e smaller and less populous towns there are
distinctions and sub-distinctions, so that he is fortunate who does not
lose himself in that labyrinth. The gentleman (_galantuomo_, who is also
called _cappeddu_ or _cavaleri_) forms the highest caste, and is above
the master (_maestro_), who in turn must not be confounded with the
countryman (_villano_), the lowest grade in the social scale. Among the
countrymen of Modica a shepherd who lives on his own property is above a
reduced _massarotto_ (who is a countryman proprietor of lands), and yet
the _massarotto_ would refuse him for a son-in-law: the mechanic would
not be accepted by a family of drivers, nor these by another the head of
which is the keeper of swine or of cattle. The husbandman who can prune
the vines is above the one who can only till the ground; the cowherd
looks down on the one who guards the oxen; the last named scorns the
keeper of calves; the one who keeps sheep deems himself noble in
comparison with the one who guards goats; and so with other most minute
distinctions. When a countryman woos a young girl of a different rank,
he hopes to overcome the difficulties in his way by choosing a
matchmaker from among the foremost men of his native place, but the
matchmaker will inevitably receive the answer, "The young man is honest,
laborious, he owns a vineyard and land, he possesses all the qualities,
but--he is not of my rank."

GIUSEPPE PITRE.

AUNT EDITH'S FOREIGN LOVER.

"There is a destiny which shapes our end;" and I am a firm believer in
it, for how else can I explain my adventures and their results while
travelling in Austria in the year of the Welt-Ausstellung at Vienna?

As is usual with a novice in European travel, I received during the week
prior to sailing the ordinary amount of advice as to what I _should_ and
should _not_ do. Meantime, my aunt Edith, who had spent a year in Europe
ten or twelve years before, rather surprised me by her reticence in
regard to my proposed voyage. However, the night before I was to sail I
suggested to her that she might be able to give me some valuable advice,
as she had probably not "forgotten how one should behave in Paris."

"Forgotten!" she exclaimed with a start, and then, raven-like, "nothing
more." I played with the tassel of the window-curtain and wondered how I
should ever get on without this aunt, the dearest, bravest and
handsomest woman in all the world--to me. She was thirty-six years old,
j