CHAPTER XXV.

FROM THE SAME TO THE SAME.

NAPLES, Sept. 20, 1873. MY DEAR CLEBURNE:-The officials in Washington told me that all our ministers over here would be in the mountains during the hot weather, and that my exequatur would on that account probably be delayed; so that acting on this hint I loitered on my way out-the more so after I was informed by my predecessor here that the said exequatur was making just the speed prophesied for it in the Department at Washington.

Easy therefore in my official mind, I betook myself to improving the routine knowledge of French I learned at college, and who would you think was my instructor or rather instructress?

Why, the most glorious Magyar beauty you ever saw, the daughter of a Hungarian restaurant keeper in the Exposition grounds at Vienna, by name Emma, or, as she wrote it, E'mon Ziffey.

I would I were a Thackeray to describe to you the full measure of her ripe olive loveliness, the perfectly innocent passion with which her searching Southern eyes regarded my poor face, and dwelt upon my evident, but awkwardly denoted admiration for her.

which promise

She gave me her address, and promised to write to me, has been performed, as witness a long French letter this day received, the half of which I do not understand, and I am afraid to have my predecessor in office, who is for the present my Vice-Consul, translate it for me; but it is enough to say that it contains much affection, much womanly admiration and presumes this plain American citizen, your very humble servant, to be a Bonanza King, and the son of a Cabinet Minister at the least.

I see in its every line,as I saw in my fortnight's flirtation with her under the linden trees of the Vienna Prater, the hand of her devilish old. mother, who is a perfect Sycorax, and evidently meant to "take me in," by profuse applications of what was really the best Tokay wine ever pressed on the banks of the Danube.

I never saw the sin of telling E'mon in bad French that I loved her, or of hearing the same words in sweeter sounds from her own lips, and when I, as now seems plain, foolishly magnified my office, told her of

my loneliness and described the beauties of Naples, my future home, her rapt inclining to the tale did not impress me as being the pose of Desdemona to the black Moor I knew myself to be, especially where French was to be spoken.

But the meaning of the mother's Tokay at her rooms, in Ferdinand Strasse, coupled with the daughter's letter and certain unadvised words by me spoken on a certain evening, when Strauss's band was playing for the Shah of Persia, (E'mon and I having a nook where the light of the great revolving calcium lamp did not reach,) which words shall be nameless even to so firm a friend as I take you to be-all these things tend to mar the pleasant novelty of my Neapolitan residence.

Really, the affair worries me more than you can imagine. My love of adventure prompted me to make approaches, which, on the part of those who should have been her guardians, were treated as the parents of the Pompadour treated the casting of Louis's royal handkerchief.

I can find no fit words to make even polite answer to this wretched letter, and have no heart to causelessly wound what I feel sure is, up to this time, a white heart.

My impulse is and my action shall be frankly to own my error, and without a word of circumlocution or deceit, to set forth the difference in our social positions, the utter thoughtlessness of my conduct, the keen lash of the whip, which remorse now holds over me, winding up with gentlemanly words of honest advice to her, and a petition of pardon for myself. In such a scrape as this I cannot find consolation by thinking there is truth in the common proverb, by which young men put such things aside, to wit: "that it will be all the same a year from now." I am no goody goody" youth, as even your brief acquaintance with me will confirm, but I could never look a born lady in the face, after having profited at the expense of her lowlier sister's virtue. And most I shudder to think that for weeks I walked daily on the rim of a volcano, with my very feet in the lava.

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Let me turn to a more pleasant theme-my old world home-beautiful bright, lazy, cheap Naples.

But who can describe the indescribable? You and Miss Ada, to whom I beg to be most kindly remembered, will ere long, I hope, see it for yourselves, and I have planned many fine days' pleasure for you at Pompeii, Sorrento, Capri, Baiæ, etc., etc. I may even go back with you to Rome, especially if you linger in the peninsula, as you should do, till the Carnival comes on.

My trip to the old town was in the very heat of the dog days. All the decent people were in the hills and hollows of the Apennines, and the fear of Campagna fever dogged my every footstep; but the early

spring in which I hope you may take good-bye of it, is said to show its beauties to the uttermost.

Here it is beautiful at all times. If you do not come out till spring, run across from Harwich to Antwerp, and come into Italy from Vienna. There is no more interesting country in Europe, nor one less known to Americans than southern Austria.

Gratz and Laibach are well worth seeing, and the Valley of the Mur is like the land of Beulah, dear to the heart of the shepherd.

I received a letter since reaching my post from your friend, Miss Laura Foley, (don't get jealous and pull your hair,) and that altogether harmless epistle informs me that you are expected to be in Dunham at an early day to take Miss Ada home.

