WAIFS AND STRAYS.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume V, Issue 228, 14 September 1877, Page 12

WAIFS AND STRAYS.

The people of Spam, so justly called the " Catholic Kingdom " put over the door or on the front of their houses a tablet with the words "Mary's Privilege of the Immaculate Conception" written on it; and when they meet they greet each other with an expression in honour of the same dear mystery. It was a Spanish nun, Mary of Jesus, Abbess of the Convent of the Immaculate Conception of Agreda, who wrote the wonderful work, "The Mystic City of God " which inspired Murillo with his famous Immaculate Conception, the masterpiece of the Spanish School. But in the Chiaja itself how beautiful everything i s t The gardens are full of purple and red judas trees, like" masses of crimson snow ;' pale lilac wisteria hangs in grape-like clusters over the white walls of the casini ; starry flowers of yellow jessamine and white bunches of spiraea give the relief of light to what would else be too intense .a mass of colour. The accacia trees also with their delicate-scented blossoms, break the monotony of purple and crimson; and great yellow irises repeat and redouble the value of the jessamine. And over all arches the deep blue sky of Italy reflected in even greater intensity in the waters of the sea; while gusty breaths from the orange b.lo&soms, just beginning to open, make one for the moment unconscious of the sickly smells which invade the whole of the shore, creeping up on the mists of the morning and the noontide brightness of the day, in the splendour of the evening sunsets and the starry stillness of the ni<rht alike and seeming to wrap everything in Naples in one clammy%arment ot disease and horror. But the orange blossom is stronger than even that nameless sickening horror ; and perhaps we are "never so grateful for the charm of sweet odours as when we are standing on the Chiaja, and the wind brings the breath of roses and orange blossoms, acacias and lilies of the valley, against the steaming exhalations from the sea, to render that sense a source of delio-ht which until this moment was a source of torture. °