ear's Day. There are chill days of
course, and chiller nights, but cold is a relative term and loses its
English meaning in spots where snow falls once or twice in a year and
vanishes before midday. The mere break of habit is delightful; it is
like a laughing defiance of established facts to lounge by the seashore
in the hot sun-glare of a January morning. And with this new sense of
liberty comes little by little a freedom from the overpowering dread of
chills and colds and coughs which only invalids can appreciate. It is an
indescribable relief not to look for a cold round every corner. The
"lounging" which becomes one's life along the Riviera or the Bay of
Naples is only another name for the ease and absence of anxiety which
the mere presence of constant sunshine gives to life.

Few people, in fact, actually "lounge" less than the English exiles who
bask in the sun of Italy. Their real danger lies in the perpetual
temptation to over-exertion which arises from the sense of renewed
health. Every village on its hilltop, every white shrine glistening high
up among the olives, seems to woo one up the stony paths and the long
hot climb to the summit. But the relief from home itself, the break away
from all the routine of one's life, is hardly less than the relief from
greatcoats. It is not till our life is thoroughly disorganized, till the
grave mother of a family finds herself perched on a donkey, or the
_habitue_ of Pall Mall sees himself sauntering along through the olive
groves, that one realizes the iron bounds within which our English
existence moves. Every holiday of course brings this home to one more or
less, but the long holiday of a whole winter brings it home most of all.
England and English ways recede and become unreal. Old prepossessions
and prejudices lose half their force when sea and mountains part us from
their native soil. It is hard to keep up our vivid interest in the
politics of Little Pedlington, or to maintain our old excitement over
the matrimonial fortunes of Miss Hominy. It becomes possible to
breakfast without the last telegram and to go to bed without the news of
a fresh butchery. One's real interest lies in the sunshine, in the
pleasure of having sunshine to-day, in the hope of having sunshine
to-morrow.

But really to enjoy the winter retreat one must keep as much as possible
out of the winter retreat itself. Few places are more depressing in
their social aspects than these picturesque littl