pelled), Padre Severino appeared on a battlement over the gate, and demanded a parley. The besiegers knew and respected him, and listened. He vindicated the superior and community from any blame with respect to Lamberti; he entreated the assailants to be at peace, and not to aggravate the sorrows of one of their own party, a Ghibelline whose dearest relative now lay dead within; and he desired them to choose among themselves some persons who should be admitted into the monastery, in good faith, to view the body of their chief, and to remove it, if they wished, to his late home. But the Padre, continuing his address, represented that as Lamberti had died charged with unrepented crimes, and without the rites of the Church, it were but decent to inter him without pomp, and in all possible privacy.

The besiegers conferred among themselves, and then yielded to the Padre, partly because they were satisfied, partly because they found the monastery better defended than they had expected. Ten of them, with Mosca's next heir, were admitted through a small wicket gate, and proceeded to the interior of the building, and were anxiously awaited by the crowds without, who now desisted from the assault. In less than an hour the deputation returned, bearing a closely-covered litter, in which lay the remains of Mosca Lamberti, wrapped in a pall. They were received in solemn silence; the clamour of the street was hushed; the retainers of the Lamberti formed into order, and following the litter with weapons reversed, they proceeded to the Palazzo Lamberti.

But as soon as they were in motion the populace broke from their silence, which had been occasioned by curiosity, and the Guelph portion burst into a shout of execration upon the memory of the murderer of their chief, and a shower of stones was flung after the retreating procession, which, however, passed out of sight without noticing the insult. But the Ghibelline part of the mob resented it from party feeling, not from love to the deceased; and another of those brawls ensued which now raged every hour, with the loss of life or limb, in all quarters of the distracted city; and the retainers of the Lamberti would have been obliged to fight their way through the further streets but that they told the groups who would have opposed their progress, that the litter contained a sick lady of the family. And thus the ambitious man, the would-be Governor and Duke of Florence, who expected to have rode in triumph through the city, was now borne along in haste and disrespect, under the protection of a falsehood, through streets resounding with execrations that would have fired his proud blood could he have heard them. But his quick ears were deaf; his proud heart was still; all that lay there was a clod which the meanest might spurn with impunity; and his ambitious spirit— where was it?

Once more Mosca was within his palace, but no longer its

master. He had last gone forth from it to seek evil for othershe had found evil for himself.

At midnight a small train stole silently out of a side door of the Palazzo Lamberti; they were muffled in black cloaks, and looked suspiciously around them-they were Mosca's funeral attendants. They brought out a plain black bier; there were no banners, no torches, none of the pomp which the rank of the deceased could have claimed. The priest, whom for pride and ostentation's sake Mosca had retained as chaplain to his household, walked first, not robed, but holding an ebony cross. The black bier was carried close behind, covered with a pall, and followed by Mosca's heir and two other kinsmen. Some domestics came after, with weapons hidden under their cloaks.

They hurried along at no reverend pace. The next gate of the city was in possession of their acquaintances. They whispered to the guard; a wicket was opened, and in disorder and haste they passed through it, and when beyond the walls formed again into order.

The night was wild and gusty; the moon was frequently obscured by black driving clouds, and the wind seemed to utter strange yells as they sped on to the dark ruins of a lonely ivygrown church in the middle of an old, very old, burial ground, encircled by huge trees, some of them so ancient as to be quite dead, and some partially rent by time and storms.

Three centuries ago, before that church became a ruin, the ancestors of the Lamberti had a burial vault in the cemetery. But there was a dimly remembered, yet not the less fearful, tale of sacrilege and murder connected with the scene, and it became desecrated and deserted. The church fell to ruin, and for three centuries no decently-departed dead had been interred there. The few remaining broken tombs were almost hidden by gigantic weeds, and the places where graves had been were only to be guessed by the inequalities of the ground.

The ponderous iron gate of the cemetery was too rusty to be forced from its fastenings; the funeral train scrambled in through a breach in the wall, and stumbled onwards among stones, briars, and even human bones. The owls in the decayed church were disturbed by this unusual intrusion, and hooted their discontent as the invaders of their territories passed on to a ruinous heap, which a very old man pointed out as the ancient tomb of the Lamberti. The kinsmen held a lantern to it, and rubbed away the moss and lichens from a time-worn stone that seemed to have been sculptured. They saw an illegible date, part of a "Requiescant in pace," an L, and some recognisable traces of the arms of the Lamberti.

Hastily they cut down with their swords the rank weeds, and hastily cleared away the rubbish and stones till they found the

long, long closed entrance of the vault, and wrenched it open. None liked to explore the dark horrors of that shunned charnelhouse. They had no torch. They descended a little way, laid the bier on the broad stone steps, and hurried up again. A short prayer or two, tremulously uttered, was all that the attendant priest dared accord; the circumstances sanctioned nothing more; and even these "maimed rites" were reluctantly granted.

They replaced the ponderous stone, threw back the rubbish the better to secure the entrance, and then hurried themselves away. And as they were leaving that old cemetery the moans of the wind sweeping through the trees, mingled with the hootings of the owls, seemed to the affrighted ears of the superstitious servants as the voice of their late master, crying after them not to leave him alone and helpless in that horrid place; and crossing themselves, and muttering many an ave, they retraced their steps to the gate of Florence.

CHAPTER XXXV.

All the flowers of the spring
Meet to perfume our burying.

Webster.

