Harry Sandford never renewed the conversation about Miss Moore. Had he done so, I should have felt awkward about going to the Hall. In fact, it would probably have wholly prevented my doing so; but nothing occurred in any way to interfere with the easy and pleasant manner with which they all received me, owing, of course, to my relationship to Harry, who was so soon to be one of themselves.

It was the evening of the wedding, which had gone off cheerily, for there was not to be much separation in the matter, as Harry's regiment was likely to be in England for some years, having lately completed a long term of foreign service.

I was sitting beside Miss Moore, who again had on her opal ornaments, and I remarked to her that I had not seen her wear them since the night of the hunt-ball. She seemed amused at my remarking this, and replied that she always reserved the opals for important occasions.

"They are curious stones," she said. They never seem to me to be twice alike. But if their changing shadows do indeed foretell events, that must always be so."

"They would be valuable talismans if that were so," I replied.

"I don't know that. I would rather be ignorant of what the future is bringing until it comes. It is a pretty fancy, though," she continued. "But what nonsense! Though there does seem to be something in opals to give rise to it. Look at this central stone," turning her hand to me. "What a depth of shadow there is in it! And yet light seems to glance from behind the shadow. I am almost inclined to think that light and shade change places in opals, for I have often looked at the deep shade in this one, and I never remarked that latent light before."

"May I offer my interpretation of the mystic glow?" I said.

"Yes. What is it?"

"That it symbolises the light it is in your power to shed where mistaken views and lonely isolation have long cast dark shadows."

She looked quickly up at me, but her glance as quickly fell, and she grew suddenly pale.

deep reverential love of one so vastly your inferior as I am?"

I thought afterwards it was not a very graceful mode of proposing, but the words came without study or preparation straight from my heart. In a low tone she murmured:

"You take me very much by surprise. I had no idea of this."

"Let the new light in the gem be a true symbol," I said; "you could scarcely make sunshine in a shadier place than my life has long been, you can never be more valued-more truly loved."

In another minute Cicely was gone. The music of the Lancers was beginning, and the partner to whom she was engaged came to claim her.

I don't know how she felt, she looked pale and grave, but my whole being seemed one wild tumult of joy, for Cicely had not repulsed me--had not said no.

Not again that night had I a chance of speaking to her, but on the following day we walked up and down the laurel pathway, and told each other of our thoughts, and feelings, and aspirations, and I felt something of what it would be to have the companionship of a noble-minded woman.

I close this story in a different mood from that in which I began it. Not meaning to moralise, there is just one little remark I wish to make. On what small hinges our lives turn! But for Mrs. Tattleton's giving me that commission, I should, probably, never have known Cicely Moore. Harry Sandford would have gone on his way, and got married, without ever thinking of me, if we had not met at the hotel; I doubt if he even knew where I was living. And, if the wire frame had not gone astray, I should not have been there, but in my house at Hazeldene.

Trifles! Yet they have changed my whole life, and another life as well-that of Cicely.

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LITTLE COUNT TISTA.

By "RITA."

CHAPTER I.

It was an old, old house, and it stood on the hill-side some five miles out of that great city which was the Mother of the world. It was so old and so grey; and so shut in by the gnarled olive-trees, and the high hedges, and tangles of wild roses, and thickets of arbutus; that it was well-nigh a forgotten place. The paths that led to it were too steep for horses, and the great gates, with their broken sculptures and carved shields, were rarely opened. The whole place had fallen into decay like the race who owned it, and now in the sultry, sickly heat of the late summer, it seemed given over to silence and isolation.

There was not a breath of air to be felt. The grasses were burnt and dry; the very trees looked parched. The old broken walls and the stone of the fountain in the courtyard were like hot iron to the touch.

The cicali chirped; the black, restless bees buzzed here and there; gorgeouswinged butterflies fluttered lazily in the sunlight; but beyond and beside these, there seemed no other sign of life or motion anywhere.

Suddenly a figure appeared; it flitted like a shadow through the wide, open porch, and moved across the courtyard. It was a small, childish figure, clad only in

some loose, white linen garment — the figure of a little lad with a pale, wistful face, and dark, pathetic eyes, that looked out from an auburn tangle of locks.

Closely following him came another figure-dark, stern, and sombre-the figure of a priest. He laid his hand on the boy's head.

"I will return an hour after sunset," he said; "keep up a good heart. Even if it is Heaven's will to take thy grandfather, thou hast a home and friends left. The Church will be thy parent."

Something like a mutinous flash shot from the little lad's dark eyes. He moved his head restlessly aside from the hand that rested on it.

"Do you think my grandfather will die?" he asked wonderingly; "die like old Carlo, and Antonio ?"

"I fear so," answered the priest. "The fever has him hard and sure. Besides, he is old, and he lacks strength to do battle with this insidious foe. You are not frightened to remain here, are you? If so, I will take you with me now."

"I am

The little lad shrank away. "No-oh no," he said quickly; not frightened, Padre Paolo, and I could not leave my grandfather."

