heaps of
beautiful flowers!" said Mildred. "It is curious, too," she added, "to
see, moving through this Cheapside throng, the mendicant friar, cowled
and sandaled, with his wallet, or double sack that hangs across his
shoulder before and behind, actually then and there collecting alms for
his convent."

"But you must not forget the sugar saints and saviours," said Miss
Bloomfield, "that one sees amongst the sweetmeats; and how in every shop
there hangs up the picture of some patron saint, before which on
holydays candles are burning; nor above all, those lemonade stalls,
which are certainly the gayest things in the town. But tell me," she
continued, "I do not quite understand them. First, there is a sort of
dresser heaped up with lemons and oranges. At each end of this rise two
little pillars, painted with red and white stripes, and supporting a
sort of canopy, on which figures, of course, the Virgin Mary--so that
the whole looks like a little altar. Well, but on each side, between
these pillars, there swings, suspended by the middle, a sort of wooden
barrel, and when the damsel, who makes the lemonade, has nothing else to
do, she gives it a touch, and sets it swinging. Now, what are those
for?"

"They hold the snow," said her brother, "which serves instead of ice,
and which the damsel, by this swinging process, helps to dissolve. Some
day we will have a glass of lemonade at one of these altars, as you call
them. We shall get it fresh enough, and cheap enough. But you must take
your sugar with you, for sugar they do not give; their customers are in
the habit of taking it without. I was amused to-day," he continued, "by
watching the progress down the street of a very simple style of
water-cart. A butt of water, with a leathern pipe issuing from it, is
drawn on a low cart by a donkey. A bare-legged fellow ties a string to
the end of the leathern pipe, and follows jerking it to and fro, this
side and that side--of course with many loud vociferations--and so
continues to distribute the contents of his butt over a pretty large
area."

"Very surprising!" said Winston, who for some time past had not heard
one syllable of what was uttered.

CHAPTER IX.

We will not indulge ourselves, at the risk of wearying our readers, by
traversing in the society of Mildred and Winston the environs of Naples;
we will not wander with them through the disinterred streets and temples
of Pompeii; nor attempt to partake of their delight