earth beneath, and in the waters under the earth. There were angels, devils, serpents, birds, beasts, fishes, and fair women-of which none except the last occasioned much transgression of the commandment. Oddly enough, the fishes waltzed-and so did the beasts and fair women, the serpents and birds - pairing off as they came within sound of the music, with a defiance of natural antipathies, which would have driven a naturalist out of his senses.

A chariot drove up with the crest of the Cesarini on the pannel, and out of it stepped rather a stiff figure dressed as a wandering palmer, with serge cloak and scallop-shells, followed by a masked hunchback, whose costume, even to the threadbare spot on the ridge of his deformity, was approved by the loungers at the door, in a general "bravissimo." They entered the dressing-room, and the cloakkeeper was not surprised when the hump was withdrawn in the shape of a pad of wool, and by the aid of a hood and petticoat of black silk, the deformed was transformed into a slender domino, undistinguished but for the grace and elasticity of her movements. The attendant was surprised, however, when having stepped aside to deposite the pad given in charge to her, she turned and saw the domino flitting from the room, but the hunchback with his threadbare hump still leaning on the palmer's arm!

"Santissima Virgine!" she exclaimed, pulling out her cross and holding it between herself and Giulio, "the fiend—the unholy fiend!"

Donna Bettina laughed under her palmer's cowl, and drawing Giulio's arm within her own, they mingled in the masquerade.

The old Count Cesarini arrived a few minutes after, in one of the equipages of the Malaspina, accompanied by a red-cross knight in a magnificent armour, his sword-hilt sparkling with diamonds, and the bars of his visor half drawn, yet showing a beard of jetty and curling black, and a mouth of the most regular, yet unpleasant beauty. The upper part of his face was quite concealed, yet the sneer on his lips promised a cold and unfeeling eye. "As a hunchback, did you say, count?"

"It was her whim," answered Cesarini. "She has given alms to a poor sculptor with that deformity, till her brain is filled with it. Pray the saints it affect not your offspring, Lamba !"

Malaspina surveyed himself in the long mirror at the entrance of the saloon, and smiled back incredulously with his white teeth.

"I gave Bettina strict orders not to leave her side," said Cesarini. “You will find the old donna by her palmer's dress. The saints speed your suit, Lamba! I will await you in the cardroom when the dance wearies you!"

It was not for some time after the two old nobles had affianced their children, that Cesarini had found a fitting opportunity to break the subject to his daughter. When he did so, somewhat to his embarrassment, Violanta listened to it without surprise; and after hearing all he had to say upon the honourable descent, large fortune, and courtly accomplishments of the young Count Lamba, she only permitted her father to entertain any future hope on the subject, upon the condition, that, till she was of age, her proposed husband should not even be presented to her. For this victory over the most cherished ambition of the old count, Violanta was indebted partly to the Holy See, and partly to some qualities in her own character, of which her father knew the force. He was aware with what readiness the cardinals would seize upon the slightest wish she might express to take the veil, and bring her possessions into the church, and he was sufficiently acquainted with the qualities of a Cesarini, not to drive one of their daughters to extremity.

With some embarrassment the old count made a clean breast to Malaspina and his son, and was exhausting language in regrets, when he was relieved by an assurance from Lamba that the difficulty increased his zest for the match, and that, with Cesarini's permission, he would find opportunities to encounter her in her walks as a stranger, and make his way after the romantic taste which he supposed was alone at the bottom of her refusal. For success in this, Count Lamba relied on his personal beauty, and on that address in the arts of adventure

which is acquired by a residence in

France.

Since his duel, Amieri had been confined to his bed with a violent fever, dangerously aggravated by the peculiar nature of his calamity. The love of the pencil was the breath of his soul, and in all his thoughts of Violanta, it was only as a rival of the lofty fame of painters who had made themselves the companions of kings, that he could imagine himself a claimant for her love. It seemed to him now that his nerveless hand had shut out heaven's entire light.

Giulio had watched by his friend with the faithful fondness of a woman, and had gathered from his moments of delirium, what Biondo had, from delicacy to Violanta, never revealed to his second, Lenzoni - the cause of his quarrel with Malaspina. Touched with this chivalric tenderness toward his sister, the kind Giulio hung over him with renewed affection, and when, in subsequent ravings, the maimed youth betrayed the real sting of his misfortune -the death of his hopes of her love the unambitious brother resolved in his heart, that if he could aid him by service or sacrifice, by influence with Violanta, or by making the almost desperate attempt to establish his own

claims to the name and fortunes of Cesarini, he would devote himself to his service, heart and soul.

