a--in queste circostanze_,"--here
he looked to see that the door was well fastened,--_"mi pare che si
potrebbe far un letto per nostro Signore, Gesu Cristo."_

It is the custom in Rome at the great _festas,_ of which Christmas is
one of the principal ones, for each parish to send round the sacrament
to all its sick; and during these days a procession of priest and
attendants may be seen, preceded by their cross and banner, bearing the
holy wafer to the various houses. As they march along, they make the
streets resound with the psalm they sing. Everybody lifts his hat as
they pass, and many among the lower classes kneel upon the pavement.
Frequently the procession is followed by a rout of men, women, and
children, who join in the chanting and responses, pausing with the
priest before the door of the sick person, and accompanying it as it
moves from house to house.

At Christmas, all the Roman world which has a _baiocco_ in its pocket
eats _torone_ and _pan giallo._ The shops of the pastry-cooks and
confectioners are filled with them, mountains of them incumber the
counters, and for days before Christmas crowds of purchasers throng to
buy them. _Torone_ is a sort of hard candy, made of honey and almonds,
and crusted over with crystallized sugar; or in other words, it is a
_nuga_ with a sweet frieze coat;--but _nuga_ is a trifle to it for
consistency. _Pan giallo_ is perhaps so called _quasi lucus,_ it being
neither bread nor yellow. I know no way of giving a clearer notion of
it than by saying that its father is almond-candy and its mother a
plum-pudding. It partakes of the qualities of both its parents. From its
mother it inherits plums and citron, while its father bestows upon it
almonds and consistency. In hardness of character it is half-way between
the two,--having neither the maternal tenderness on the one hand, nor
the paternal stoniness on the other. One does not break one's teeth on
it as over the _torone,_ which is only to be cajoled into masticability
by prolonged suction, and often not then; but the teeth sink into it as
the wagoner's wheels into clayey mire, and every now and then receive a
shock, as from sunken rocks, from the raisin-stones, indurated almonds,
pistachio-nuts, and pine-seeds, which startle the ignorant and innocent
eater with frightful doubts. I carried away one tooth this year over my
first piece; but it was a tooth which had been considerably indebted to
California, and I have forgiven the