ell to Allah! A growl
to Odin, for the girls could not forget the Goths, albeit they only knew
them through reports of their foremothers.

Then the Saracens turned their attention to crockery ware, pots, pans,
and water jars; forming like fruits and flowers the yielding clay, and
establishing models that are every hour to be seen around one in this
old nest. Clothes, too, they thought, should be made as they saw 'fit;'
and, accordingly, head-dresses and dresses, under garments, &c., _a la
Saracenesca_, were all the rage; and as the colors were in no wise
sombre or melancholy to behold, the girls took kindly to them, and,
slightly modified, wear them still. When you see the _pane_, the white
cloth worn on the women's heads, remember it was once an Oriental
_yashmak_, falling around and concealing the face of the Italian lady
love of a Saracen; but when the Saracens departed, they rolled up the
veil and disclosed to delighted Christians the features of Rita or
Maria, who figured for a time as Zoe or Fatima.

With their religion, the Saracens were not so successful--they could not
make it popular; so they waived this point, contented with having set
the fashions, and introduced their own style of music, crockery, and
jewelry.

Thus reflecting, Caper stopped short, regarded his watch, found it was
near dinner time--the pastoral hour of noon-day--and then turned to walk
down to the inn. On his way he passed a store having French calicoes in
the window, and mourned in his heart to think how short a time it would
be before these became popular, and the homemade picturesque dresses of
the female Segnians would be discarded. The time, too, was fast
coming--with the railroad from Rome to Naples--when travellers will
overrun these mountain towns, and the price of board shoot up from forty
cents to a dollar or two: then the inhabitants will learn geography and
become mercenary, and will learn arithmetic and blaspheme (in their way)
at _forestieri Inglese_, _Americani_, _Francese_, or _Tedeschi_, and
cheat them. Then the peace of the Volscians will have departed, never,
oh, never more to return.

Then the women will wear--bonnets! and cheap French goods; will no
longer look like moving woodyards, bringing fagots on their heads down
mountain sides; no longer bear aloft the graceful _conche_ filled with
sweet water from the fountain, for hydraulic rams will do their
business; no longer lead the sportive pig to pastures new, but pe