During the confinement of Amieri to his room, the young countess had, of course, been unable to visit her brother, and as he scarce left the patient's side for a moment, their intercourse for two or three weeks had been entirely interrupted. On the first day the convalescent youth could walk out, she had stolen to the studio, and heard from Giulio the whole history of the duel and its consequences. When he had finished his narrative, Violanta sat, for a few minutes, lost in thought.

"Giulio !" she said at last, with a gaiety of tone which startled him. "Violanta !"

"Did you ever remark that our voices are very much alike?"

"Biondo often says so." ""

"And you have a foot almost as small as mine."

"I have not the proportions of a man, Violanta !"

"Nay, brother, but I mean that— that we might pass for each other if we were masked. Our height is the same. Stand up, Giulio!"'

"You would not mock me!" said the melancholy youth, with a faint smile, as he rose and set his bent back beside the straight and lithe form of his sister.

"Listen to me, amato-bene!" she replied, sitting down and drawing him upon her knee, after satisfying herself that there was no perceptible difference in their height. "Put your arm about my neck, and love me while I tell you of my little plot.'

Giulio impressed a kiss upon the clear, alabaster forehead of the beautiful girl, and looked into her face inquiringly.

There is to be a masquerade at La Pergola," she said—" a superb masquerade given to some prince! And I am to go, Giulio mio !"

"Well !" answered her listener, sadly.

"But you do not seem surprised that I am permitted to go! Shall I tell you the reason why papa gave me permission?"

"If you will, Violanta !"

"A little bird told me that Malaspina means to be there!"

"And you will go to meet him?"
"You shall go to meet him, and I

"she hesitated and cast down the long dark fringes of her eyes. "I will meet Biondo !"

Giulio clasped her passionately to his heart.

"I see! I see!" he cried, springing upon his feet, as he anticipated the remaining circumstances of the plot. "We shall be two hunchbacks -they will little think that we are two Cesarini. Dear, noble Violanta! you will speak kindly to Biondo. Send Bettina for the clothes, carina mia! You will get twin masks in the Corso. And, Violanta ?"

The reader will long since have been reminded, by the trouble we have to whip in and flog up the lagging and straggling members of our story, of a flock of sheep driven unwillingly to market. Indeed, to stop at the confessional, (as you will see many a shepherd of the Campagna, on his way to Rome,) this tale of many tails should have been a novel. You have, in brief, what should have been distributed in chapters, embarrassed with difficulties, relieved by digressions, tipped with a moral, and bound in two volumes, with a portrait of the author. We are sacrificed to the spirit of the age. The eighteenth century will be known in hieroglyphics by a pair of shears. But "to return to our muttons."

The masquerade went merrily on, or, if there were more than one heavy heart among those light heels, it was not known, as the newspapers say, "to our reporter." One there certainly was-heavy as Etna on the breast of Enceladus. Biondo Amieri sat in a corner of the gallery, with his swathed hand laid before him, pale as a new statue, and with a melancholy in his soft dark eyes, which would have touched the executioners of St. Agatha. Beside him sat Lenzoni, who was content to forego the waltz for a while, and keep company for pity with a friend who was too busy with his own thoughts to give him word or look, but still keeping sharp watch on the scene below, and betraying by unconscious ejaculations how great a penance he had put on himself for love and charity. "Ah, la bella musica, Biondo!" he exclaimed, drumming on the banquette, while his friend held up his wounded hand to escape the jar, "listen to that waltz, that might set fire to the heels of St. Peter! Corpo di Bacco! look at the dragon!—a dragon making love to a nun, Amieri! Ah! San Pietro! what a foot! Wait till I come, sweet goblin! That a goblin's tail should follow such ancles, Biondo ! Eh! bellissimo! the knight! Look at the red-cross knight, Amieri! and-what? -il gobbo, by St. Antony! and the red-cross takes him for a woman! it is Giulio, or there never were two hunchbacks so wondrous like. Ecco ! Biondo!"

"look" to Amieri, now. A hunchback, closely masked and leaning on a palmer's arm, made his way slowly through the crowd, and a red-cross knight, a figure gallant enough to have made a monarch jealous, whispered with courteous and courtly deference in his ear.

