like famished Jews; and so at length, finding my popularity at zero and bankruptcy inevitable, one fine starlight night, after cracking the last bottle of Falernian in the cellar with my pious instructor and devoutly receiving his blessing, I mounted my mule stealthily and took French leave of my ancestral home, as the old song says, 'for ever and day.'

"As I rode cautiously down the valley, I cannot say that I was afflicted with any of those sentimental emotions which seem to overcome others on parting with their Penates, or ever felt the smallest desire in after life to gaze on those fond Mementoes once more; and as to the 'Friends of my Youth,' I candidly confess that being indebted to the majority of them in one way or another, the only interest I took in their future movements was, the fear I had of accidentally encountering them again!

"I therefore pulled rein at the point where the last view of our village and castle was to be had, and devoutly implored all the Saints in the Calendar to keep the Crovatis and Pestamortis so constantly occupied in mauling each other, as to prevent the possibility of any one of them quitting a locality so admirably adapted for the prosecution of their hereditary duties.

"THE world now lay before me with all its pleasures and temptations, and few could have exceeded me in appetite for every sort of enjoyment; but the irresistible principle whose behests I did not then comprehend, led me to Naples, for there the Crovatis had sought refuge. I very soon succeeded in opening a secret correspondence with the ladies of that family, as Italy is par excellence the land of intrigue, there being a thousand channels, means and appliances to boot on every side in that charming country, which are unknown in less civilized

ones.

"The respect which I have had for the Church from my youth upwards, led me always to give it the preference when anything opposed to the silly prejudices of mankind was to be attempted, so applying in the first instance to the pretty Senora's confessor, I found my expectations more than verified; that good man showing at once a paternal interest in the feelings of his little devotee, and in

the douceurs which I regularly slipped into his capacious sleeves with my billet-doux.

"Love smiled on these efforts, and La Senora consented, after some ado, to meet me in the garden adjoining their villa, but only of course under the protection of her confessor.

"And then we met! and as the good father had unfortunately forgotten to close the gate, and had to hurry back to do so, we, the last representatives of generations of deadly hatred, were for the first time alone together.

"I have not described Beatrice's person, because one who was her very counterpart, and was wellknown to those who will read these lines, will appear hereafter. Suffice it at present to say, that she was the very type and emblem of Eastern beauty; and there was little difficulty in obtaining from her an acknowledgment of preference, for she was guileless and natural as a child and in years indeed very little more, though ripened impulse made her bosom already heave with undefined

emotions.

“And so, with tearful smiles and tender blushes l'adorata confessed, syllable by syllable, in whispers warmer than the breath of summer skies, that from the first moment our eyes had met she had felt in her heart that I was the master of her destiny! And as the moonbeams fell softly in changing

tracery through the foliage of the dark silent orange grove, like brightening but still uncertain hopes; and the night wind swelled through its perfumed blossoms with mystic movements, like invisible but approving seraphs, and the murmur of the distant waves mingled their gentle music with the panting avowals of First Love, a change came over the cold selfish principles which had hitherto governed my existence. Oh! well indeed may I remember those moments, for they heralded a sentiment which I had always hitherto derided, and had feigned merely for worldly purposes; and not even the 'Dread-All' which has since travelled its appointed course, has obliterated one single detail of that entrancing episode!

"Yes! it was in fact the birth of true love; and in a soul steeled to every other feeling.

Yes! it

Passion

was indeed, my first, last, and only love! I had before known, and many an affaire de cœur has succeeded since; but nothing ever passed over this impassive heart that bore the smallest resemblance to that potent spell! I felt-yes! even I whose very nature is evil!—as I held her beautiful form trembling in my arms, and read the confirmation of hopes deferred but not denied in her upturned dreamy eyes, that for her sake I could pass through all dangers, overcome all difficulties! welcome suicide, or destroy the human race! Nay,

more still-I believed in that ruling moment of man's mysterious destiny-Yes! firmly and sincerely believed, that for her sake, I could even become good!

"And yet-O inscrutable fate!-she-that very source of better aspirations, became the causeBut I must not anticipate.

"Before the interview terminated, we agreed to include her mother in our confidence, which being done, these joyful meetings were often repeated with her sanction-for she, too, had taken a strange liking to me, and was moreover devotedly attached to her daughter.

"And now I began to get impatient; so, after many earnest consultations, it was determined that the affair should be boldly broken to the old Count by the united forces of wife and daughter, assisted by the authority of the Marquis of Villa Marina, a nobleman who took a lively interest in the Crovatis, and to whose opinions my proposed father-in-law had hitherto shown a marked defe

rence.

"To say truth, besides the urgency of consuming passion, I had learnt that a young Englishman frequented the parties of my inamorata with unvarying constancy. He was handsome, a scholar, and a poet into the bargain, and therefore no mean rival; and my old worldliness told me, without