The Piedmontese peasant takes me again into his little cottage of sun-dried bricks among the vineyards, and gives me a glass of cool wine in the shade;

I see again the scantily furnished interior, the floor of native rock, the rickety ladder which serves for staircase to the chamber above, the table and chairs and one or two cooking utensils;

And the great frame of sticks and canes, big as a four-poster bedstead, where he breeds his thousands of silkworms.

But here too, alas! there is grief; for the poor son, so passionately loved of his mother, is wasting away apparently in a decline;

All day with shawl thrown over him he squats in the sun by the door, or walks feebly to and fro, unable to help his father in the field—at night he lies awake and hears the wearisome rustle of the silkworms eating their food;

The mother prays the good God, but knows not whether anything comes of it—the little figure of Mary in the niche of the wall looks just the same though hearts are breaking.