LIFE IN AN ISLAND. 117 



who called loudest out, of the benign crowd who 

 watched our departing, the " Felice viaggio, presto 

 ritorno ! " of primitive kindness. Thus it is that in 

 Capri the Furies, after the first assault, grow into the 

 kindliest domestic sprites, genial and frolicsome, ready 

 to enter into your humour, though not without a smile 

 at the odd ideas of the Forestieri, who know no better. 

 The day after your landing they will come round you 

 with their little baskets of coral like old friends ; and 

 if you are worthy of visiting Capri, you will not be 

 too particular about a franc or two, but keep the pink 

 morsels of coral from the beach, and the round shells 

 which they call the eyes of Santa Lucia, in memory 

 of one of the loveliest little atoms of stone and space 

 which God has planted in the sea. 



Though, to be sure, you might find more substantial 

 memorials like that sturdy pilgrim-staff, for example, 

 stout as an Irish bludgeon, though made of senti- 

 mental myrtle, which the stalwart Scottish Signer, 

 whose length of limb and development of muscle 

 made Feliciello forget his manners in admiration, 

 carries with him across the seas. But these are the 

 private ner/ozio of Santella, who is our waiting-maid 

 at the Villa Quisisana a mild and gentle hunch- 

 back, whose face has such a light of goodness in it 

 that it does one more good to look at her than even 

 at little Chiara in Anacapri, the little beauty. Gentle 

 deformed creature ! noiseless and serviceable, good for 

 everything in the house, how comes it that the com- 