"Very well, I will return as I told you. Keep up a good heart, and remember the Holy Mother is with thee. Thou hast naught to fear."

The old gate swung back on its hinges. The child went back over the hot stones, with the sunrays beating on his uncovered

head, and throwing into stronger relief the beautiful profile that was like a cameo. He was a lovely little fellow, but fragile of form, and with a face too pale and wistful for his years.

"If he dies!" he said half aloud, and then went swiftly up the broad, bare stairs, and entered a room that was spacious indeed, but dreary, and comfortless, and given over to the same decay and neglect that spoke everywhere of the ruined fortunes of an ancient race-a race whose only representatives now were an old, dying man, and his little ten-year-old grandchild. This child it was who crept up now to the bed, with its tarnished hangings of motheaten tapestry, and looked with sad and wondering eyes at the silent figure lying there.

"Grandfather," he said timidly. There was no response. A bare brown hand moved restlessly on the coverletthat was all.

The child bent closer to the dying man. "Grandfather," he said, "can't you speak can't you say if I am to go to the priest's? I don't want to go, grandfather. I would rather you took me with you."

The grey, lined face quivered with momentary emotion. The lips parted.

"Do not be a priest," they muttered. "You are the last of us-we were great once."

"And I will be great, too!" cried the boy eagerly. "You will know, grandfather, even there in Paradise-will you not?-and you will tell my mother, and say I have thought of her so often; and I will remember all your stories about her, and try to do what is right and brave, just as she would have wished me. But, oh, dear grandfather, must you go? I shall be so lonely!"

Terrified, he started up and looked at the changed face-changed even in this brief time to something awful, and unreal, and full of dread.

"Grandfather, are you dead? Have you left me?" moaned the little lad, and gazed and listened for the response which would never come.

He clambered off the bed. A vague terror was upon him, but a strong resolution rooted itself in his childish brain, and nerved him to action.

"If I wait here, the priest will return. and will take me," he said to himself. "I must run away from him. No one must know-not even Maruccia."

He went into an adjoining room and took a wide, old-fashioned hat of Tuscan straw from a peg, and a little cloak that old Maruccia had made for him, and then he paused.

He was young and ignorant; he was about to face the world in some fantastic and irrational fashion, such as he had read of in old romances. He had not a friend, or acquaintance, or relative, and he was running away in terror of that dark power, which only meant for him loss of freedom and unending penance.

Slowly the time crept on, but the silence in that old, dark chamber was unbroken save for the faint breathing of the dying man, or a sob from the patient little watcher, who was growing frightened at his own loneliness.

Then he took the old man's scantilyfilled purse, and put on his hat and threw the little cloak over his shoulder, and so, noiselessly and shadow-like, flitted from the room and from the presence of the sole friend he had on earth.

Coming out from the cool, dark loggia, the bright sunshine almost blinded him. He passed into the tangled wilderness of

gardens, and thence, by a way he knew. and through an aperture of the broken walls, on to the burnt and sloping hillside, from which he could see Rome.

At sunset the priest would return. Before then he must be far away.

He had some vague idea of going to the old and wonderful city, which had always had for him a sort of awe; which, near as it looked, he had never entered; and where, in his childish credulity, he fancied the great St. Peter dwelt, sitting on a throne of gold beneath that magic dome at which his young eyes had so often gazed.

In Rome it would be so easy to hide. A little thing like himself might easily be lost in that great place, amidst those crowded thoroughfares of which Maruccia had told him a hundred times. So he set out with resolute heart and will, taking the most unfrequented ways, and hiding in bushes and thickets if he by any chance saw a peasant approaching, and, unseen by anyone, he reached the gates in the dusk of the night.

In the daytime of these summer months Rome is deserted almost as a graveyard, but when the dusk falls and a faint air sweeps up from the mountains, and a sense of coolness comes with the starlight, and the plash of falling water from many fountains is welcome as music to the ear, then the people begin to wander through the streets, and smoke and chatter, and eat and drink, and the wineshops and the cafés are full, and the wide squares are noisy with song and laughter.

The little lad had come here on impulse. He had not even imagined what manner of place it might be, and its magnificence, and its size, and its noisy streets bewildered and delighted him. He stopped at a stall and bought some fruit, and asked for a draught of water, and the woman stared curiously at his delicate beauty, and at the broad piece of silver money he handed her in payment. But there are many beautiful children in Rome, and his dress was simple and almost coarse; so she did not ask him any questions, and the child himself was too absorbed to remark her curious gaze, though he bade her "buona notte" with a courtesy and grace that were inherent, and had been carefully trained by his grandfather, the dead Count di Falconieri.

Then, refreshed and rested, he wandered on, the new delicious sense of liberty and unrestraint thrilling every nerve and fibre of his frame, and completely banishing all other thoughts.

Presently he came to narrower and darker thoroughfares, ill-lit and unsavoury the poorer quarter of the city. These places frightened him. The strange dark faces of men and women, the cries and wails of the children, the closeness, the dirt, and noisome smells appalled and sickened his senses.

