swathed in gold and silver
tissue, crowned, and sparkling with jewels," no thing of beauty, but
believed to have miraculous powers. An inscription in the sacristy of the
church states that it was made by a devout Minorite of wood from the
Mount of Olives, and given flesh-colour by the interposition of God
Himself. It has its own servants and its own carriage in which it drives
out to visit the sick. There is a strange story of a theft of the
wonder-working image by a woman who feigned sickness, obtained permission
to have the _Bambino_ left with her, and then sent back to the friars
another image dressed in its clothes. That night the Franciscans heard
great ringing of bells and knockings at the church door, and found
outside the true _Bambino_, naked in the wind and rain. Since then it has
never been allowed out alone.{70}

|116| All through the Christmas and Epiphany season Ara Coeli is
crowded with visitors to the _Bambino_. Before the _presepio_, where it
lies, is erected a wooden platform on which small boys and girls of all
ranks follow one another with little speeches--"preaching" it is
called--in praise of the infant Lord. "They say their pieces," writes
Countess Martinengo, "with an infinite charm that raises half a smile and
half a tear." They have the vivid dramatic gift, the extraordinary
absence of self-consciousness, typical of Italian children, and their
"preaching" is anything but a wooden repetition of a lesson learned by
heart. Nor is there any irksome constraint; indeed to northerners the
scene in the church might seem irreverent, for the children blow toy
trumpets and their parents talk freely on all manner of subjects. The
church is approached by one hundred and twenty-four steps, making an
extraordinarily picturesque spectacle at this season, when they are
thronged by people ascending and descending, and by vendors of all sorts
of Christmas prints and images. On the Octave of the Epiphany there is a
great procession, ending with the blessing of Rome by the Holy Child. The
_Bambino_ is carried out to the space at the top of the giddy flight of
marble steps, and a priest raises it on high and solemnly blesses the
Eternal City.{71}

A glimpse of the southern Christmas may be had in London in the Italian
colony in and around Eyre Street Hill, off the Clerkenwell Road, a little
town of poor Italians set down in the midst of the metropolis. The steep,
narrow Eyre Street Hill, with its shops full of sou