ny row was going on, the girl never moved, having
forgotten to go a few steps and deposit her load; and when we
disappeared round a bend of the path, she was still watching us,
smiling and statuesque.

As we descend, we come upon a group of little children seated about a
doorstep, black-eyed, chubby little urchins, who are cutting oranges
into little bits, and playing "party," as children do on the other
side of the Atlantic. The instant we stop to speak to them, the
skinny hand of an old woman is stretched out of a window just above
our heads, the wrinkled palm itching for money. The mother comes
forward out of the house, evidently pleased with our notice of the
children, and shows us the baby in her arms. At once we are on good
terms with the whole family. The woman sees that there is nothing
impertinent in our cursory inquiry into her domestic concerns, but, I
fancy, knows that we are genial travelers, with human sympathies. So
the people universally are not quick to suspect any imposition, and
meet frankness with frankness, and good-nature with good-nature, in a
simple-hearted, primeval manner. If they stare at us from doorway
and balcony, or come and stand near us when we sit reading or writing
by the shore, it is only a childlike curiosity, and they are quite
unconscious of any breach of good manners. In fact, I think
travelers have not much to say in the matter of staring. I only pray
that we Americans abroad may remember that we are in the presence of
older races, and conduct ourselves with becoming modesty, remembering
always that we were not born in Britain.

Very likely I am in error; but it has seemed to me that even the
funerals here are not so gloomy as in other places. I have looked in
at the churches when they are in progress, now and then, and been
struck with the general good feeling of the occasion. The real
mourners I could not always distinguish; but the seats would be
filled with a motley gathering of the idle and the ragged, who seemed
to enjoy the show and the ceremony. On one occasion, it was the
obsequies of an officer in the army. Guarding the gilded casket,
which stood upon a raised platform before the altar, were four
soldiers in uniform. Mass was being said and sung; and a priest was
playing the organ. The church was light and cheerful, and pervaded.
by a pleasant bustle. Ragged boys and beggars, and dirty children
and dogs, went and came wherever they chose--about the unoccupied
spaces