astray, and she fell screaming over a precipice from the stony pathway. Imagine the intensity of her shrieks when the wood spirits who had caused her alarm came flying towards her. She tried frantically to get up and run away again, but her ancle was useless, and pain held her prisoner till familiar voices came from the spirits, who inquired, "Che cos 'hai, Filomena?" And she replied trembling, through sobs and tears, "Oh! Maria, is it you? I thought you were a ghost, and I've fallen down and hurt myself! oi, oi." (If ever a Tuscan is in pain, the invariable outlet to his feelings is this expressive interjection, "oi, oi.") The wood spirits were only the light cotton dresses of Maria and our nurse, who had been for a Sunday excursion to a distant village with Luigi. Between them they carried poor

Filomena home, and she has for the last week been hobbling with a stick about the village, while a stranger leads the sheep to pasture.

The fourth lustre of a mountain girl's life is spent at home, it is the Nausicaa period, when the damsel goes with others of her age to wash the linen in the brook, and spreads out the results of her spinning and weaving in long lines to bleach on the grassy slopes. Pietro's three pretty daughters and Luigi's sister often form a

most picturesque group, kneeling on large stones. at the brook washing garments in the limpid. stream, while sunlight falls through the trees in chequered beams, lighting up their coloured kerchiefs and blue gowns. At eventide they go to the fountain, as Rebecca and her companions did when Eliezer met them, and return balancing full vases of shining copper on their heads as they tread the ancient paving stones with a majestic walk worthy of the daughters of a kingly race.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE OLD MOUNTAIN CHURCH.

June 17.-About a quarter of a mile from us, on the old packhorse road, is a curious relic of antiquity, a tiny, quaint old church, called the "Pieve," said to have been built in the 11th century by the Countess Matilda, who was ruler of Tuscany at that time, and very devoted to the Church. It is a long, narrow building; a single nave without arches or aisles; built of large blocks of stone fitted and dovetailed into each other with a precision which is almost Etruscan. One single stone in the northern wall is sculptured with what the peasants call a "girigogolo," a kind of endless plaited knot. The priest whom we asked one day to explain the meaning of this curious stone, said it was a "Solomon's knot," and is used in many of the ancient churches. He seemed to consider it a charm, but it is more likely to have an allegorical meaning connected with the endless and mysterious works of God.

The Pieve has a tiny round apse at the east end, a miniature choir behind the high altar. The roof of the apse is formed of irregular flat stones, laid one over the other, and from the stones two rose trees spring and intertwine their long branches. Aunt Louisa gravely announced to the Antiquary that she had discovered an interesting

THE OLD MOUNTAIN CHURCH OF THE PIEVE, BUILT 1100.

archæological fact, viz. that the grave of "Ladye Nancie and Lord Ronald" was in this very Church, for

"Ladye Nancie they laid in the choir;

And out of her bosom there sprung a white rose,
And out of his a sweet brier."

The Antiquary pooh-poohing this, she declared her intention of writing a learned article to prove the Italian origin of that English ballad.

The preacher in this

The façade is remarkable for an external pulpit with a flight of stone steps ascending to it. External pulpits are a feature in many of the mediæval Italian churches, and are no doubt preferable in the summer evenings, or when the congregation is very large. little mountain pergamo must have had great inspiration from nature; for before him opens out the valley of the Lima, with its mountains clad in purple and gold, while on all sides, “in verdure clad and strength arrayed," the hills rise protectingly, and the cornfields and green pastures are spread at his feet. The Pieve is now a church without a parish, and is only opened three times a year, when processions take place to it from Piteglio. The interior is perfectly clean, but bare; only the high altar is kept up, being adorned with faded flowers and old candlesticks. A stone bench runs entirely round the nave. This interested the Antiquary, who said he had observed it in many churches of early construction, up to the time of Giotto.

He was very anxious to get at the history of the Pieve, and this evening we happened to meet the