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of high garden-wall with an arch in the middle of it, and under the
arch is a door. Over this arch climbs a rose-vine with dropping
clusters of tiny pink roses that lean on the stone, hang down into the
shadow or lift and melt into the liquid, dazzling blue of the sky.
Except the roses and the sky all is a gray shadow. It reminds one of
some lovely picture of the Madonna with clustering cherub faces about
her head, and you think it would not be discordant with the scene if a
miraculous figure should steal into sight under that arch. It is one of
the charms of Italy that it can always fitly frame whatever picture
your imagination may paint.

One finds a pleasant and cultivated society there too. One of my most
highly-esteemed visitors was the _canonico priore_ of the cathedral,
whose father had been an officer in the guard of the First Napoleon. A
pious and dignified elderly man, this prelate is not too grave to be
sometimes amusing as well as instructive. In his youth he had the
privilege of being intimate with Cardinal Mezzofanti, who apparently
took a fancy to the young Locatelli--"Tommassino" he called him, which
is a musical way of saying Tommy. At length he offered to give him
lessons in Greek. Full of proud delight at such a privilege, the
student went with his books for the first lesson, and was most kindly
received.

"Listen, Tommassino!" the cardinal said, turning over the leaves of a
great folio. "Here is a magnificent passage of St. Chrysostom's;" and
he read it out enthusiastically in fine, sonorous Greek.

"But I do not understand what it means," said the pupil.

"To be sure;" and the savant at once translated the passage into
musical Italian, and pointed out its beauties of thought and
expression. And so on, passage after passage, but never a word of
grammar.

Another time it was another of the Fathers or a heathen poet or a
chapter from the Bible read, translated and commented upon; but never
from first to last did Tommassino learn to conjugate a verb or form a
sentence from his learned professor.

"Mezzofanti," the prior said, "was as good as he was learned. He lived
simply, would not have been known from a common priest by his dress in
the street, and visited the sick like a parish priest."

Just at the foot of the hill on which Asisi is built a farm-school was
established a few years ago, the first director being the Benedictine
abate Lisi, a nobleman by birth and a farmer-monk by choice. Hi