A REAL CHARACTER.

DONNA ANNA.

(An Italian Innkeeper.)

'She kept the company of kings and queens
And mitred saints who sat below the feet
Of Francis with the ragged frock and wounds;
And Rank for her meant Duty, various,
Yet equal in its worth, done worthily.
Command was service; humblest service done
By willing and discerning souls was glory.'

It is true:

There lacks no blessing here; the waters all
Have virtues like the garments of the Lord,
And heal much sickness; then the crops and cows
Flourish past speaking, and the garden flowers,
Pink, blue, and purple, 'tis a joy to see

How they yield honey for the singing bees.

I would the whole world were as good a home.'

Agatha-GEORGE ELIOT. I HARDLY know which of the pictures my memory holds of Donna Anna is the most characteristic. She is made up of qualities that, at the first glance, seem contradictory. She is strong, and yet unconscious of strength; self-reliant, yet walking by faith; simple as a child, yet so shrewd; loving, but strict, and quick to admonish even her favourites when they break her laws, and, still more, when they break a higher code; full of solemn thought, though ready with her laughter; very gracious, and at the same time decidedly critical; one of the busiest of mortals who idealises repose-a repose which shall not be laziness, for laziness is, of all things, her aversion! It would be easy to go on for many pages multiplying contrasts; but I should thus give no true idea of Donna Anna's' personality,' to use a convenient word in the German sense.

I like to think of her as I have watched her going her careful rounds on winter nights, a little bent under her great shawl, and weary from the long, busy day; holding level with her knee a rude, picturesque lantern, such as Burne Jones would paint with delight, and laden with her large iron door-keys. So have I seen her cross the old chapel-all darkness but for three sanctuary lamps and her lantern-locking-up' for the night. She thought herself unobserved, for how was she to guess that any of 'her strangers' were in the dark tribune (it used to be the choir of the monks) saying night prayers? She would make her way, trimming a lamp perhaps here, setting a chair straight there, and seeing to doors and windows, while, half aloud, she made her earnest petitions. (Only to listen to the tone of them, one felt she might as well have silently wished instead of speaking, yet, none the less, their cry would carry far.')

I think her commonest prayer as she goes her useful way is: Thank you, St. Francis! and thank the Lord for me--for all, for all!' ('My church,' as she fondly and proudly calls it, was once the chapel of a Franciscan community.) For don't you see, dear Lady,' she pleads, in her earnest, argumentative way, 'there is such want, such grief, such pain, in the world! (We hear of it on all sides. Did I not tell you of that afflicted family in the town to-day?) dear Lord sends so many blessings! course we have! But what are they? And I, poor soul, have no time to thank Him. I must ask St. Francis-whose Church is my care and my joy-I must ask the Saint to thank for me. He will know to do it much better !'

And here, the We have our little troubles;—of God is so very good to us!

I can fancy her saying with Agatha

'. . . . I take it much to heart

That other people are worse off than I.
I ease my soul with praying for them all.'

And oft I think my prayers

*

Are foolish, feeble things, for Christ is good
Whether I pray or not-the Virgin's heart
Is kinder far than mine; and then I stop
And feel I can do naught towards helping men,
Till out it comes, like the tears that will not hold,
And I must pray again for all the world.'

One day she was talking of her project of a hospital for her town, or some other matter very near her heart, and she shook her hand towards the life-size figure of the Patron Saint, with, Ah, I tell our dear Saint he must manage that for me. You know, we have our scherzi San Francesco ed io !'

Donna Anna is very proud of her monastery. The well is inexhaustible; the walls are thick enough to stand a siege; the foundations bite the living rock as with teeth of steel; in fact, the building looks as if it were the natural outgrowth of the cliffs themselves, when you see it from outside. It is otherwise when you look out from within, or look into the light and delicate beauty of the cloisters. They built with conscience' long ago, Donna Anna tells you; and they build without conscience, she thinks, now. Why, Signora mia, the workmen won't do anything right for fear it should last! Think of that! I told the men, who made the salite, last week, that never again should they work on our hill; and, if the next do no better, still will I change and change, till at last I find some who will drive the piles in with conscience! We shall, then, have stairways through the woods that shall endure! Why, why is the old work so different, unless that, as I tell you, they worked in a different spirit?' And always as she speaks, her earnest face gives point to all her words; and her eloquent hands-those dear, good hands that have grown so horny-hard with their endless labour-give weight and emphasis, and all manner of expression to her discourse.