I want you while there to ride out and look at my old home, since in consequence of a big debt I owe in bank, and on which I just learn suit has been brought, it may not be mine much longer. Perhaps if you are flush of funds and meditate a change of residence farther South (as I half suspect is the case), there might be some temptation held out by a sight of the old place to purchase it, if the sheriff is to have a sale for the benefit of my good friends in the bank.

What a sly thief compound interest is, and what a precious set of Shylocks old Salmon Chase bred, when he devised the National bank system! I cannot believe but that old Nick Biddle, restored to earth, would make it his first duty to erect a monument to Andy Jackson for killing him in his other life.

Old Jim, as trusty a soul as ever took an agency, will do the honors of Ravenscroft in my absence, and set before you a bottle of port that dates back to my father's time. A glass of it will be remembered even by your well-bred palate. If Jim should by any means be remiss, let him know that you are my friend, and fail not to take the port under penalty of my displeasure.

I greatly rejoice over the news I get from home, that Grant has pardoned nearly all the Ku Klux prisoners in Albany. Many of them were rightly punished, but the order being now disbanded, the President has shown his good sense in declining to make martyrs of men, some of whom were in truth suffering vicariously.

What makes this news especially agreeable to me, is that it was the work of men of my own party-some of them belonging to the CarpetBag wing of it. General Lollamead, of whom you heard me speak in connection with my winter's visit to Washington, exerted himself and spent money to accomplish the pardon.

Let me hear from you as to the probable time when you will leave America, and of your proposed route to reach Italy.

Faithfully yours,

ARCH'D MORAN.

CHAPTER XXVI.

A COUPLE OF CA-SA'S.

The semi-annual sessions of the Southern States District Courts afford perhaps the best opportunity to a foreigner to study the characteristics of the average Southern citizen. On such occasions by far the larger part of the voters of the county visit the court-house, arrayed in their best dress, and exhibiting their best manners.

Many women of the lower classes are present, some in the capacity of witnesses, some to consult attorneys regarding the division of petty estates in which they are distributees, and some as mere lookers-on of a scene, which to them possesses all the interest, and is criticised with the discernment which distinguished Partridge on the night of the play.

When celebrated criminal causes are for trial, it is not unusual that the ton of the county turn out, especially if some noted advocate is advertised to "make the greatest effort of his life.” It is certain that the very best show of horse flesh will then be made of which the locality is capable, and that much "swapping" will be indulged in for no apparent cause whatever.

If the term of the court fall at the beginning of a political campaign, the rival candidates for county offices are most probably nominated, or announce themselves as candidates, without the formality of conventions; if in the midst of the campaign, the judge kindly adjourns court for half a day to give the stump speakers his bench and court-room.

There will be a good old-fashioned sermon from the presiding judge on the excellence of the common law and the history of grand juries, a reproof probably for the condition of the public roads, a review of the more recent acts of the legislature, and many thickly larded compliments upon the county.

Something like the above would have been seen and heard by any one with good eyes and ears, who should have attended the Fall Term, 1873, of the Superior Court for the County of Dunham, State of Alabama, Paul Foley, judge, presiding.

"Will you call over the new bill docket, Mr. Clerk?" said His Honor, after the solicitor had finished his cases continued from last term.

"No. 1, State vs. Reuben Maloney, indictment for embezzling county funds," said the Clerk.

"Are you ready to try, gentlemen ?" asked His Honor of the benches below him.

"In a minnit, if yer Honor please," squeaked an old crackvoiced shyster, who had been man and boy in the purlieus of the bar for thirty years, and at this moment had his ear (the one that did not have a mole on it) stuck nigh to Maloney's rapidlymoving lips.

The result of this conversation was that the shyster, after the State announced its readiness, read an affidavit to support a motion for continuance. This affidavit Judge Foley ruled to be insufficient, and the shyster proceeded to show his knowledge of human nature in the selection of a jury, in which he made such a poor success that three of his four peremptory challenges were exhausted before his client secured one friendly face in the array. That face belonged to a colored man, and to it was added, after using the last challenge, one other of the same cast. These humble black men, honest so far as was known, constituted the thief's reliance for an acquittal, hoping as he did that they would remember the meetings of the Union League in which he had enjoyed sweet brotherly communion with them, and stand out to the last against the white jurymen.

There were now eleven men in the box, and the regular venire had been exhausted for several minutes. The last talesman called and tendered was our venerable friend, Gilbert Kroom, who successfully passed the ordeal of the shyster's challenge for cause and completed the dozen.

Maloney had hopes that even old Kroom might be for him,