Porter, Miss Austen, Miss Edgeworth and Richardson were as household words upon the tongues of these stately dames, and the "Spectator" and the "Rambler" very frequently furnished a quotation or example for advice, reproof or encouragement to the young people of the house. The person possessing the most accurate knowledge of the dramatis persona and style of Richardson's ponderous novel, as well as the most thorough acquaintance with Dr. Johnson's works I ever knew, was an old Virginia lady who had always lived on her plantation and had never been out of the State. Thack eray and Dickens came in for a fair share of attention, but the dignified elegance of Addison and Johnson and the poets of the Elizabethan age seemed most congenial to their classic tastes.

Since, at that time, she was not expected to be self-supporting, no especial department of intellectual work was studied with a view to its becoming a maintenance. It was the pride of men that wives, mothers and daughters should be the useful ornaments of home-household goddesses-themselves the impersonation of the Greek idea of beauty; that what is fair and beautiful without should also be pure and beautiful within. She was to be every whit a woman, with that feminine insight into men and things and all human life, which is so characteristic of a sensible, well-balanced woman; and whatever charm might be hers from the possession of accomplishments, or however well she might have cultivated her mental faculties, that high perfection which wrought them into her organic constitution was desired and expected, rather than the display of gifts esteemed as mere adventitious ornaments. Like those faces which possess that peculiar beauty in which the form is lost in the stronger attraction of the expression—a beauty so subtle as to elude the limner's art and almost defy the inspired brush of a great master; those faces which the poet so aptly describes as a "meeting of gentle lights without a name" so the woman nobly planned must have that symmetry of character in which the beauty of proportion constitutes the highest charm; a well-tempered, well-attuned instrument, whose

chords are too perfectly harmonious, too exquisitely blended, to admit the possibility of discord.

The law of progress had not the power to draw woman over the line of feminine consistency into those callings and professions which God in nature seemed to have determined for stronger nerves and muscles. It was firmly believed throughout the South that St. Paul meant what he said when he commanded the women to keep silence in the churches, and it was furthermore accepted that this worthy was a man whose teachings and character alike deserved respect. A woman lecturer, then, was such an implied contradiction, such an anomaly-in short, such a monstrosity-as to put to flight the women of a community; and every man felt that his allegiance to the sex, his chivalry, the very respect which forbade him to retain his hat or his seat in a woman's presence, was compromised if he listened to one who had so far forgotten the sacredness of woman's position. And yet nowhere was the reflex influence of sex upon sex more distinctly felt or unhesitatingly acknowledged. The women were thoroughly feminine because the men were brave, heroic and devoted; the men were noble and chivalrous, because the women were pure, gentle and true.

Said he,.

The mother was the power in every household; indeed, it was literally her home, very often her property. A New England tourist expressed to the writer his surprise at a discovery he had made in the towns he had visited. "It is always Mrs. A.'s, Mrs. B.'s house. I am invited to Mrs. C.'s house; I never hear of the husband's house. I think I have found really the land of woman's rights after all; men have offices, stores and plantations, but the women have the homes." And the management of this home included every detail of domestic life, as the mistress looked well to the ways of her household; from breakfast the guests were dismissed to the library, drawing-room or outdoor sports, while with her own hands she washed the best china and silver before she rejoined them. The necessities of children, the wants of slaves, the requirements of visitors, the attention due her husband, made her a guide, a counsellor, a legislator in one— the wise matron who sees and improves

CHAPTER III.

1834.

IN the piazza of Sanzio, on a pleasant morning in June, a party of American travelers stood waiting till it should please their vetturini to be ready for a start. Their two carriages had been there in apparent traveling order a full half hour. Mrs. Nelson, the chaperon of the party, beed that they had been waiting for her; bu. after descending with great dignity to take her place, was somewhat mortified to find that she had still another fifteen minutes to wait. The drivers were abroad in search of hay, ropes, commissions and the inevitable little keg.

The party consisted of two ladies and three gentlemen, all young and unmarried except Mrs. Nelson. who was a widow of forty-five.

The piazza where they stood was the social, religious and business.centre of the town. One side was occupied by the cathedral, a commonplace structure with a fairly good campanile. At another side was the theological seminary, with a fine picturesque façade of blackened stones, the greater part of them remains of a pagan temple. In this seminary the elect youth of the diocese was taught a dignified and courteous demeanor; "prudence," including its negative element, how to hold one's tongue; an adamantine code of submission to spiritual superiors, of which the motto was, Obedience is an excuse before God;" or, in other words, "the sin of obedience God winks at;" and, incidentally, a smattering of theology." Under the last division were included a little Latin and a great many Latin quotations, the catechism, a minute study of ceremonies and of the confessional, with the weights and measures of sins, several bad stories about Martin Luther and other vilifiers of the papacy, and those parts of the Scriptures that are used in the liturgy and sacred offices. Over and above all,

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they were taught that clerical, or as they call them, church affairs, were never to be discussed, or even spoken of, outside of the clerical body.

