Page:Life in the Old World - Vol. II.djvu/350

360 The day before yesterday, Mr. S. was so much excited by the improved state of his health, and a guitar which he brought with him from Naples, that he proposed to us that we should the next morning breakfast in costume. We consented, and the following morning we all entered our common room from the piazza in a state of transformation, and with loud exclamations as we beheld each other. The grave Waldensean had taken the most pains with his costume, and was, with admirable ingenuity, accoutred as an anti-brigand, as he called it, which gave him a most terrific appearance. My blonde countryman, with blackened legs and arms, was no bad representation of the Neapolitan fisherman, in his summer attire, with a red cap and guitar. Psyché entered with a garland of dark red roses round her brown hair, dressed like a flower-girl—most charming! I wore a red head-gear, such as the country-women use, and had my black polka bordered with passion-flowers. They said that I resembled a Sibyl. We breakfasted, in our costumes, in the shade of the vine-leaves, at a flower-adorned table, very merry, and to the great amusement of the people of our villa, who came to see us, and who were especially delighted with our “Signor Brigante,” as they persisted in calling him, however much he endeavored to prove to them, by the details of his costume, that he was an anti-brigand, armed merely with the weapons of peace. In the evening, Mr. S. still enacted the Italian troubadour, and Psyché still wore her wreath of dark red roses. When she took it off, Hercules wished to appropriate it to himself, but the Princess Elsa answered