of seeing you daily; and if-if, I say, you yourself should not deem the hand and the love I offer beneath you,-if you should be satisfied with the claims of him who would share his fortune with you,-that then-not till then

me, and so much is the matter one that invoives the whole future of my life. And now," said he, while his voice became fuller and bolder, "that I have told you this, I am ready to tell you more, and to say that at one word of yours-one little word-I'll re--others should hear of it. Is this too much main." for me to ask, or you to give, Alice?" "Even now I do not know what you ask of me.

“And what may that word be?" said she, quietly; for while he was speaking she had been preparing herself for some such issue. "I need not tell you," said he, gravely. "Supposing, then, that I guess it-I am not sure that I do-but suppose that-and could it not be just as well said by anotherby Bella, for instance?”

“First of all, that you bid me stay."

"It is but this moment you have declared to me that what calls you away is of the very last importance to you in life."

"The last but one, Alice; the last is here ;" and he kissed her hand as he spoke, but still

sent it.

"You know it could not. This is only with an air so deferent that she could not refencing; for you know it could not.' "You mean, in fact, that I should say, Don't go?" "I do."

"Listen to me for one moment, Alice," said he, taking her hand as he walked beside her. "You are fully as much the mistress of your fate as I am master of mine. You may consult, but you need not obey. Had it been otherwise, I never would have dared on a hardihood that would probably have wrecked my hopes. It is just as likely I never could satisfy the friends about you on the score of my fortune-my means-my station, and so on. It is possible, too, that scandal, which makes free with better men, may not have spared me, and that they who would have the right to advise you might say, Beware of that dreadful man. I repeat, this is an ordeal my pride would feel it hard to pass through; and so I come to you in all frankness, and declare I love you. To you -you alone—I will give every guarantee that a man may give of his honor and honesty. I will tell all my past, and so much as I mean for the future; and in return I only ask for time,-nothing but time, Alice. I am not asking you for any pledge, simply that you will give me--what you would not have ́refused a mere acquaintance-the happiness

"I cannot consent that it shall be so," said

she, with energy. "It is true I am my own mistress, and there is but the greater reason why I should be more cautious. We are almost strangers to each other. All the flattery of your professions-and of course I feel it as flattery-does not blind me to the fact that I scarcely know you at all."

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Why not consent to know me more?" asked he, almost imploringly.

"I agree, if no pledge is to accompany my

consent."

"Is not this a somewhat hard condition?" said he, with a voice of passionate meaning. “You bid me, in one word, place all that I have of hope on the issue,-not even on that, But simply for leave to play the game. Is this generous, Alice?—is it even just? '

"Even contingently Mrs. Trafford will not | ing together promiscuously objects of art involve herself in my fortunes," said he, half and vertu, along with what can minister to haughtily. "Well, my journey to Ireland, voluptuous ease, Maitland and Caffarelli amongst other benefits, has taught me a les were now seated. They had dined, and their son that all my wanderings never imparted. coffee stood before them on a table spread I have at last learned something of humility. with a costly dessert and several bottles, Good-by." whose length of neck and color indicated choice liquor.

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'Good-by, Mr. Maitland," said she, with calm, but evidently not without effort.

He stooped and kissed her hand, held it for a moment or two in his own, and with a very faint good-by, turned away and left her. He turned suddenly around, after a few paces, and came back. May I ask one question, Alice, before I go ?"

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They lounged in the easiest of chairs in the easiest of attitudes, and, as they puffed their Havannahs, did not ill represent in tableau the luxurious self-indulgence of the age we live in; for let us talk as we will of progress and mental activity, be as beastful as we may about the march of science

"I don't know whether I shall answer it," and discovery, in what are we so really consaid she, with a faint smile. spicuous as in the inventions that multiply

"I cannot afford to add jealousy to my ease, and bring the means of indulgence other torments. Tell me, then"

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within the reach of even moderate fortune?

As the wood-fire crackled and flared on the ample hearth, a heavy plash of hail struck the window, and threatened almost to smash it.

"What a night!" said Maitland, drawing closer to the blaze. "I say, Carlo mio,

Yes, sir; and Captain Lyle has been it's somewhat cosier to sit in this fashion looking for you all over the garden."

than be toddling over the Mont Cenis in a
shabby old sledge, and listening to the dis-
cussion whether you are to spend the night
in the Refuge No. One.' or No. Two.'
Yes," said Caffarelli, "it must have
been a great relief to you to have got my
telegram in Dublin, and to know that you
need not cross the Alps."

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"If I could only have been certain that I understood it aright, I'd have gone straight back to the North from whence I came; but there was a word that puzzled me,-the word 'calamità.' Now we have not yet arrived at the excellence of accenting foreign words in our telegraph offices; and as your most amiable and philosophical of all nations has but the same combination of letters to express an attraction and an affliction, I was sorely puzzled to make out whether you wrote with or without an accent on the last syllable. It made all the difference in the world whether you say events are a loadstone' or a 'misfortune.' I gave half an hour to the study of the passage, and then came on."

