Gossip.
Here in the sketch we are made to feel the sunlight and the glare from the sea on the southern slope; every detail of the pathway, to the stones in the old wall, being accurately given.
Never, perhaps, in any book since Washington Irving's Old Christmas and Bracebridge Hall was the illustrator more in touch with the author than in North Italian Folk; but for some reason—probably because Caldecott's work and style had become identified with English people and their ways, both abroad and at home—the illustrations made little impression. The completeness of the pictures, and the local colour infused into them by the author, left little to be done; moreover, Caldecott was not on his own ground, and to draw buildings and landscape in black and white, with the finish, and what is technically called the "colour," considered necessary for a book of this kind, was always irksome to him.
Less characteristic, but charming as a drawing, is the group of country girls under the cherry trees, reproduced on the opposite page. It is a picture worth having for its own sake, whether it aid the text or not, and one with which we may fitly leave this volume.
