re that this meant the vintage, the
grape-gathering. Presently there came along a youth playing a violin
and a little girl singing. And a whole party of other children, all
loaded with as many grapes as they could carry, came leaping and
singing after them; their black hair loose, or sometimes twisted
with vine-leaves; their big black eyes dancing with merriment, and
their bare, brown legs with glee.

"Ah! Cecco, Cecco!" cried the little girl, pausing as she beat her
tambourine, "here's a stranger who has no grapes; bring them here!"

"But," said Lucy, "aren't they your mamma's grapes; may you give
them away?"

"Ah, ah! 'tis the _vendemmia!_ all may eat grapes; as much as they
will. See, there's the vineyard."

Lucy saw on the slope of the hill above the cottage long poles such
as hops grow upon, and clusters hanging down. Men in shady, battered
hats, bright sashes and braces, and white shirt sleeves, and women
with handkerchiefs folded square over their heads, were cutting the
grapes down, and piling them up in baskets; and a low cart drawn by
two mouse-colored oxen, with enormous wide horns and gentle-looking
eyes, was waiting to be loaded with baskets.

"To the wine-press! to the press!" shouted the children, who were
politeness itself and wanted to show her everything.

The wine-press was a great marble trough with pipes leading off
into other vessels around. Into it went the grapes, and in the
midst were men and boys and little children, all with bare feet
and legs up to the knees, dancing and leaping, and bounding and
skipping upon the grapes, while the red juice covered their brown
skins.

"Come in, come in; you don't know how charming it is!" cried Cecco.
"It is the best time of all the year, the dear vintage; come in and
tread the grapes."

"But you must take off your shoes and stockings," said his sister,
Nunziata; "we never wear them but on Sundays and holidays."

Lucy was not sure that she might, but the children looked so joyous,
and it seemed to be such fun, that she began fumbling with the
buttons of her boots, and while she was doing it she opened her eyes,
and found that her beautiful bunch of grapes was only the cushion in
the bottom of Mother Bunch's chair.

CHAPTER IV.

GREENLAND.

"Now suppose I tried what the very cold countries are like!"

And Lucy bent over the globe till she was nearly ready to cut her
head off with the brass meridian, as she looked at the long, jag