e wedding procession and strewed flowers before them. And
in the evening, when the singing and fiddling and dancing were at an
end, and the guests had departed, Mother Uberta beckoned Hansel aside,
and with a mysterious air handed him something heavy tied up in the
corner of a handkerchief.

"There," she said, "is eight hundred and fifty florins. It is Ilka's
own money which she earned in Berlin. Now you may pay off the
mortgage, and the farm is yours."

"Mother Uberta," answered Hansel laughing, and pulling out a skin
purse from his bosom. "Here is what I have been saving these many
years. It is eight hundred and fifty florins."

"Hansel, Hansel," cried Mother Uberta in great glee, "it is what I
have always said of you. You are a jewel of a lad."

ANNUNCIATA.

I.

In the gallery of one of the famous Roman villas which commands a
splendid view of the city, Mr. Henry Vincent, a young American, was
lounging. Judging by his appearance he was a college graduate, or, to
speak more definitely, a graduate of Harvard; for he had that jaunty
walk and general trimness of attire which are the traditional
attributes of the academical denizens of Cambridge. He swung his arms
rather more than was needed to assist locomotion, and betrayed in an
unobtrusive manner a consciousness of being well dressed. His face,
which was not without fine possibilities, had an air of well-bred
neutrality; you could see that he assumed a defensive attitude against
aesthetic impressions,--that even the Sistine Madonna or the Venus of
Milo would not have surprised him into anything like enthusiasm or
abject approval. It was evident, too, that he was a little bit ashamed
of his Baedeker, which he consulted only in a semi-surreptitious way,
and plunged into the pocket of his overcoat whenever he believed
himself to be observed. Such a contingency, however, seemed remote;
for the silence that reigned about him was as heavy and profound as if
it had been unbroken since creation's day. The large marble halls had
a grave and inhospitable air, and their severe magnificence compelled
even from our apathetic traveller a shy and reluctant veneration. He
tried to fix his attention upon a certain famous Guido which was
attached by hinges to the wall, and which, as he had just learned from
Baedeker, was a marvel of color and fine characterization; he stood
for a few moments staring with a blank and helpless air, as if, for
the first time in his life,