Besides the fierce matutinal summons of the domestic bell, one’s sleep was constantly disturbed by a jangle of chimes from the church: a perfect frenzy of joy-bells it was, so prolonged and insistent that sleep was beaten out of one’s brain as with hammers.
THE ANGELS’ MASS
“What,” we asked our younger hostess, the third day of this infliction, “what are these carillons, morning after morning?”
“Oh, that?—That is for the Angels’ Mass,” she answered us indifferently.
“The Angels’ Mass?”
“Yes. A child dead in the village.”
“But every morning?”
“There have been several deaths lately. It is the fever from the rice fields.”
Pleasant hearing for a woman with an only little daughter just recovering from a rather serious illness! Every smell that greeted her nostrils afterwards—and they were of a diversified and poignant description—seemed laden with the germs of death. But the young Principessa had absorbed a good deal of the indolent indifference of her adopted country towards hygiene.