about eight inches across. It looked like a square
Jack-in-the-Green on wheels and the men inside it, standing on chairs and
looking over the top of the framework, cut off the loaves and threw them
to the crowd. They hit me full on the chest with one and I clutched it
before it fell, to the great delight of some children who were standing
near and who said I must take it home and keep it and it would never go
bad, but would bring me good luck.

Then there was the Procession of the Holy Crucifix, the Padrone of
Calatafimi. For many years no one knew of its existence; it stood, like
the Discobolus in Butler's poem, _A Psalm of Montreal_, stowed away, in a
lumber room, turning its face to the wall, and when brought out was found
to be so black that it might have come from Egypt and so intensely
thaumaturgic that the church of Il Crocefisso had to be built to hold it.
That particular crucifix, however, like the letter of the Madonna at
Messina, no longer exists; it was burnt and the one in use is a copy,
made, one must suppose, from memory. They had the good sense, however,
to make it, if anything, blacker than the original, and happily it has
turned out to be at least equally thaumaturgic. One cannot see how black
it really is, for it is covered with silver, like the frame of the
picture of the Madonna di Custonaci, and festooned with votive offerings,
earrings, necklaces, watches and chains which glitter and glisten as the
procession passes along the streets.

Finally, rather late in the day, came the Procession of the Personaggi,
telling the story of _The Prodigal Son_. It consisted of twenty-nine
principal and many accessory figures, the more important ones carrying
scrolls stating who they were. The dresses were not equal to those one
expects to see at a leading London theatre, but the peasants of the
neighbourhood are unaccustomed to contemplate the triumphs of the modern
theatrical costumier. There may have been much else in the procession
that would have failed to win praise from a metropolitan crowd of
spectators, and such justice as was done to it by the author of the
little book, which was on sale for a few centesimi, might have struck an
exacting critic as being tempered with more mercy than it fairly
deserved. But the author was not thinking of the exacting critic, his
attitude of mind was rather that of Theseus when he determined that
_Pyramus and Thisbe_ should be performed--

For never anythi