The children had flags in their little hands, and the cottagers had hung out their coloured bed- quilts, and the roadside crosses were decked out with flowers.

The church-bells were ringing, country bands were playing lustily, and the national guard of every little town I passed stood under arms, to the admiration of all beholders.

It was a holiday everywhere; the fields were left untilled, the carts were taken up to carry whole peasant families to the market-town of Arezzo, where the King was to spend the night.

Man, woman, and child wore the national colours in some part of their Sunday dress; and about everything and everybody there was a look of happiness, hard indeed to describe, but one not often seen nor easily forgotten.
Let us turn northwards.

The old streets of Bologna, with their endless rows of colonnades, are filled with people.