Donna Anna sighs, a little, quick, tremulous, eager sigh, saying:

'How easy to do a thing oneself! How terribly hard to get a thing well done! All experienced housekeepers must come to see that! Do I explain myself, cara Signora? You, very likely, don't know enough about household management to understand; but it is so!' And I falter out something about having had a good share of capable servants, whose resource and cleverness astonished me, and whose blunders were trifles to those I should have made in their place. But Donna Anna is an accomplished housewife; her marmalade is famous hundreds of miles away from her home. So are her peach preserves. She bakes delicious cakes. The strong pure wine, too, is made under her eye. And of all the spotless house-linen I have ever seen, hers is the snowiest. Her strangers' may bring paint from the boats on their skirts, or rust, or fruit-stains, or sad-coloured, London-washed garments to her; she has a recipe for turning everything back to whiteness and purity. Compared with her 'notable' self, her half-score of handmaidens and her men are, doubtless, helpless creatures; but how clever many of them seemed to me! Some of her women carried such a weight of awkward packages on their heads up the long causeway that leads from the sea to the monastery; and there was a little old gentleman who worked as an upholsterer in the loggia, and who dressed the best candelabre in cunning gauze skirts, and who used even to put the laces back into the Padrona's corsets, when they came down from the bleaching-ground on the monastery roof! One of her men had everything concerning her house and her strangers' at his fingers' ends-the varying tastes of all the guests; the resources of her establishment; the clerkly part of her business. An old contadino said to me: 'My girl is up there with Donna Anna. It is a grand school! I am happy about my 'Maccolata. The Padrona will make a clever woman of her!' A very dear and useful ‘odd-man,' who has grown up about the place, said: 'She is hard to please. She often slapped me; but, indeed, I think I'm the better for it! And when she's contented she laughs like this'—and he gave an exact imitation of Donna Anna's peculiar gleeful cacchination-for they can all mimic down there in South Italy. I fancy he was fonder of her because he could amuse himself by imitating her laugh.

Could I not help you, dear Padrona?' said one of her strangers, as Donna Anna, late one evening, weighed out rice, and busied herself among her stores.' 'You seem very tired.'

'Ah, Signora mia, what would you have? It is the mind that is tired more than the body. There are things that take my courage away. It is the people that fret me. No, you can do nothing, You are good and gentle. One must be wicked to cope with some of these folk.' I think she said 'with this rabble.' Just then, there was something gravely wrong to grieve and disappoint her. She went about heart-stricken and weary for days-long days. It made one miserable to hear her Sono stanca-stanca!' ('tired, tired!') in answer to

affectionate questionings. So Italian as she is in almost everything, yet that trouble she told to no one, although reticence is strangely difficult to those of her nation. Those who guessed what was the matter, arrived at their knowledge through quite other channels.

Donna Anna lives with the world of the unseen constantly about her. Heaven is as present to her thought-it goes for as much in her daily life-as her celebrated cookery recipes, or her hourly engagements. Had I said, 'Donna Anna, the angels have been on the Terrace: come and see their feathers,' I know she would have answered something like this: Ah, I will come, for, though I know the angels are often there, I have never found a feather in the Pergola. But I can't leave this whipped cream for a minute. I will come, though. I will come!'