"Per Bacco! I never thought of that; but what, under any circumstances, would have induced you to go back again? "I fell in love!",

Caffareli pushed the lamp aside to have| "Because I would not bring envy, malice, and jealousy to all south of the Alps; because I would not turn all your heads, or torment your hearts; and, lastly, because-she wouldn't come. No, Carlo, she wouldn't

a better view of his friend, and then laughed long and heartily. "Maso Arretini used often to say, 'Maitland will die a monk;' and I begin now to believe it is quite possible."

"Maso was a fool for his prediction. Had I meant to be a monk, I'd have taken to the cowl when I had youth and vigor and dash in me, the qualities a man ought to bring to a new career. Ha! what is there so strange in the fact that I should fall in love?"

"Don't ask as if you were offended with me, and I'll try and tell you."

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"I am calm; go on.

"First of all, Maitland, no easy conquest would satisfy your vanity, and you'd never have patience to pursue a difficult one. Again, the objects that really have an attraction for you-such as Ambition and Power —have the same fascination for you that high play has for a gambler. You do not admit nor understand any other; and, last of all,one is nothing if not frank in these cases,you'd never believe any woman was lovely enough, clever enough, or graceful enough to be worthy of Norman Maitland.”

come."

"And you really asked her?"
"Yes.

At first I made the lamentable blunder of addressing her as I should one of your own dark-skinned damsels; but the epulse I met taught me better. I next tried the serious line; but I failed there also,-not hopelessly, however,—at least not so hopelessly as to deter me from another attempt. Yes, yes; I understand your smile, and I know your theory,-there never was a bunch of grapes yet that was worth going on tiptoe to gather.”

"Not that; but there are scores within reach quite as good as one cares for," said Caffarelli, laughing. "What are you thinking of?" asked he, after a pause.

"I was thinking what possible hope there was for a nation of twenty millions of men, with temperament like yours,-fellows so ingrained in indolence that the first element they weigh in every enterprise was, how little trouble it was to cost them."

"The candor has been perfect. I'll try and imitate it,' ," said Maitland, filling his glass slowly, and slightly wetting his lips. “All you have just said, Carlo, would be unimpeachable if all women were your countrywomen, and if love were what it is un-anter than coal-smoke." derstood to be in an Italian city; but there are such things in this dreary land of fog and snow-drift as women who do not believe intrigue to be the chief object of human existence, who have fully as much self-respect as they have coquetry, and who would regard no addresses so offensive as those that would reduce them to the level of a class with which they would not admit companionship."

"I declare," said the Italian, with more show of energy, "I'd hold life as cheaply as yourself if I had to live in your country— breathe only fogs, and inhale nothing pleas

"It is true," said Maitland, gravely," the English have not got climate, they have only weather; but who is to say if out of the vicissitudes of our skies we do not derive that rare activity which makes us profit by every favorable emergency?"

"To do every conceivable thing but one." "And what is that one?"

"Enjoy yourselves! Oh, caro amico, you do with regard to your pleasures what you do with your music,-you steal a little from the Continent, and always spoil it in the adaptation."

"Bastions of virtue that I never ask to lay siege to!" broke out the other, laughing. "Don't believe it, Carlo. You'd like the campaign well if you only knew how to con- Maitland sipped his wine in half-sullen duct it. Why, it's not more than a week silence for some minutes, and then said, ago I quitted a country-house where there" You think then, really, we ought to be at were more really pretty women than you could number in the crowd of one of your ball-rooms on either Arno or Tiber."

"And, in the name of Heaven, why didn't you bring over one of them, at least, to strike us with wonderment and devotion?"

Naples ? "

"I am sure of it.

Baretti-do you forget Baretti? He had the wine-shop at the end of the Contrada St. Lucia."

"I remember him as a Camorista."
"The same; he is here now.

He tells me

that the court is so completely in the hands of the queen that they will not hear of any danger; that they laugh every time Cavour is mentioned; and now that both France and England have withdrawn their envoys, the king says openly, "It is a pleasure to drive out on the Chiaja when one knows they'll not meet a French gendarme or an English detective."

"And what does Baretti say of popular feeling?"

"But we can have no dealings with a fellow that harbors such designs.'

“Caro amico, don't you know by this time that no Italian of the class of this fellow ever imagines any other disentanglement in a political question than by the stiletto? It is you, or I, or somebody else, must, as they phrase it, 'pay with his skin.' Fortunately for the world, there is more talk than action in all this; but if you were to oppose it, and say, None of this,' you'd only be the first victim. We put the knife in politics just as the Spanish put garlic in cookery: we don`t know any other seasoning, and it has always agreed with our digestion."