The third and fourth sides of the piazza were occupied by shops with dwellinghouses over them. A beautiful fountain rose in the corner where the cathedral joined the seminary. Opposite was the chief café of the town; and some of the chief men were seated at little tables outside, each provided with a cup of coffee, and some with a newspaper.

It was a pleasant, leisurely, almost an Arcadian scene.

Half-a-dozen women and girls were at the fountain, filling the large earthen conche, which, poised on a twisted piece of cloth, they carry on their heads. The water overflowed from these vases while their owners paused to look at the "forestieri." The gentlemen at the café looked at them also over the rims of their cups and the edges of their papers. There were suspicions movements and glimpses behind the half-closed blinds of the seminary, whence students and reverend professors peeped, decorously invisible; and there were heads indicating curiosity in the frankly-opened windows of secular buildings, and full-length observers in the shop-doors and about the piazza. In short, our travelers were looked at in every sort of way, from the instantaneous firefly lamp flashing through the lashes of the blushing maiden, to the full stare of unabashed rusticity.

The canons, coming out of the cathedral after their office was over, lingered about to watch the imminent departure, excepting only the canonico priore, who promptly went to the fountain-head for information. Climbing to the apartment of the Sor Pollastri, who kept an inn over the pizzicaria, he asked to see the visitors' book; and putting on his spectacles, read out as follows: "Meesees Nalesony, Mees Martiny, Yahmasy Martiny, Carlase Saleviny, Frahnches Ailderry;" which, in

English, meant Mrs. Nelson, Miss Martin, James Martin, Charles Selwyn, Francis Elder.

The "U. S. A.," with which they had largely designated their place of birth, was a puzzle to the reverend gentleman; but the Sor Pollastri informed him that the travelers were from the United States of America, wherever that was. "Chi lo sa?"

Oh! the canonico priore knew perfectly where that was. Had not an uncle of his, a capuchin, been for twenty years a missionary there among the savages of Brazil? Their country was discovered by Cristoforo Colombo, and—

But here the Pollastri, who preferred talking to listening, interrupted the stream of history, and told her own story.

Mrs. Nelson, the potatoes-and-buttercolored woman in black, was a childless widow, and had been living in Paris several years. She was an old friend and school-fellow of Mrs. Martin, the mother of the young lady and of the bel giovanotto with the serious face. The other two young men were not related to her, though they were of the same color. The little fellow who looked like a girl, Mr. Selwyn, had been sick in America, and was traveling for his health. His father, mother and sister were to have come with him, but his father had fallen from his carriage. This resulted in a compoundfracture of the leg, and Mrs. and Miss Selwyn had remained to nurse him. He and the young Martin, who were to be of the party, would have been obliged to postpone their journey, if Mrs. Nelson had not written them from Paris that she would take charge of them the minute they should arrive at Havre. At the last moment, Mr. Elder had begged leave to join their party. This was the other small light-colored young man with the sharp blue eyes. Nothing bread-and-butter about him. He was a lawyer.

While her party was being described up-stairs, Mrs. Nelson was becoming impatient below.

"Do help me into the carriage, James!" she said; "and, Bessie dear, don't let that old woman touch your dress. Those clear grays show a soil so easily."

James Martin helped the lady to her place, and returned to his contemplation

of the scene. He was a robust young man of twenty, with dark eyes and a strong, studious face. But, to borrow a distinction from William Blake, he looked through his eyes quite as much as with them. His glance was large and sympathetic.

Mr. Francis Elder had quite another expression. His eyes picked up facts as a bird pecks up seeds. He had come to see Europe; and he accomplished his purpose with as few weak scruples as possible. He gazed at the houses, the church, the shops and the café. He poked his cane between stones, and put on his glasses to find out that the grand altar of the cathedral was made of imitation marble. He examined with a perfect composure the faces of the people, their forms, hats, coats, shoes and bare feet. He looked critically at all they wore, were and did. He paused to listen to their talk, though he could understand but little of it. He glanced at the newspapers in their hands, the coffee in their cups. He noted that they all read the same newspaper, and all drank black coffee.

Mr. Elder was a small, blond young man, with a thin face, a hard jaw, and a rather large aquiline nose. This journey of his was to give the finishing touch to his education, before he should settle down to the practice of his profession.

Mr. Selwyn was not a particularly striking youth; but he was winning and gentlemanly. He liked to visit "nice" places, and shrank with a somewhat excessive fastidiousness from the filthy picturesque.

Miss Elizabeth Martin was a very pretty girl. She and her brother were the younger ones of a numerous family, of which all were married but themselves; and their father was the chief medical doctor of their native city of Southport.

The vetturini appeared at length, each with a bundle of hay, which he tucked away under his box. The one who drove Mrs. Nelson's carriage was accompanied by a young woman with a child in her arms. She talked earnestly to the vetturino as they approached; and, when the hay was stowed, he went to the carriage-side with her.