Pictures in Umbria

by Katharine S. Macquoid

POTS AT
WINDOW.

We had greatly desired to see the façade of the Oratory built in honour of San Bernardino of Siena, and we went in search of it. Going past the cloisters of the cathedral, we traversed the street beyond them: on one side is a fragment of an old palace, on the other a quaint series of ancient arches, one within the other, full of striking effects of light and shade.

A street descends steeply from this portal. We noted here, and in many of the old house-fronts, carved brackets, for holding flower-pots, built out from the walls, their grey stone making a pleasant contrast to the brilliant red and orange of the flowers blossoming in pots placed within these hoary receptacles. We sometimes saw metal rings instead of stone brackets fastened into the wall, so as to hold a flower-pot.

A wealthy Englishman, staying in our hotel, became so enamoured of the quaint effect created by these stone brackets, that he told us he was resolved to transport some of them to the front wall of his newly-built London dwelling. He went to the owner of a house possessing several of the brackets, and offered him a round sum for a couple of them. The owner professed himself delighted with the offer; he would most willingly gratify the English Signor's fancy.

VIA SANT' AGATA.

"The Signore Inglese must, however, understand," he said, with a twinkle in his heavy-lidded dark eyes, "that these articles are not individual,—they are the same as the nose on the face, fixtures. To possess the brackets, the Signore Inglese must purchase the entire front of the Palazzo, it is built all in one piece." This was too much for even an English collector; he was obliged to quit Perugia without acquiring even one of the much-desired brackets.

As we went along, we saw, outside the door of an old grey house, a pretty, ragged, fair-haired child, jumping and dancing on her little bare feet, chattering, as it seemed, to the doorpost. She was trying to reach the knocker, and was talking merrily to the flies on the wall, by way of amusement while she waited.