women in the mountains are indefatigable. The mason brothers, Lenini, go away to their work in distant villages, and to the Maremma in the winter; while their wives and sisters almost entirely cultivate the landed inheritance of the family.

CHAPTER VII.

TUSCAN SHEPHERDESSES.

THE "Bopeep" period seems a stage in the life of most mountain lasses. The first five years of their existence are given to baby play, toddling about barefoot, hand in hand with other toddlers, pulling flowers to pieces, picking up fallen fruits under the trees, dragging each other about in a rough cart on wooden rollers, and diverting themselves on each other's thresholds. The second five years is usually devoted by little girls to carrying the swaddled babies who are not able to walk, and leading about the sturdy little fellows who can use their feet, but not their judgment. These baby-foster-mothers always fill me with pity, they seem to toil so in the service of their unwitting tyrants, and the swathed bundle totters dangerously in the little weak arms which can scarcely clasp it. In the third lustre, a girl gives up the care of the

lambs of the home flock and takes charge of the more numerous sheep further afield.

Rosa's eldest daughter and Pietro's youngest have both reached the shepherdess age, and might be seen every morning leading away their respective paternal flocks, assisted by a pig, which in mountain regions is frequently the substitute for a sheep dog. It is also less expensive, because it picks up its own food in the woods, and when winter comes can be transformed into food for the family. It is astonishing how clever the pig is in keeping the flock together.

The pretty little maiden, whirling her spindle or knitting her blue stocking, strolls on calmly before, with her red kerchief tied over her chestnut braids, the sheep following closely behind her; there are thin white sheep, and long-legged black ones, nondescript speckled or piebald creatures, very unlike a fleecy English flock. One wonders why the black ones are kept, but yet for the sake of ancient story we take an interest in them. They bring back a memory of Jacob dividing Laban's flocks; and then in the more mythical Etruscan times, black sheep were sacred to Pluto, all the sacrifices to the infernal deities who held such sway over the mystery-loving people of those days. being made with black sheep. Thence came the

myth that when Atropos, the weird fate, spun black wool, a mortal was doomed to die.

The young girls lead their flocks up the rugged mountain paths, under the chestnut forests, to the higher glades where fresher grass and more luxuriant ferns grow. Here Bopeep flings herself down on a mossy bed, and knits or spins or muses, sings stornelli or talks to others of her class, watching her flock and occasionally calling back a stray member. Thus the long hours pass till the shadows creep eastward, when she calls the sheep and descends again in time to partake of the household supper of steaming yellow polenta, or white beans. In families where there are no young girls of the shepherdess age, a damsel is hired from a neighbouring hearth where the feminine element preponderates.

The third and prettiest Bopeep of the village is a hired garzona, who leads forth the numerous flocks of Luigi and his mother Lachesis. This large-eyed, rosy-cheeked damsel, poetically called Filomena, is one of a family of seven daughters, whose home is a lonely little farm higher up the mountain. Filomena is bound to stay five years with Lachesis, who clothes and feeds her in return for her services, which is the usual agreement. Sometimes an extra payment is added in

the shape of a sack or two of chestnuts at the gathering. Filomena is not wholly divided from her family by this arrangement, for we notice that she invariably leads her flock up towards the paternal homestead, and once having wandered so far ourselves we found her dancing about on a grassy glade with two or three of her sisters, making the woods ring with their merry voices, while the black and white sheep placidly cropped the herbage around them, under the guardianship of the pig.

Living always amongst the woods, the shepherdesses might be supposed to be a very fearless race, and so they are as far as the natural is concerned, but they have a very wide faith in and exaggerated awe of the supernatural. Poor little Filomena has suffered very material injuries and sprained her foot through her superstitious terrors.

One evening she was leading her charges home in the gloaming, when she saw two indistinct figures gliding towards her, two white spirits as she imagined; on they came silently, and after gazing with dilated eyes for some moments, the frightened girl took to flight ; but, alas! the gathering darkness and the blindness of terror combined to lead her feet