In fancy she saw him going to the church in company with the prettiest and richest girl in the town, both well-dressed, happy and smiling, while she, Juli, followed her mistress, carrying novenas, buyos, and the cuspidor.

Whoever has passed the month of December in Rome will remember to have been awakened from his morning-dreams by the gay notes of the pifferari playing in the streets below, before the shrines of the Madonna and Bambino,and the strains of one set of performers will scarcely have ceased, before the distant notes of another set of pilgrims will be heard to continue the well-known novena.

This morning, as I was going out for a walk round the walls, two admirable specimens of the pifferari were performing the novena before a shrine at the corner of the street.

[Footnote B: "He and I have been companions for thirty-three years, and every year we have come to Rome to play the novena.

The latter would get up from her loom, go to the window, pray, make vows to the saints, and recite novenas.

As they stand before the pictures of the Madonna, their hats placed on the ground before them, and their thick, black, dishevelled hair covering their sunburnt brows, blowing away on their instruments or pausing to sing their novena, they form a picture which every artist desires to paint.

They were now singing the second novena for Natale, and, if one could judge from their manner and conversation, were quite content with what they had earned.