Page:Life in the Old World - Vol. I.djvu/466

482 One institution, which I regret not to have seen, is that which a poor young girl, Rosa Govona, founded, with her young friends, poor like herself, by their united savings, for the education of indigent girls. The “Asylum delle Rosine,” as this institution is called, now receives and gives a good education to 400 girls. Another excellent institution, L'Albergo reale di virtu, founded in 1851, by Victor Emanuel, receives pupils for all trades. The benevolent institutions of Turin, are said to have undergone great improvements of late years, and are now extremely well managed.

More than once during my rambles through the streets of Turin I have paused before the print-seller's windows to contemplate a countenance which has a maternal, almost heavenly, gentleness in its expression. It is the portrait of the lately deceased young Queen of Piedmont, the wife of Victor Emanuel, and the mother of his five children. She was, I have been assured, as affectionate and as good as the portrait indicates, gazing gently on the earth, in the pleasures of which her delicate health prevented her taking part. The King loved her tenderly, and likewise feared her, it is said, as lofty purity and virtue are sometimes feared by the less perfect. She was an angel of mercy, and her early removal has been regarded in Piedmont as a public misfortune. The former winter, when she sickened and died in Turin, the people would not indulge in any pleasure. The sorrow of the royal family was the sorrow of all.

Victor Emanuel is at this time one of the most popular and beloved of the European monarchs. He is faithful to his word, brave, good-humored, beloved