s of generations of mendicants in
it. The assistant was very proud of the neatness of every thing, and
was glad to talk of that, or, indeed, any thing else. It appeared that
the girls were taught reading, writing, and plain sewing when they
were young, and that the Conservatorio was chiefly sustained by pious
contributions and bequests. Any lingering notion of the conventual
character of the place was dispelled by the assistant's hurrying to
say, "And when we can get the poor things well married, we are glad to
do so."

"But how does any one ever see them?"

"Eh! well, that is easily managed. Once a month we dress the
marriageable girls in their best, and take them for a walk in the
street. If an honest young man falls in love with one of them going
by, he comes to the Superior, and describes her as well as he can,
and demands to see her. She is called, and if both are pleased, the
marriage is arranged. You see it is a very simple affair."

And there was, to the assistant's mind, nothing odd in the whole
business, insomuch that I felt almost ashamed of marveling at it.

Issuing from the backdoor of the convent, we ascended by stairs and
gateways into garden spaces, chiefly planted with turnips and the like
poor but respectable vegetables, and curiously adorned with fragments
of antique statuary, and here and there a fountain in a corner,
trickling from moss-grown rocks, and falling into a trough of
travertine, about the feet of some poor old goddess or Virtue who had
forgotten what her name was.

Once, the assistant said, speaking as if the thing had been within
her recollection, though it must have been centuries before, the
antiquities of the Conservatorio were much more numerous and striking;
but they were now removed to the different museums. Nevertheless they
had still a beautiful prospect left, which we were welcome to enjoy if
we would follow her; and presently, to our surprise, we stepped from
the garden upon the roof of the Temple of Peace. The assistant had not
boasted without reason: away before us stretched the Campagna, a level
waste, and empty, but for the umbrella-palms that here and there
waved like black plumes upon it, and for the arched lengths of
the acqueducts that seemed to stalk down from the ages across the
melancholy expanse like files of giants, with now and then a ruinous
gap in the line, as if one had fallen out weary by the way. The city
all around us glittered asleep in the dim Decemb