two girls by name, comparing them
to olives and other fruit, to _candelabri_, and desiring them to
keep themselves pure that 'they might go as virgins into the
chamber of their beloved.' When the Sacrament was administered
the ladies took the crowns off the girls, who were like automata
all the time, threw the white veils over them, and led them to
the altar, where the Sacrament was administered to them; then
they were led back to their seats, the veils taken off and the
crowns replaced. After a short interval they were again led to
the altar, where, on their knees, their profession was read to
them; in this they are made to renounce the world and their
parents; but at this part, which is at the end, a murmuring noise
is made by the four ladies who kneel with them at the altar, that
the words may not be heard, being thought too heart-rending to
the parents; then they are led out and taken into the convent,
and the ceremony ends. The girls did not seem the least affected,
but very serious; the rest of the party appeared to consider it
as a _fete_, and smirked and gossiped; only the father of one of
them, an old man, looked as if he felt it. The brother told me
his sister was eighteen; that she would be a nun, and that they
had done all they could to dissuade her. It is a rigid order, but
there is a still more rigid rule within the convent. Those
nuns who embrace it are for ever cut off from any sort of
communication with the world, and can never again see or
correspond with their own family. They cannot enter into this
last seclusion without the consent of their parents, which
another of this man's four sisters is now soliciting.

We afterwards drove through the Grotto of Pausilippo, that
infernal grotto which one must pass through to get out of Naples
on one side; it is a source of danger, and the ancient account of
it is not the least exaggerated:--

Nihil isto carcere longius, nihil illis faucibus
obscurius, quo nobis praestant non ut per tenebras
videamus sed ut ipsas.

There are a few glimmering lamps always obscured by dust, and it
is never hardly light enough to avoid danger except at night; in
the middle it is pitch dark.

Then round the Strada Nuova, Murat's delightful creation, and
walked in the Villa Reale, where I found Acton, who had been all
the morning at the trial, which was very interesting. A woman was
examined, who deposed that her husband was thrown into prison and
ill-treated by