The Washerwomen Of Sienna

Charles Warren Stoddard writes to tlie San Francisco Chronical of Sienna, Italy : Wandering down one of the narrow streets, we carne upon a low roof supported by heavy columns. It looked like a mill-house, and as a stream, small but lively, dashed in at one end of the building and out at the other, we concinded that it was a factory of some kind or other. When we came to it we were salnted by twenty buxom women who stood in a row along the side of a stone cistern in the center of the shed through which the stream was flowing. Every woinan had a pile of linen at her feet and a garment in her hand which she was washing in the ice-cold water. Thia was one of the public washhouses ; the matronsandmaidens gather in them to do their weck's work and learn the news of the hour. Just fancy the gossip that flows from those buay tongiies in the course of a week. They all pausod for a moment to exchange a word with us, and then the business of the day was resumed without embarrassment, and as pretty faces, big black eyes, and brawny arms are not uncommon in Italy, we withdrew. Twenty women switched twenty damp garments in the air and sent a shower of drops over us ; but it was their way of bidding us farewell, and as we shook the suds from our hats they laughed lustily, for the episodes in the lives of the watery nymphs of Sienna are few.