good music. Thus Christmas is ushered
in at Rome.

The next day is a great _festa_. All classes are dressed in their best
and go to Mass,--and when that is over, they throng the streets to chat
and lounge and laugh and look at each other. The Corso is so crowded in
the morning, that a carriage can scarcely pass. Everywhere one hears the
pleasant greeting of "_Buona Festa,_" "_Buona Pasqua_." All the _basso
popolo_, too, are out,--the women wearing their best jewelry, heavy
gold ear-rings, three-rowed _collane_ of well-worn coral and gold, long
silver and gold pins and arrows in their hair, and great worked brooches
with pendants,--and the men of the Trastevere in their peaked hats,
their short jackets swung over one shoulder in humble imitation of the
Spanish cloak, and with rich scarfs tied round their waists. Most of
the ordinary cries of the day are missed. But the constant song of
"_Arancie! arancie dolci_!" is heard in the crowd; and everywhere
are the _sigarari_, carrying round their wooden tray of tobacco, and
shouting, "_Sigari! sigari dolci! sigari scelti_!" at the top of their
lungs; the _nocellaro_ also cries sadly about his dry chestnuts and
pumpkin-seeds. The shops are all closed, and the shopkeepers and clerks
saunter up and down the streets, dressed better than the same class
anywhere else in the world,--looking spick-and-span, as if they had just
come out of a bandbox, and nearly all of them carrying a little cane.
One cannot but be struck by the difference in this respect between the
Romans on a _festa_-day in the Corso and the Parisians during _fete_ in
the Champs Elysees,--the former are so much better dressed, and so much
happier, gayer, and handsomer.

During the morning, the Pope celebrates High Mass at San Pietro, and
thousands of spectators are there,--some from curiosity, some from
piety. Few, however, of the Roman families go there to-day;--they perform
their religious services in their private chapel or in some minor
church; for the crowd of _forestieri_ spoils St. Peter's for prayer.[A]
At the elevation of the Host, the guards, who line the nave, drop to
their knees, their side-arms ringing on the pavement,--the vast crowd
bends,--and a swell of trumpets sounds through the dome. Nothing can be
more impressive than this moment in St. Peter's. Then the choir from its
gilt cage resumes its chant, the high falsetti of the soprani soaring
over the rest, and interrupted now and then by the clear