resort of fashion.  A box at the Pergola, and a carriage for the banks of the Arno, are the indispensables, we are told, at Florence.  Who has these, may eat his macaroni where he pleases—­may dine for sixpence if he will, or can:  it is his own affair, the world is not concerned about it—­he is still a gentleman, and ranks with nobles.  Who has them not—­though he be derived from the loins of emperors, and dine every day off plate of gold, and with a dozen courses—­is still nobody.  Therefore regulate your expenditure accordingly, all ye who would be somebody.  We go with M. Dumas to the opera, not, as we have said, for the music or the dancing, but because, as is the way with dramatic authors, he will there introduce us, for the sake of contrast with an institution very different from that of an operatic company—­

“Sometimes in the midst of a cavatina or a pas-de-deux, a bell with a sharp, shrill, excoriating sound, will be heard; it is the bell della misericordia.  Listen:  if it sound but once, it is for some ordinary accident; if twice, for one of a serious nature; if it sounds three times, it is a case of death.  If you look around, you will see a slight stir in some of the boxes, and it will often happen that the person you have been speaking to, if a Florentine, will excuse himself for leaving you, will quietly take his hat and depart.  You inquire what that bell means, and why it produces so strange an effect.  You are told it is the bell della misericordia, and that he with whom you were speaking is a brother of the order.

“This brotherhood of mercy is one of the noblest institutions in the world.  It was founded in 1244, on occasion of the frequent pestilences which at that period desolated the town, and it has been perpetuated to the present day, without any alteration, except in its details—­with none in its purely charitable spirit.  It is composed of seventy-two brothers, called chiefs of the watch, who are each in service four months in the year.  Of these seventy-two brothers, thirty are priests, fourteen gentlemen, and twenty-eight artists.  To these, who represent the aristocratic classes and the liberal arts, are added 500 labourers and workmen, who may be said to represent the people.

“The seat of the brotherhood is in the place del Duomo.  Each brother has there, marked with his own name, a box enclosing a black robe like that of the penitents, with openings only for the eyes and mouth, in order that his good actions may have the further merit of being performed in secret.  Immediately that the news of any accident or disaster is brought to the brother who is upon guard, the bell sounds its alarm, once, twice, or thrice, according to the gravity of the case; and at the sound of the bell every brother, wherever he may be, is bound to retire at the instant, and hasten to the rendezvous.  There he learns what misfortune or what suffering