"Cielo! It is she!" said Biondo, with mournful earnestness, not heeding his companion, and laying his hand upon his wounded wrist, as if the sight he looked on gave it a fresher pang.

"She?" answered Lenzoni, with a laugh. "If it is not he-not gobbo Giulio-I'll eat that cross-hilted rapier! What'she' should it be caro Biondo?"

"I tell thee," said Amieri, "Giulio is asleep at the foot of his marred statue! I left him but now. He is too ill with his late vigils to be here-but his clothes, I may tell thee, are borrowed by one who wears them as you see. Look at the foot, Lenzoni !"

"A woman, true enough, if the shoe were all! But I'll have a close look! Stay for me, dear Amieri! I will return ere you have looked twice at them!"

And happy, with all his kind sympathy, to find a fair apology to be free, Lenzoni leaped over the benches and mingled in the crowd below.

Left alone, Biondo devoured with his eyes every movement of the group in which he was so deeply interested, and the wound in his hand seemed burning with a throb of fire, while he tried in vain to detect, in the manner of the hunchback, that coyness which might show, even through a mask, dislike or indifference. There was even, he thought, (and he delivered his soul over to Apollyon in the usual phrase, for thinking such ill of such an angel ;) there was even in her manner a levity and freedom of gesture for which the mask she wore should be no apology. He was about to curse Malaspina for having spared his life at the fountain, when some one jumped lightly over the seat, and took a place beside him. It was a female in a black domino, closely masked, and through the pasteboard mouth protruded the bit of ivory, commonly held in the teeth by maskers, to disguise the voice.

66

Good evening to you, fair signor !" "Good even to you, lady!" "I am come to share your melan

"I have none to give away unless you will take all; and just now, my fair one, it is rather anger than sadness. If it please you, leave me !"

"What if I am more pleased to stay?"

"Briefly, I would be alone! I am not of the festa. I but look on here." And Biondo turned his shoulder to the mask, and fixed his eyes again on the hunchback, who having taken the knight's arm, was talking and promenading most gaily between him and the palmer.

"You have a wounded hand, signor!" resumed his importunate neighbour. "A useless one, lady. Would it were well!"

"Signor Melancholy, repine not against Providence. I that am no witch, tell thee that thou wilt yet bless heaven that this hand is disabled!"

Biondo turned and looked at the bold prophetess, but her disguise was impenetrable.

"You are a masker, lady, and talk at random !"

"No! I will tell you the thought uppermost in your bosom !"'

"What is it?"

"A longing for a pluck at the redcross, yonder !"

"True, by St. Mary !" said Biondo, starting energetically: "but you read it in my eyes!"'

"I have told you your first thought, signor, and I will give you a hint of the second. Is there a likeness between a nymph on canvas and a gobbo in a mask?"

"Giulio!" exclaimed Amieri, turning suddenly round; but the straight back of the domino met his eye, and, totally bewildered, he resumed his seat, and slowly perused the stranger from head to foot.

"Talk to me as if my mask were the mirror of your soul, Amieri," said the soft but undisguised voice. "You need sympathy in this mood, and I am your good angel. Is your wrist painful to-night !"

"I cannot talk to you," he said, turning to resume his observation of the scene below. "If you know the face beneath the gobbo's mask, you know the heaven from which I am shut out. But I must gaze on it still." "Is it a woman?"

"No! an angel."

"And encourages the devil in the shape of Malaspina? You miscall her, Amieri!"

The answer was interrupted by Lenzoni, who ran into the gallery, but seeing his friend beset by a mask, he gave him joy of his good luck, and refusing to interrupt the tête-à-tête, disappeared with a laugh.

"Brave, kind Lenzoni !" said the stranger.

"Are you his good angel, too?"" asked Amieri, surprised again at the knowledge so mysteriously displayed.

"No! Little as you know of me, you would not be willing to share me with another! Say, Amieri! love you the gobbo on the knight's arm?"

"You have read me riddles less clear, my fair incognita! I would die at morn but to say farewell to her at midnight !"

"Do you despair of her love?"

"Do I despair of excelling Raphael with these unstrung fingers? I never hoped-but in my dreams, lady!"

"Then hope, waking! For as there is truth in heaven, Violanta Cesarini loves you, Biondo !"