"He says the people would like to do something, though nobody seems to know what it ought to be. They thought that Milano's attempt t'other day was clever, and they think it mightn't be bad to blow up the "Can Giacomo come in to wind up the emperor, or perhaps the pope, or both; but clock, Eccellenza?" said Caffarelli's servant, he also says that the Camorra are open to entering at the moment; and as the count reason, and that Victor Emmanuel and nodded an assent, a fat, large, bright-eyed Cavour are as legitimate food for an ex- man of about forty entered, with a mellow, plosive shell as the others; and, in fact, any frank countenance, and an air of happy, convulsion that will smash the shutters and joyous contentment that might have sat lead to pillage must be good." admirably on a well-to-do farmer.

"You think Baretti can be depended

"Come over and have a glass of wine, Giacomo," said the count, filling a large glass to the brim with Burgundy; and the Italian bowed with an air of easy politeness, first to the count and next to Maitland, and then, after slightly tasting the liquor, retired a little distance from the table, glass in hand. My friend here," said the count, with a motion of his hand towards Maitland, “is· one of ourselves, Giacomo, and you may speak freely before him."

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I have seen the noble signor before," said Giacomo, bowing respectfully, “at Naples, with His Royal Highness the Count of Syracuse."

66

"What would you have?" said the other, with a shrug of his shoulders. "He comes to set this clock to rights,-it plays some "The fellow never forgets a face; nobody half-dozen airs from Mercadante and Verdi,― escapes him," muttered Caffarelli; while he and he knows how to arrange them. He added, aloud, Well, there are few hongoes every morning to the Tuileries, to Moc-ester patriots in Italy than the Count of quard, the emperor's secretary; he, too, has an Italian musical clock, and he likes to chat with Baretti."

"I distrust these fellows greatly." "That is so English?" said Caffarelli; "but we Italians have a finer instinct for knavery, just as we have a finer ear for music; and as we detect a false note, so we smell a treachery, where you John Bulls would neither suspect one nor the other. Baretti sees the Prince Napoleon, too, almost every day, and with Pietri he is like a brother."

Syracuse."

Giacomo smiled, and showed a range of white teeth, with a pleasant air of acquies

"And will you tell me that the emperor ["I wont say that they'll not telegraph would admit to his presence and speak with down the whole line, and that at every fellows banded in a plot against his life?" asked Maitland, contemptuously.

station a due report will not be made of me : but I am prepared for that, and I take good care not even to ask a light for my cigar from any one who does not wear a French uniform?

"It would be like destroying the telegraph wires because one received an un pleasant despatch," said Giacomo, with a grin.

"The fellow avows, then, that he is a spy, and betrays his fellows," whispered Maitland.

"I'd be very sorry to tell him so, or hear you tell him so," whispered the count, with a laugh.

Far from seeming offended at the tone or tenor of this speech, Giacomo smiled goodnaturedly, and said, "I perceive that the noble signor is not well informed either as to our objects or our organization; nor does he appear to know, as your excellency knows, that all secret societies have a certain com- "Well, Giacomo," added he, aloud, "I'll mon brotherhood.' not detain you longer. We shall probably "What! does he mean when opposed to be on t'other side of the Alps ourselves in a each other?"

“He does, and he is right, Maitland. As bankers have their changing-houses, these fellows have their appointed places of meeting; and you might see a Jesuit in talk with a Garibaldian, and a wild revolutionist with one of the pope's household.”

few days, and shall meet again. A pleasant journey and a safe one to you;" he adroitly slipped some napoleons into the man's hand as he spoke. "Tanti saluti to all our friends, Giacomo," said he, waving his hand in adieu; and Giacomo seized it and kissed it twice with an almost rapturous devotion, and withdrew.

"The real pressure of these fellows," whispered the count, still lower," is menace! "Well," cried Maitland, with an irritable Menace it was that brought about the war vibration in his tone, "this is clear and clean with Austria, and it remains to be seen if beyond me! What can you or I have in commenace cannot undo its consequences. Kill-mon with a fellow of this stamp? or supposing a king is trying an unknown remedy; ing that we could have anything, how should threatening to kill him is coercing his policy. we trust him?" And what are you about just now, Giacomo?" added he, louder.

"Do you imagine that the nobles will ever sustain the monarchy, my dear Maitland? "Little jobs here and there, signor, as I or in what country have you ever found that get them; but this morning, as I was mend-the highest in class were freest of their blood? ing a small organ at the Duc de Broglio's, an agent of the police called to say I had better leave Paris."

66 And when?”

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It is Giacomo and the men like him who defend kings to-day that they may menace them to-morrow. These fellows know well that with what is called a constitutional government and a parliament the king's life sig

To-night, sir. I leave by the midnight mait for Lyons, and shall be in Turin by Sat-nifies next to nothing, and their own trade is urday."

"And will the authorities take his word, and suffer him to go his road without surveilla nce?" whispered Maitland.

worthless. They might as well shoot a President of the Court of Cassation! Besides, if we do not treat with these men, the others will. Take my word for it, our king is Si, signore!" interposed Giacomo, whose wiser that either of us, and he never deBut I know what quick Italian ear had caught the question. Ispised the Camorra.