on the bay. It will be time to pare the potatoes and wash the rice for minestra, though, on second thoughts, she has a mind to cook some polenta—that

is quicker done, and just as acceptable for a second meal. Maria's gossip must end for this time. She, too, has a cena to make ready at home for the men, and Lucrezia has enough to do now, for, just when the pot wants putting on-that bundle in the cradle begins to wail, of course! It's always so,' laments she plaintively, but the mother's heart cannot find it within to be cross, though she must rake the fire with one hand while holding the infant to her breast with the other.

The first-born's woes are stilled, supper simmers over the burning logs, in the light of whose flames Lucrezia's copper vessels shine brightly on the smoke-tarnished walls; without, the sunlight has faded, and grey clouds cross the west. We shall have a storm to-night,' muses she on the terrace, looking seawards with her back to the road, and to the chestnut-woods behind her olive trees. Truly, the blue waves are sadder-coloured than before and begin to wear white feathers on their bosoms. A wind moves in the grey branches overhead, and rustles more noisily amid the broader-leaved chestnuts behind; on the hill's crest it is sighing beneath the stone pines. 'Pietro will surely not go to the fishing this night,' says she, half aloud; and she turns to fetch the copper cauldron to fill at the spring.

lies

Some one is coming through the chestnut wood that away from the sea-a lady. Is it one of the ladies