It was beautiful to hear her talk of the neighbours that excited her enthusiasm. There is a learned man, for one. Him she describes as one of my dearest friends,' and she takes him the questions that puzzle her about the ancient monuments, of which her country is full. And then there was a poor dying girl-very pious, very suffering, very patient-whose mind seemed illuminated already by Heaven's own light. Donna Anna said, 'I give God thanks that He makes holy people like that girl; and that we should know what Grace can do for a human soul like our own!' And she had plenty of admiration to spare for good women, heads of useful institutions; and for wise and saintly old clerics; and for great preachers-even for sundry interesting people, like a tall and elegant Marchesa, who had such sweet manners, and dressed so well, and had so many trials, notwithstanding all her wealth and grandeur!

'I have not read much,' she says often; unfortunately, I never could give time to books. But experience—it is a great book!' And then she turns the pages of her life for some one that she likes; and truly the strange stories, and her fresh remarks, and her earnestness, seem to invest even ordinary biographies with a wonderful originality and vividness.

There were many histories left aside to be told when there is not such a press of work;' but that day has not come yet! When her strangers' have not to be provided for, there is the house to paint, and alterations to make. ‘I make everything new every season,' she says. 'An old monastery is not elegant; but it can be bellino when well kept up. But, for that, what care it needs!' A scrupulous cleanliness was the one luxury that many a convent allowed itself; and Donna Anna's house maintains the monastic tradition. In the 'cells,' walls, ceiling, wood-work, hangings and bed are all brilliantly white. Some of the 'strangers,' perhaps, come straight from Naples, where the dingy finery of their rooms has very likely been grandiloquently described to them as 'the furniture that once belonged to an Emperor!' and the snowy purity of their 'cell' gives them a shock of surprise and delight. Those who outstay any of her other 'strangers,' may VOL. 20. PART 118.

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see Donna Anna, broom in hand, aided by one or more of her pretty maids, energetically restoring to its pristine freshness the newlyvacated rooms. 'Unless I work with the servants, I cannot be sure that things are done as they should be!' she says. I often wished to quote Madame Swetchine to Donna Anna : Je ne vois que Dieu pour nous réconcilier avec le monde;' but it was not possible to me to hint a criticism even by the word of another! Certainly, women are the salt of the earth, and the maiden aunts are the élite of the sex; but, from their very height, it is still more difficult to them to exercise a broad toleration, than it is for us of the common herd. They would have all as perfect as they are themselves; they cannot quite make allowances, as poor wives and mothers can! Well, well! we know there are spots in the sun!

'Is it not for my now, if it was only

Donna Anna is, I need not say, sacristan. church that I am here? I might rest a little myself I had to think for. But it is my joy and my duty to keep up my church ; and for THAT, cara mia Signora, one must earn something.' Some one was apologising for being the occasion of the chaplain coming oftener to say mass; but Donna Anna cut short all regrets for the extra tasks thus imposed upon her. We are, indeed, very busy just in this moment; but I am truly glad to have the work of the sacristy to do. You may think if I have not things and things to pray about, with all my great responsibility! I have more need than others of spiritual support, Signora. Is it not evident?' (And whenever she talks, her face of pleading and her eloquent gesticulations speak too.) I have so very much to give an account of. My strangers pay me much money. Is it not a matter of conscience for me to see that they have their money's worth? Soon, very soon, no doubt, I must die. I am very old. I was sixty-one in April, and, dying, must I not show what I gave my strangers for their money?'

(In south Italy, already at fifty, people are supposed to have earned their right to sit in the sun,' to rest awhile, mere spectators, and see how the world fares with their children and grandchildren, before they themselves pass altogether from the scene.)

Ah, this responsibility. Just consider what it is with the servants alone. Believe me, Signora mia, I have a constant battle! Yes, yes, they are good creatures; I would not have any others up here. But some of them don't like to work at all, and some of them do things wrong. And I must see to it all. Now this place, where the monks used to be, is quasi-holy ground, and I intend that everybody living here should be steady and well-behaved, so that it should be always, as it is now, the abode of peace. I assure you, cara mia Signora, there's not a room in the house, not a spot in the garden, in the wood, where I do not find my felicity.' Then, pointing with both her outstretched hands towards the church: Can we ever say how much we owe there? Ah, it is not to be told! You know the devotion to the Holy Spirit-the Veni Sancte Spiritus? It is wonderful