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386 OUR FOUNTAIN.
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Transcript
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Notwithstanding A Strong Prejudice In Fa...
throwing his playthings in , and roaring violently when he cannot fish them out . His chief occupation in life is carrying water in
large leaves to a preserve of caterpillars he keeps with much care in a hole in one of the maple-trees , of course emptying most of it
into his own shoes during the transit . All day long his mother sits at the window above minefondly watching her bambino
and flying down to guard him on , the slightest appearance of , danger .
It is somewhat late now to be fetching water for household use ; the morning ' s washing , cookingand drinking must all be over .
, The laziest of the maid-servants left the fountain with her pail an hour ago , and yet u Fortunata" ( the recognised beauty of the
Bagni Caldi ) is still lingering there with a great brown jug , which she would seem in no great haste to fill . She still keeps on the
holiday dress she attended Mass in—a very bright blue muslin skirt , and a white jacket cut square and trimmed with lace , gold
pins loop up the numerous plaits of her glossy black hair , which Is combed straight up from her forehead over a high cushion , ( in
the way our great-grandmothers used to wear theirs in the old days of powder ) showing off her fair open forehead and dark delicatel
pencilled eyebrows , to perfection ; she also wears long gold earrings y , strings of coral beads round her throat and pretty round arms , and
a suspicious-looking ring ( two golden hearts twisted together ) on one of her fingers . She would make a pretty picture as she
stands by the fountain , under the flickering shade of the acaciatrees , holding up her fan to shield her large soft eyes fromthe
, dazzling sun , as she bends forwards to gaze a little anxiously down the road into the chestnut wood , a slight flush on her clear brown
cheek , and a smile hovering about her beautifully chiselled lips , which breaks into a low childlike laugh as the dark eyes catch sight
of something or somebody coming up from the chestnut wood ; she then carefully shakes out the blue muslin , re-arranges a plait of
hair , and busies herself ostentatiously with the brown jug , stooping down so as to hide her face over it . The " somebody " meanwhile
emerges from the wood , and , owing to previous observation , I am not surprised when he proves to be a handsomefrank-looking lad
evidently a well-to-do contadine ( peasant ) from , one of the neigh- , boring villages .
The Lucchese men are quite famed for their good looks , and deservedly so . They are almost invariably tall and straiht-limbed
with regular features and fine dark eyes , and none of g them seem , troubled with the shy awkwardness so often met with in the same
class in England ; they are more strikingly handsome than the women , but men , women , and children , have one and all a natural
unstudied grace in every movement and attitude , which makes any one of them a worthy study for artist or sculptor , from the little
bea child rde who d beggar toddles who after li es sl mother eeping to near the it fountain . , to the old white-
386 Our Fountain.
386 OUR FOUNTAIN .
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Citation
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English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), Aug. 1, 1862, page 386, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01081862/page/26/
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