Thirty or more little girls are seated at their tasks. Let me introduce you to some of them.
This one, is Jacquelina Magi, a young Neapolitan. What a pretty picture she makes in the sunshine, with her red bodice, massive ear-rings, and that gay kerchief fastened by a quaint brooch!
Only a year or two ago Jacquelina was a barefooted peasant child, and followed her fisherman father to the beach every morning to watch him draw his seine in the beautiful bay of Naples; she remembers gathering the lovely shells, and playing with the long tresses of sea-weed, but thinks she is happier here: is not that strange?
ROSA FLORIO.
Near her sits Rosa Florio, and beyond her Rosa Casetti, or Rosa Dimple, as the teacher calls her, both working like little bees to finish the blue shirts for which they will receive their pay to-night.
Jacquelina is a pretty brown-eyed girl of eleven, but Rosa Dimple looks positively plain until she laughs; then her great gray eyes light up, and two of the prettiest dimples in the world nestle in her soft round cheeks. All the girls I have mentioned come from the villages or islands in the province and bay of Naples; so does that odd, old-fashioned little maid with her hair done up in a knot at the back of her head. Carmella is her proper name, but the children all call her Carmellouche, she is so full of mischief, and is such a tease.
Her long dress and narrow white apron, and the white kerchief folded so primly around her neck, give her a queer womanly little look that makes one laugh quite as much as her naughty though good-humored pranks.
The Neapolitan children cling together, playing and working harmoniously, though of course they quarrel at times; still, they defend each other so hotly that the little Genoese are quite afraid of them at first.
The North Italian children are much more grave and quiet. Here are a number engaged in a very pleasant employment. You would be greatly interested could you see them. They are the lace-weavers of the school.