d the midnight ring,
There was the handsome wizard
By the daughter of the king.

I ween she was well contented,
As many dames would be,
If they could be enchanted
With just such sorcery.

To have not only a jewel,
But a husband, which is more,
All day a dazzling diamond,
And by night a bright signor!

Who was it wrote this ballad
About this loving pair?
He was the Count and wizard
Who won the princess fair.

STORIES OF SAN MINIATO

"The picturesque height of San Miniato, now the great cemetery of the
city which dominates the Arno from the south, has an especial
religious and saintly interest. The grand Basilica, with its
glittering ancient mosaic, shines amid the cypresses against the sky,
and whether it gleams in the sunlight against the blue, or is cut in
black on the primrose sky of twilight, it is equally
imposing."--"_Echoes of Old Florence_," _by_ LEADER SCOTT.

To the old people of Florence, who still see visions and dream dreams,
and behold the wind and the stars at noonday (which latter thing I have
myself beheld), the very ancient convent of San Miniato, "the only one in
Tuscany which has preserved the ancient form of the Roman basilica," and
the neighbourhood, are still a kind of Sleepy Hollow, where witches fly
of nights more than elsewhere, where ghosts or _folletti_ are most
commonly seen, and where the _orco_ and the nightmare and her whole
ninefold disturb slumbers _a bel agio_ at their easiest ease, as appears
by the following narrative:

SAN MINIATO FRA LE TORRE.

"This is a place which not long ago was surrounded by towers, which were
inhabited by many witches.

"Those who lived in the place often noticed by night in those towers,
serpents, cats, small owls, and similar creatures, and they were alarmed
by frequently seeing their infants die like candles blown out--_struggere
i bambini come candele_; nor could they understand it; but those who
believed in witchcraft, seeking in the children's beds, often found
threads woven together in forms like animals or garlands, and when
mothers had left their children alone with the doors open, found their
infants, on returning, in the fireplace under the ashes. And at such
times there was always found a strange cat in the room.

"And believing the cat to be a witch, they took it, and first tying the
two hind-paws, cut off the fo