nacquainted with any of
the family except from my description. Thus loaded I travelled to
Trapani and went up the Mountain in the public automobile, arriving on a
Thursday morning early in April, 1910, the wedding being fixed for the
following Saturday.

Berto met me at the Trapani gate of the town and took me to the Albergo
Sicilia, where I had stayed when I was on the Mountain in 1901. Signor
Bosco has died since, and his widow keeps on the inn with the help of
some members of her family of six daughters and four sons. One of these
sons is Peppi, a blacksmith, who plays a trombone in the municipal band.
Another is Alberto, one of the chauffeurs who drive the automobile up and
down the Mountain. Alberto and one of his sisters appeared as children
in the procession of the _Universal Deluge_. They were sitting at the
feet of Sin and holding one another's hands to represent the wicked
population destined to destruction. Alberto is now married. His wedding
took place in the morning, and at three o'clock in the afternoon three
hundred guests were entertained at dinner in the Albergo Sicilia, after
which they danced till dawn and, as the wedding was in December, they
must have been rather tired; but it was an exceptional case.

In the afternoon Berto came for me and took me to the house of his bride
to pay my respects. The house belongs to her; she has two brothers and a
sister all married and settled, and on Berto's marriage he will leave the
house of his parents and go and live in his wife's house. We entered
through a door that led through a high blank wall into a courtyard where
there were flowering plants in pots, and steps leading up to the
living-rooms on the first floor over a basement which is used partly as
stabling and partly as storage. This is the form of most of the houses
on the Mountain, and the blank wall and courtyard give them an air of
seclusion. We went up the steps and were received by the bride and many
of her relations, some of whom I had already met, for Giuseppina is a
cousin of Berto's mother. They showed me over the house; the rooms all
led into one another and, though they were not in a row, it was rather
like going over S. Joachim's house when it is being prepared for the
family festa of the Nascita. It would have been still more like it if we
had come in by the other front door, for the side we entered is on a
street that goes up-hill and the house is at a corner with another front