d their rows of candles.

And then the shifting flames came gradually into a mass and took
a steady upward progress, and the melancholy strains of an ancient
ecclesiastical lamentation reached our listening ears. As the lights
drew nearer I left the bank where all the Mamies and Sadies with
their Mommas were stationed and walked down into the river valley
to meet the vanguard. On the bridge I found a little band of Roman
soldiers on horseback, without stirrups, and had a few words with
one of them as to his anachronistic cigarette, and then the first
torches arrived, carried by proud little boys in red; and after the
torches the little girls in muslin veils, which were, however, for
the most part disarranged for the better recognition of relations
and even more perhaps for recognition by relations: and very pretty
this recognition was on both sides. And then the village priests in
full canonicals, looking a little self-conscious; and after them the
dead Christ on a litter carried by a dozen contadini who had a good
deal to say to each other as they bore Him.

This was the same dead Christ which had been lying in state in the
church, for the past few days, to be worshipped and kissed by the
peasantry. I had seen a similar image at Settignano the day before and
had watched how the men took it. They began by standing in groups in
the piazza, gossipping. Then two or three would break away and make
for the church. There, all among the women and children, half-shyly,
half-defiantly, they pecked at the plaster flesh and returned to resume
the conversation in the piazza with a new serenity and confidence in
their hearts.

After the dead Christ came a triumphal car of the very little girls
with wings, signifying I know not what, but intensely satisfying to
the onlookers. One little wet-nosed cherub I patted, so chubby and
innocent she was; and Heaven send that the impulse profited me! This
car was drawn by an ancient white horse, amiable and tractable as a
saint, but as bewildered as I as to the meaning of the whole strange
business. After the car of angels a stalwart body of white-vestmented
singers, sturdy fellows with black moustaches who had been all day
among the vines, or steering placid white oxen through the furrows,
and were now lifting their voices in a miserere. And after them the
painted plaster Virgin, carried as upright as possible, and then
more torches and the wailing band; and after the band another guard
of