and were proud when they were given morsels of ice wrapped up in vine
leaves to suck in the intervals of their endless dances and their
play. On the hill of Posilipo the Venetian blinds of the houses, in
the gardens clouded by the rounded dusk of the great stone pines, were
thrust back, the windows were thrown open, the glad sun-rays fell upon
the cool paved floors, over which few feet had trodden since the last
summer died. Loud was the call of "Aqua!" along the roads where there
were buildings, and all the lemons of Italy seemed to be set forth in
bowers to please the eyes with their sharp, yet soothing color, and
tempt the lips with their poignant juice. Already in the Galleria, an
"avviso" was prominently displayed, stating that Ferdinando Bucci, the
famous maker of Sicilian ice-creams, had arrived from Palermo for the
season. In the Piazza del Plebiscito, hundreds of chairs were ranged
before the bandstand, and before the kiosk where the women sing on the
nights of summer near the Caffe Turco. The "Margherita" was shutting
up. The "Eldorado" was opening. And all along the sea, from the
vegetable gardens protected by brushwood hedges on the outskirts of
the city towards Portici, to the balconies of the "Mascotte," under
the hill of Posilipo, the wooden bathing establishments were creeping
out into the shallow waters, and displaying proudly to the passers-by
above their names: "Stabilimento Elena," "Stabilimento Donn' Anna,"
"Stabilimento delle Sirene," "Il piccolo Paradiso."

And all along the sea by night there was music.

From the Piazza before the Palace the band of the Caffe Gambrinus sent
forth its lusty valses. The posturing women of the wooden kiosk caught
up the chain of sound, and flung it on with their shrill voices down
the hill towards Santa Lucia, where, by the waterside and the crowding
white yachts, the itinerant musicians took it into the keeping of