Laying his left hand sternly on the arm of the stranger, Biondo raised his helpless wrist and pointed towards the hunchback, who, seated by the redcross knight, played with the diamond cross of his sword-hilt, while the palmer turned his back, as if to give two lovers an opportunity.

With a heart overwhelmed with bitterness, he then turned to the mocking incognita. Violanta sat beside him!

Holding her mask between her and the crowd below, the maiden blush mounted to her temples, and the long sweeping lashes dropped over her eyes their veiling and silken fringes. And while the red-cross knight still made eloquent love to Giulio in the saloon of the masquerade, Amieri and Violanta, in their unobserved retreat, exchanged vows, faint and choked with emotion on his part, but all hope, encouragement, and assurance on her's.

"Will you waltz?" said a merryvoiced domino to the red-cross knight a few minutes after, tapping him smartly on the corslet with her black fan, and pointing, for the first step, a

foot that would have tempted St. Anthony.

"By the mass!" answered Malaspina, "I should pay an ill compliment to the sweetest voice that ever enchanted human ear," (and he bowed low to Giulio) "did I refuse invitation so sweetly toned. Yet my Milan armour is not light!"

"I have been refusing his entreaties this hour," said Giulio, as the knight whirled away with Violanta, "for though I can chatter like a woman, I should dance like myself. He is not unwilling to show his grace to his 'lady-mistress!' Ha! ha! It is worth while to sham the petticoat for once, to see what fools men are when they would please a woman! But, close mask! Here comes the Count Cesarini !"

"How fares my child?" said the old noble, leaning over the masked Giulio, and touching with his lips the glossy curl which concealed his temple. "Are you amused, idalo mio ?"

A sudden tremor shot through the frame of poor Giulio, at the first endearment ever addressed to his ear by the voice of a parent. The tears coursed down under his mask, and for all answer to the question, he could only lay his small soft hand in his father's, and return his pressure with irresistible strength and emotion.

"You are not well, my child!" he said, surprised at not receiving an answer, this ugly hump oppresses you! Come to the air! So-lean on me, caro tesoro ! We will remove the hump presently. A Cesarini with a hump indeed! Straighten yourself, my life, my child, and you will breathe more freely!"

Thus entered, at one wound, daggers and balm into the heart of the deformed youth; and while Bettina, trembling in every limb, grew giddy with fear as they made their way through the crowd, Giulio, relieved by his tears, nerved himself with a strong effort, and prepared to play out his difficult part with calmness.

They threaded slowly the crowded maze of waltzers, and, emerging from the close saloons, stood at last in the gallery overhanging the river. The moon was rising, and touched with a pale light the dark face of the Tiber;

the music came faintly out to the night air, and a fresh west wind, cool and balmy from the verdant campagna, breathed softly through the lattices.

Refusing a chair, Giulio leaned over the balustrade, and the count stood by his side and encircled his waist with his arm.

"I cannot bear this deformity, my Violanta!" he said, "you look so unlike my child with it; I need this little hand to re-assure me.'

"Should you know that was my hand, father?" said Giulio.

"Should I not? I have told you a thousand times that the nails of a Cesarini were marked-let me see you again-by the arch of this rosy line! See, my little gobbo! They are like four pink fairy-shells of India laid over rolled leaves of roses. What was the poet's name who said that of the old Contessa Julia Cesarini-la bella Julia?"

"Should you have known my voice, father?" asked Giulio, evading the question.

"Yes, my darling; why ask me?" "But, father!—if I had been stolen by brigands from the cradle-or you had not seen me for many, many years

and I had meet you to-night as a gobbo, and had spoken to you-only in sport-and had called 'father, dear father!' should you have known my voice? would you have owned me for a Cesarini ?"

"Instantly, my fair child!"'

"But suppose my back had been broken-suppose I were a gobbo-a deformed hunchback indeed, indeed— but had still nails with a rosy arch, and the same voice with which I speak to you now-and pressed your hand thus and loved you-would you disown me, father?"

Giulio had raised himself while he spoke, and taken his hand from his father's with a feeling that life or death would be in his answer to that question.

Cesarini was disturbed, and did not reply for a moment.

"My child!" he said at last, "there is that in your voice that would convince me you are mine, against all the evidence in the universe. I cannot imagine the dreadful image you have conjured up, for the Cesarini are