LEAVING NAPLES.

JUR last night in Naples. Dolce Napoli! We

sail to-morrow afternoon in the steamer which runs between this city and Palermo. There

we shall join our little clipper, which boasts the fanciful name of "Zephyr." It was originally a warsteamer, built with great care for Santa Anna of Mexico; but the news of his downfall came just as the little naval toy was completed, then it was altered into a sailing vessel, and put on the Mediterranean and Levant fruit service.

Every arrangement has been made for our comfort. Janet, whose easy means enable her to indulge in extravagant luxuries when she wishes, and this she loves to

do for the pleasure of others, piano fitted into the cabin.

- has had a good cabinet She has also had strong

water-proof cases made, and had them lashed to the quarter-deck; in these have been placed a small, wellselected collection of books. The preparing for this voyage has given her infinite satisfaction, and she has not forgotten even such pleasant and palatable luxuries as wines, fruits, and the like. She came to me yesterday holding up triumphantly a peculiar looking tin box; it had a curious arrangement for the lid, which I did not comprehend.

"It is a water-proof case, and can be closed hermetically," said Venitia, examining it. "What is it for?"

Janet enjoyed our surprise a little while, then going to my desk, took this journal, clasped it, and laid it in the box.

"For Ottilie's journal!" exclaimed Venitia.

"Yes, she is the only member of our family who keeps one; and if any accident should happen to us during the voyage, I should not like to have the book lost. We shall not be sunk at sea any the sooner for making preparations for such an event," said Janet, coolly.

So nightly I am to shut up this precious volume in the box.

To-day I heard from Luigi. He wrote to me immediately on receiving my letter which informed him of our intended return to America. He begs of me to keep him always advised of our movements, and to do as he shall,

- write at stated times unfailingly and trustingly, even though we may sometimes miss hearing from each other. He makes no allusion to his late trouble, mentions Janet and Venitia naturally, sends his remembrances to them; altogether the letter is just such a one as he might have written two months ago, before he and Venitia had gathered the sad fruit of knowledge, which has driven them from their paradise.

I knew that from his writing thus, he wished his letter to be seen by them, so I handed it to Janet. She gave the letter to Venitia without any remark. When it was returned to me I found pencilled on the margin, in Venitia's handwriting, "Dear Ottilie, remember me affectionately always to Luigi whenever you write to him.”

Jean Paul somewhere speaks of "concluding a great past with a little present"; such has been our farewell

night in Naples. We have had a crowded, talkative evening; all our friends calling to say good by. We shall miss many of them a great deal, for our social surroundings here have been very agreeable. The Rochesters, who have been our most pleasant acquaintances, we hope to meet again in America, and keep up unbroken the intercourse which has ripened an acquaintanceship into a very deep feeling of regard.

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But we shall miss most of all our beautiful surroundings, this lovely home, for home it has been, — a home that has seen the birth and growth of pure, deep love, a strong temptation resisted, the brave facing of bitter sorrow, and the triumph of honor and true feeling.

Beautiful, golden, glorious Naples ! with thy rich sunlight, pure moonbeams, pulsating blue sky, and atmosphere filled with delicious life-drops and exquisite odors. Often in the future, while far off in my American home, my heart shall stretch out tender, yearning memories to this enchanting place.

Angelini the sculptor, who also called to bid us good by to-night, said to me, in his soft, melodious Italian voice, “Ah, in Naples one needs so little. The simple act of living, the breath Nature gives us here, is a priceless luxury in itself. Here sight and sense are fed most gloriously by the good God."

They have all left, and I have come to my room to be alone with my fast-rushing thoughts. Janet and I have been walking up and down the terrace silently together, looking over at Vesuvius, whose lava streams still flow, though sluggishly. The beautiful lichen-hung hill above the terrace is buried in sombre shadows, although the sky is glowing with stars, the hundred-eyed Argus watching for the lost Io,- for the moon is gone. It is near

midnight, and this living whirlpool, this noisy, shrieking Naples, is comparatively quiet; around us all is still, but from the more densely inhabited part of the town arises a hum and beat like the roar of a distant ocean or the fevered throb of a factory.

Venitia is in the drawing-room, "holding commune sad and sweet" with her lovely Erard, from which she is to be parted forever. Now her hands sweep voluptuously over the ivory rocks, like the grand swell of some shining wave holding aloft on its dashing crest a divine seanymph. That most delicious of all nocturnes, Chopin's "Murmurs of the Seine," floats on the air, a true music mist and spray. The plaint and descending gamut in the motivo, sparkle just as I have seen the shafts of moonlight, when standing out on the terrace in the Villa Reale, fling themselves passionately down on the innocent bosom of the sea, and break into golden spears and arrows of light, while the waters washed up against the stone foundations of the terrace, as if in sweet pain and sorrow.

Venitia is in a true playing mood to-night. Now she is improvising. She seizes the music-grapes, and, Bacchuslike, crushes out the purple and golden flood of musicwine. Her fingers seem dripping with the rare, priceless juice; and as they rise and fall on the keys the rich, invisible liquid sounds gather around me like a delicious flood of many waters, and bathe my suffering senses in the sweet intoxication of

"Desires and Adoration,

Winged Persuasions, and veiled Destinies,

Splendors and Glooms, and glimmering Incarnations

Of hopes and fears, and twilight fantasies,

And Sorrow with her family of sighs,

And Pleasure blind with tears, led by the gleam

Of her own dying smile instead of eyes."

O, this potent rhetoric of music that stealeth away all weapons of pain and steepeth the whole being in a wave of exquisite rapture, soothing the sting of "wounds that will never heal, and silencing the pangs that tempt the spirit to rebel"!

But, alas! just as this gloomy pageantry of "Winged Persuasions" had quieted all unrest with their Lotus draught, there comes creeping on the ear a despairing interrogatory, — solemn, dumb, questioning chords, followed with wildering, maddening doubt, pure Wanhope! And with these sorrowful chords the music Poor Venitia !

ceases.

And now to bed and to sleep, but not to partake of sleep's sweet refreshment; for it spreads no banquet for the heavily laden, but sits down a solemn veiled ghost beside the sepulchre of our buried hopes, like Buonarotti's spectre, watching over the dead Duke Lorenzo.

"In our hearts

There is a vigil, and these eyes but close

To look within."