own words,
the "peasant women turned their glances, the soft dark glances of
the Tuscan peasant's eyes," upon the strangers, with a singular
enthusiasm. She was in the habit of taking such walks with her
husband, and she never returned from one of them, I believe, without
some new impression of beauty and of lasting truth. While her
judgment, intense in its sincerity, tested, like an _aqua regia_, the
value of all facts that came within her notice, her sympathies
seemed, by an instinctive and unerring action, to transmute all her
experiences instantly into permanent treasures.

The economy of the house in which she lived afforded me occasions
for observing the decisive power, both of control and of consolation,
which she could exert over others. Her maid,--an impetuous girl of
Rieti, a town which rivals Tivoli as a hot-bed of homicide,--was
constantly involved in disputes with a young Jewess, who occupied the
floor above Madame Ossoli. On one occasion, this Jewess offered the
maid a deliberate and unprovoked insult. The girl of Rieti, snatching
up a knife, ran up stairs to revenge herself after her national
fashion. The porter's little daughter followed her and, running
into Madame Ossoli's rooms, besought her interference. Madame Ossoli
reached the apartment of the Jewess, just in time to interpose between
that beetle-browed lady and her infuriated assailant. Those who
know the insane license of spirit which distinguishes the Roman
mountaineers, will understand that this was a position of no slight
hazard. The Jewess aggravated the danger of the offence by the
obstinate maliciousness of her aspect and words. Such, however, was
Madame Ossoli's entire self-possession and forbearance, that she was
able to hold her ground, and to remonstrate with this difficult pair
of antagonists so effectually, as to bring the maid to penitent tears,
and the Jewess to a confession of her injustice, and a promise of
future good behavior.

The porter of the house, who lived in a dark cavernous hole on the
first floor, was slowly dying of a consumption, the sufferings of
which were imbittered by the chill dampness of his abode. His hollow
voice and hacking cough, however, could not veil the grateful accent
with which he uttered any allusion to Madame Ossoli. He was so close
a prisoner to his narrow, windowless chamber, that when I inquired for
Madame Ossoli he was often obliged to call his little daughter, before
he could tell me whether