368 PICCOLETTA. 



whatever direction the stream of life was turned, there, with 

 magic rapidity and in a mode quite inexplicable, yawning gulfs 

 of a similar description were opened for its interruption. 



It was customary, in the republican nation of which Monti- 

 cello was the metropolis, to confide the care of all the infant 

 population to public nurses, who were usually the best nurses 

 in the world ; but under the alarming visitation of which we 

 are telling, even the care of these faithful guardians began to 

 relax with their courage, and they would sometimes allow their 

 charges as well as themselves to die nearly of starvation, for 

 fear lest, in collecting food, they might become food in their own 

 persons for the gaping pitfalls or their mysterious fabricators. 



It was usual also in fine weather to carry the nurselings, for 

 air and sunshine, beyond the city walls ; but since the reign of 

 the panic, they had been nearly all, as in time of siege, immured 

 within their close apartments. But it had never so fared with 

 the infant charges under the keeping of one youthful nurse, 

 who, rather than they should lack anything, had continued to 

 encounter all extraordinary as well as ordinary dangers, and 

 that, hitherto, with the most perfect impunity. This kind and 

 brave-hearted creature we shall call Piccoletta, because she was 

 but a very little personage, and because, as before noticed, she 

 and her compatriots were of Italian birth. 



Well, this Piccoletta, who, according to her deserts, was 

 a-general favourite of the city, left it as usual one fine morning, 

 in order to seek provision in the adjacent country ; but night 

 came and passed, and so did also the next day, without her re- 

 appearance, and then every body thought she must have fallen 

 a victim to their newly-besetting enemies ; but on the second 

 night, the sentinels on guard perceived in the moon-light a 

 limping object approach the city, which, though magnified at 

 first, by their ruling fear, into one of the dreaded trap-makers, 

 they soon joyfully recognized as the missing Piccoletta. Nothing 

 could exceed the delight of her neighbours at seeing her again, 

 except, perhaps, their desire to know what had befallen her; 



