ss is different; in one place the women wear a short skirt, an apron
held in by a girdle, and a bright colored bodice; in another they wear a
cap above which is a large shady hat; in the Val Maroblio they have a
woolen dress not very different from that of the Capuchins.

The men have not the square figure, the slow, heavy walk of the people
of Basle and Lucerne; they are brisk, vigorous, easy; and the women have
something of the wavy suppleness of vine branches twining among the
trees. These people have the happy, childlike joyousness, the frank
good-nature, of those who live in the open air, who do not shut
themselves up in their houses, but grow freely like the flowers under
the strong, glowing sunshine.

At every street corner sellers are sitting behind baskets of
extraordinary vegetables and magnificent fruit; and under the arcades
that run along the houses, big grocers in shirt sleeves come at
intervals to their shop doors to take breath, like hippopotami coming
out of the water for the same purpose. In this town, ultramontane in its
piety, the bells of churches and convents are sounding all day long, and
women are seen going to make their evening prayer together in the
nearest chapel.

But if the fair sex in Lugano are diligent in frequenting the churches,
they by no means scorn the cafes. After sunset the little tables that
are all over the great square are surrounded by an entire population of
men and women. How gay and amusing those Italian cafes are! full of
sound and color, with their red and blue striped awnings, their advance
guard of little tables under the shade of the orange-trees, and their
babbling, stirring, gesticulating company. The waiters, in black vests
and leather slippers, a corner of their apron tucked up in their belt,
run with the speed of kangaroos, carrying on metal plates syrups of
every shade, ices, sweets in red, yellow, or green pyramids. Between
seven and nine o'clock the whole society of Lugano defiles before you.
There are lawyers with their wives, doctors with their daughters,
bankers, professors, merchants, public officials, with whom are
sometimes misted stout, comfortable, jovial-looking canons, wrapping
themselves in the bitter smoke of a regalia, as in a cloud of incense.

LAKE COMO[21]

BY PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY

We have been to Como, looking for a house. This lake exceeds anything I
ever beheld in beauty, with the exception of the arbutus islands of
Killarney.