the recluses in his appearance and manner that they had not thought it necessary to behave very rigidly.  It later occurred to this gentleman that the promptness with which the pretty mendicants procured him an interview with the Superior had a flavor of self-interest in; and that he who came to the Conservatorio in the place of a father might have been for a moment ignorantly viewed as a yet dearer and tenderer possibility.  From whatever danger there was in this error the Superior soon appeared to rescue him, and we were invited into a more ceremonious apartment on the first floor, and the little Virginia was sent for.  The visit of the strangers caused a tumult and interest in the quiet old Conservatorio of which it is hard to conceive now, and the excitement grew tremendous when it appeared that, the signori were Americani and Protestanti.  We imparted a savor of novelty and importance to Virginia herself, and when she appeared, the Superior and her assistant looked at her with no small curiosity and awe, of which the little maiden instantly became conscious, and began to take advantage.  Accompanying us over the building and through the grounds, she cut her small friends wherever she met them, and was not more than respectful to the assistant.

It was from an instinct of hospitality that we were shown the Conservatorio, and instructed in regard to all its purposes.  We saw the neat dormitories with their battalions of little white beds; the kitchen with its gigantic coppers for boiling broth, and the refectory with the smell of the frugal dinners of generations of mendicants in it.  The assistant was very proud of the neatness of every thing, and was glad to talk of that, or, indeed, any thing else.  It appeared that the girls were taught reading, writing, and plain sewing when they were young, and that the Conservatorio was chiefly sustained by pious contributions and bequests.  Any lingering notion of the conventual character of the place was dispelled by the assistant’s hurrying to say, “And when we can get the poor things well married, we are glad to do so.”

“But how does any one ever see them?”

“Eh! well, that is easily managed.  Once a month we dress the marriageable girls in their best, and take them for a walk in the street.  If an honest young man falls in love with one of them going by, he comes to the Superior, and describes her as well as he can, and demands to see her.  She is called, and if both are pleased, the marriage is arranged.  You see it is a very simple affair.”

And there was, to the assistant’s mind, nothing odd in the whole business, insomuch that I felt almost ashamed of marveling at it.

Issuing from the backdoor of the convent, we ascended by stairs and gateways into garden spaces, chiefly planted with turnips and the like poor but respectable vegetables, and curiously adorned with fragments of antique statuary, and here and there a fountain in a corner, trickling from moss-grown rocks, and falling into a trough of travertine, about the feet of some poor old goddess or Virtue who had forgotten what her name was.