"To the wine-press! to the press!" shouted the children, who were politeness itself and wanted to show her everything.
The wine-press was a great marble trough with pipes leading off into other vessels around. Into it went the grapes, and in the midst were men and boys and little children, all with bare feet and legs up to the knees, dancing and leaping, and bounding and skipping upon the grapes, while the red juice covered their brown skins.
"Come in, come in; you don't know how charming it is!" cried Cecco. "It is the best time of all the year, the dear vintage; come and tread the grapes."
"But you must take off your shoes and stockings," said his sister, Nunziata; "we never wear them but on Sundays and holidays."
Lucy was not sure that she might, but the children looked so joyous, and it seemed to be such fun, that she began fumbling with the buttons of her boots, and while she was doing it she opened her eyes, and found that her beautiful bunch of grapes was only the cushion in the bottom of Mother Bunch's chair.
CHAPTER IV.
GREENLAND.
"Suppose and suppose I tried what the very cold countries are like!"