He hurried on, moved by a vague fear, and came at last to a great open space strewn with fallen pillars and huge blocks of marble and of stone, and amidst them he saw a lofty column, on which the moonlight fell in a white flood. There was intense silence everywhere.

Behind the great column stood a pile of buildings, all marble and sculpture, and approached by a steep and massive stairway, and in the wide, open space a silent figure reined in a silent steed, and gazed in solemn watchfulness over a city that had once held him dear, and still gave him honour, and worship, and remembrance.

The little lad knew where he was now. The history of the Capitol was no new thing to him, and his heart beat wildly and excitedly as he trod the memorable ways and went past the Dioscuri, and knelt in a very ecstasy of delight at the feet of the bronze Aurelius, who was dear to him as a hero and sacred as a saint.

"If I could be great-if I, too, could do something for Rome!" he murmured, and looked up with dim, wet eyes to the calm face, sublime even in the frozen silence that genius had given to it.

He had spoken aloud, and as his words. ceased a figure stole out from the background of buildings and courts, and stood looking down at the little childish figure with something between wonder and amusement.

"To whom do you speak, and why are you here alone at this hour?" asked a voice roughly.

The child started and sprang to his feet. He could find no answer, so he only looked up at the rough face and coarse-clad form in an alarm that the piercing eyes of his interlocutor were not slow to discover.

"Why are you here?" he asked again, and pulled the little figure forward into the clear moonrays. "It is close on midnight. Birds so young should be in their own nests ere this."

The child hung his head.

"I have no home," he said simply.
"No home!"

The man looked at the delicate beauty of the young face, at the tangle of curls, at

the slender grace of the little figure. No peasant's child this, it was clear to see; but how came it that he was friendless and homeless, and alone in a great city at midnight?

"Where do you come from-tell me your story," he said. "And speak truth, "And speak truth," he added as he saw that the little lad hesitated. "I could hand you over to the caribiniere as a vagrant, you know."

The child did not know, but that made little difference. He lifted his head with a certain proud grace that even fear could not rob.

"I always speak truth. I told you I had no home. My grandfather is dead, and I have come from beyond Spada. I wanted to see Rome."

"To see Rome!" echoed his questioner. "But what are you going to do? How do you mean to live? You want food and shelter, do you not?"

"Yes," said the boy timidly. "But when I am tired I will ask for them. I have money with me."

"Oh," said the man, and his eyes sparkled ominously under their shaggy brows; "you have money! That is well. You had best come with me. I know a good woman who will give you a bed for the night. You can't wander about the streets any longer. Besides, the nightdews are bad. You will be catching the fever."

"I am not afraid," said the little fellow, "and I do not wish to come with you.'

"

"Oh, nonsense!" said the man pacifically. "You must have someone to look after you. If the police catch you, you will be put into prison. I will do you no harm. And I have a nice home yonder," nodding his head in the direction of the Marcellus Theatre; a nice home, and two wonderful dogs that dance. Would you not like to

see them?"

"Yes," said the little fellow; "I would like that. You won't harm me?" he questioned doubtfully.

"Harm you the saints forbid !" cried "You shall have a merry time, and do just what pleases you.'

the man.

"I will pay you, of course," said the little lad; "and perhaps you can tell me how to make a living, and earn some

relative did not the priests offer you shelter ?"

"Yes," said the child, growing very pale. "But I don't like the priests, and I could not bear to be shut up as they wished."

"Chee-e!" said the man softly, "so that is why you ran away. But you should not have come to Rome; it is full of them. Your own padre has many friends here, no doubt, and they would soon send you back once they knew who you were, my little illustrissimo. What is your name?" "Baptista di Falconieri. Oh, please do not let the priests know!" he cried out in sudden terror. "I would rather die than go to them."

"Well, I am not over-fond of the gentry myself," said his companion with a harsh laugh; "so you need not fear I shall betray you. And if you will let me cut off those yellow curls and stain that white skin of yours, no one will recognise you at all, and you may wander at your will through Rome. But we will talk of that Come in here with me a

to-morrow. moment."

He entered a tavern as he spoke low, dark place, and full of rough and evillooking men, some of whom addressed him by name.

He ordered some wine, and made the child drink some also. The little fellow was thirsty and faint, and drank it off as he was told. But when he had swallowed it he felt sick and giddy, and the lights, and shadows, and dark figures, and flashing eyes of the men seemed whirling about him in an odd, confused way. He had some faint remembrance of clutching at a bench as he felt himself sliding down on to the floor. Then his eyes closed, and a stupor, deeper than sleep, stole over him.

CHAPTER II.

WHEN Tista awoke he was in a little dark room, lying on a straw pallet, and stretched beside him was some dark, hairy creature, that growled ominously as the little lad moved. For a moment fear seized him, and his memory struggled to account for so strange a situation. But soon he remembered, and as his eyes grew accustomed to the gloom, he saw the figure of a man lying on another pallet some little distance off. It was his acquaintance of the night before. He was, to all appearance, sound asleep; so the child turned his eyes to the dog and spoke softly to him, and stretched out a little hand to pat him.