Rosara was laid in her resting-place on the night of the interment of him who had sent her thither; and though she was buried with comparative privacy, it was under very different circumstances from those that attended Mosca's gloomy and fearful funeral. The charity of the superior had granted her a consccrated grave within the monastic cemetery, in a lonely and unused corner; but it was not a gloomy one, for there were fresh green grass, and wild flowers, and fair waving evergreen trees, and a strong protecting wall covered with holy emblems; and at some little distance were well-kept graves, each with its monumental cross. The high walls sheltered the hallowed precincts from the gusts of the wind, which there only whispered with melancholy but not unpleasing sighs.

Rosara was apparelled for the tomb in the full dress of her order, and her bier was covered with a white pall marked with a black cross. At the appointed hour the funeral came quietly up the broad walk of the cemetery, but there were tapers burning; there were uplifted crosses borne; religious men walked in order in their solemn habits, and two sincere and affectionate mourners followed her-Valdo, her beloved brother, and Florestan, his now adopted brother, and Padre Severino accompanied them to offer his consolations to Valdo. And there was sweet and solemn chanting, and pious prayers, and she was gently laid to her rest.

But when the first earth was thrown upon her, Valdo turned away and hid his face on Florestan's shoulder, and whispered to him,

"In three months more she would have been but nineteen." There was no mound raised to mark her grave; the green sod was laid down smoothly and neatly over it. But Valdo obtained leave to plant a white rose there, and he set by it a small cross he had made of some dark-coloured wood. An R was its only inscription; and after he had placed these little memorials of affection (when the funeral train had retired) he took Florestan's arm, and left his sister to her repose in the neighbourhood of graves whose tenants had been men of peace.

Florestan and Valdo spent the remainder of the night together, sometimes recurring to the past, sometimes mourning the present grief, sometimes speaking of the future; but Florestan could never get Valdo's thoughts to remain long absent from the memory of Rosara.

The young men had each procured, by the aid of Padre Severino, an ordinary Tuscan dress, and had laid aside the garb of Glee-singers. And Valdo had taken that worn by Rosara in her disguise, and made it into a pacquet, intending always to preserve it, though he never expected to be able to look at it again; and in his bosom he had hidden a lock of her beautiful hair.

Valdo glanced at the discarded garbs they had flung in a corner, and said, with a ghastly smile, to Florestan,

"The Glee-singers have vanished for ever; and it is time for them, now that their sweetest voice is silenced. The Gleesingers' used to be the theme of Florence, henceforward it will be the Guelphs and Ghibellines.' I wonder who will inhabit our hermitage. I will go there to-morrow, before I quit these territories, and burn poor Antonio's' pallet; no one now shall ever stretch upon it. Florestan, you had great patience when I used to execrate your name in the manner I did."

6

"I was bound to patience by the Emperor," replied Florestan, "and I hoped that time would rectify your injustice."

"Yes, Florestan, yes; your fame has been washed white, even washed white in crimson blood-I wish I could say innocent blood; but let that pass; we will hold her repentance equivalent to innocence. And soon you will be repaid for all your troubles, and you will marry your Florentine love. I am almost sorry for it. Why will you put your happiness into a woman's keeping? why will you lay your heart at a woman's feet? perhaps she will trample on it. Women-when we have them we fear to lose them; when we do lose them they leave us broken-hearted."

Then Florestan led Valdo to speak of his future destiny; to hope for reinstatement in his former rank; the bustle, the variety of the military life seemed to offer the best occupation for his mind. And Florestan wrote a long and earnest letter to the Emperor on

Valdo's behalf, and gave it to his comrade for presentation; and they promised each other fraternal love, fraternal confidence.

When day dawned Valdo hastened to leave Florence, after many an affectionate farewell to Florestan, many a reverential expression to Padre Severino, and many grateful thanks to the superior and brotherhood. He hurried to the fatal bridge, and gazed with a shuddering interest at the scene of murder. His next impulse led him to the now once more deserted hermitage. He entered and instinctively looked at the place which had been usually occupied by "Antonio."

He sat down opposite to the vacant spot, and wept long, but not bitterly. When he recovered himself he looked earnestly at every nook in the retreat of the "Glee-singers," as what he should never more behold. He collected all the relics of "Antonio;" he kindled once more, and for the last time, a fire on the desolate hearth, and burned all that he could not remove of those things that had belonged to his departed and beloved one; the rest he secured, to make them a treasure for memory. He closed the door of the hermitage with the same feelings as he would close the door of a burial vault, and sped away from it for ever. His intention was to hasten as he might through Lombardy and Switzerland to the Emperor Frederic in Germany.

Florestan remained in the monastery, and every day he was visited by Padre Severino, who came laden with kind embassies from Amidea and her brother-early flowers, books-each little attention that quick-witted kindness suggests. And the priest

told him the news of Florence.

The cause of the Ghibellines, which had received a considerable advantage from the inconstancy of Buondelmonte, and which would have gained ground but for the wickedness of Mosca, had now retrograded in public opinion. The general sympathy was with the murdered Buondelmonte and his beautiful young widow, and all who were not bound by the most powerful ties to the Ghibellines declared for the Guelphs. Forty-two of the principal families of Florence, with their retainers, vassals, and dependants, espoused the Guelph cause; twenty-four chief families and their followers stood on the Ghibelline side. Each party was now struggling to expel the other from the city, which the Guelphs, from the superiority of their numbers, might have done, but that the Ghibellines were in possession of the gates, and most of the strongest positions.

The Padre also related to Florestan that Imma, the few days' wife, the early widow, was seriously ill in consequence of her violent grief, and that her life had been at one time despaired of.

Her mother was overwhelmed with affliction; she was threatened with the death of her only child, and all her ambitious views were overthrown by the murder of her son-in-law. She had not