command, that it was worth double the fee she asked. Occasionally—not often—an intrepid beggar steals around during Mass, and, touching each member of the congregation on the shoulder, gently implores an alms. This is a practice frowned upon as a rule, save in Sicily, where a "plentiful poverty" doth so abide that no device for moving compassion can be too rigidly condemned. I have been present at a high Mass in Palermo, when a ragged woman with a baby in her arms moved slowly after the sacristan, who was taking up the offertory collection, and took up a second collection of her own, quite as though she were an authorized official. It was a scandalous sight to Western eyes,—in our well-ordered churches at home such a proceeding would be as impossible as a trapeze performance in the aisle,—but what depths of friendly tolerance it displayed, what gentle, if inert, compassion for the beggar's desperate needs!
For in Italy, as in Spain, there is no gulf set between the rich and poor. What these lands lack in practical philanthropy is atoned for by a sweet and universal friendliness of de-
