.

Mrs. Buren, left a widow years since, with a large fortune, had educated
her only child, Ida, systematically, solidly, and healthily. The child's
mind, vine-like, clings for support to something already firm and
established, that it may climb upward in a healthy, natural growth,
avoiding the earth; so the daughter had found in her mother a guide
toward the clear air where there is health and purity. Ida Buren, with
clear brown eyes, high spirits, rosy cheeks, and full perfected form, at
one glance revealed the attributes that Uncle Bill had claimed for her
so quickly. With all the beauty of an Italian, she had her perceptions
of color and harmony in the violets she gathered; the truth and
tenderness of a German, to appreciate their sentiment; the health of an
Englishwoman, to tramp through the dewy grass to pick them; the grace of
a Frenchwoman, to accept them from Nature with a _merci, madame_!

Caper had now a lovely painting to hang up in his heart, one in unison
with the purity and beauty of the violets of the Villa Borghese.

THE CARNIVAL.

There is lightness and brightness, music, laughter, merry jests, masks,
bouquets, flying flowers, and _confetti_ around you; you are in the
Corso, no longer the sober street of a solemn old city, but the
brilliant scene of a pageant, rivalling your dreams of Fairy land,
excelling them; for it is fresh, sparkling, real before your eyes. From
windows and balconies wave in the wind all-colored tapestries, flutter
red, white, and golden draperies; laugh out in festal garments gay
revellers; fly through the golden sunlight showers of perfumed flowers;
beam down on you glances from wild, loving eyes, sparkling with fun,
gleaming with excitement, thrilling with witching life.

Hurrah for to-day! _Fiori, fiori, ecco fiori_! Baskets of flowers,
bunches of flowers, bouquets of flowers, flowers natural and flowers
artificial, flowers tied up and flowers loose. _Confetti, confetti, ecco
confetti_! Sugar plums white, sugar plums blue, bullets and buckshot of
lime water and flour. Whiz! down comes the Carnival shower: '_Bella,
donzella_, this bouquet for thee!' Up go the white camellias and blue
violets: 'down comes a rosebud for me.' What wealth of loveliness and
beauty in thousands of balconies and windows; what sheen of brilliance
in the vivid colors of the varied costumes!

The Carnival has come!

Right and left fly flowers; and here and there dart in between wheels
and under