old Emilian Way, and crossed the yellow Tiber, and rode through the vast relics of unnumbered ages into the foul and ruin-cumbered streets of her, whilom the Queen of Empires. Hope was exulting at his heart, and rapturethe mighty yearning toward the playmates of his first innocent and guiltless days-the sharers of his first joys and sorrows, soon to be gratified by full fruition of their love-the high anticipations of their surprise, their more than earthly joy-the dreams, all but accomplished, of a calm, honorable, happy future. The very clatter of his horse's hoofs on the rough pavement of those streets that erst resounded to the march of Cæsar's brazen legions, the martial symphonies of thrice six hundred years of conquest and of empire, was drowned by the loud beatings of his tumultuous heart. The monuments that at another time would have enchained his very soul in awestricken and voiceless admiration, were passed in heedless haste. The ruins of the immortal Coliseum, the great modern fane of his own cherished faith, the pillars of the mighty dead, the altars of the living God, were scarcely seen, as he spurred by them, so eager and impetuous was his haste to clasp those loved ones to his bosom. His courier led him to an inn, and roused the sleepy inmates; and there, declining all the offers of the obsequious Italian host, even at that untimely hour he procured the services of a guide, who should conduct him forthwith to the obscure and sordid quarter wherein those adored exiles had occupied a temporary home. Distant, indeed, and obscure and loathsome was that quarter. The very streets were heaped with festering piles of decayed vegetables, dead dogs, and filth and garbage of every possible description. The houses, or huts rather, were wretched, low, half-ruined tenements, with here and there the giant relics of some immortal structure of the old iron Romans frowning down in contempt upon the squalor and base lethargic supineness of their degenerate descendants; and amid these, with a heart now bleeding at the bare idea of the privations, the distress, the misery, both past and present, of those beloved ones, now kindling into rapturous joy at the bright anticipation of their opening prospects, the gallant soldier fol

This, fellow-this?" cried the astonished and horror-stricken soldier, I why this is a mere ruin. No one can live here, in this damp and dismantled shell."

Yes, yes, there do, signore-many poor folks live here-quite many families. His excellency can surely see the lights there on the fourth story. There, I have heard tell, live the English strangers, of whom, no doubt, his excellency is in quest; they say that they were nobles in their own distant land, though now so poor-oh me, so poor! and I believe it, too, signore, for once I saw the youthful signorina, and though she was so pale and bent and delicate, and clad, too, in the poorest weeds, she was of the extremest beauty, with blue eyes--blue as the heavens above us-and beautiful blond hair, and little hands and feet, and a shape like a wood-nymph-and such an air too-so serene, and calm, and proud— proud with a sort of tranquil and halfhumble haughtiness-oh, beyond doubt she is noble!"

"Then lead on-lead on quickly," exclaimed the fiery youth, "death of your life, lead on!" and with the words they entered at the unbarred door; and passing, on the first and second floors, the foul and miserable lairs of the most low and wretched paupers, they stumbled in the dark up the frail, creaking stairs, reeking with every sort of foul and nauseous abomination, until they reached the corridor at the head of the fourth flight.

Here, most unlike the regions they had passed, they found the landingplace, though ruinous and tottering, quite clean and neatly swept, with a coarse mat before each door, and a light burning in a rude lanthorn of oiled paper, swung from the ceiling by a long hempen cord. The noise which had been made by Gerald and his guide as they were mounting the decayed and clattering steps, had roused,

as it would seem, the inmates; for before they could knock at the door of the apartment, whence they had seen the light while in the street below, it was thrown open, and a young man, or stripling rather, for he could not possibly have exceeded his eighteenth summer-appeared on the lintel with a light in one hand, and a long-barrelled horseman's pistol in the other, inquiring in a querulous and impatient tone, who it was that came thither, with so much noise, and at an hour so untimely. Gerald gazed steadfastly upon him, and scarcely recognized the form or features of one who had been his mother's darling, the pride and pet and beauty of the household. The long dark hair, indeed, still fell back from his broad and noble brows in rich luxuriance, but the wild flashing light of the blue eye was dimmed and clouded; the speaking features were downcast, and pale, and thin, and haggard; the frame was lean and wasted, almost to emaciation; the dress, though scrupulously neat and cleanly, was of the most penurious fashion and material. Thus the two brothers met, the elder gazing half doubtfully on the younger, although the light fell full upon his face -the younger not once suspecting that the stranger, splendidly clad in a halfmilitary, foreign garb, could be the brother who, he had too much reason to believe, had fallen twelve months at least before, in a far distant region. But Gerald gazed not long before he found the traces, although changed and faded, of what he yet remembered in that

young wasted visage. "Spencer," he cried, "do you not know me, Spencer? It is I, Gerald Desmond-I have been searching for you this year past, and praise be to God! I have found you, even thus, thus wretchedly! But this shall be amended; I bring you hope and happiness!"

"Too late! you bring them too late, Gerald," exclaimed the boy, flinging aside both light and pistol, and throwing himself into his brother's arms, sobbing upon his bosom as if his heart would break. "Too late, for one of us at least; and she, the best, the dearest." "Who? what? In the name of Heaven, what mean you?"

"Marcia is dying."

"No! no! oh no!" cried Gerald, "Oh God! my God-it cannot-shall not be! Here, fellow, here is gold," he

added, flinging several broad pieces to the guide who had conducted him. "Fly! and bring food, wine, fruit-the best and costliest-summon the wisest leeches-begone! nay, send my courier hither! now lead in, lead in, Spencer-where is my brother Ulick?"

"Watching by Marcia's bed; she slumbers the last hour-but Gerald, Gerald, all hope is over now; the surgeon has assured us that she cannot live beyond to-morrow, and she, too, feels and knows it; the last rites of our church have been administered, and all but the last struggle is already over. We had-I say, we had even nerved our souls to bear it! but this-thisthis is indeed too much! to see aid close at hand, but useless-to feel and know that had this come but two weeks sooner-she might have lived for years to bless us! and now-now, Gerald, before another sun shall setHeaven will have gained an angel-and we lost

Oh God! grant us

power to bear it!" and a long flood of convulsive weeping concluded his incoherent and passionate lamentation.

And now, astonished at the long stay of Spencer, and perhaps apprehensive of some fresh evil, the second brother, Ulick, came forth barefooted from the bedside of his dying sister. "What is the matter-what new ill is it, Spencer?" he inquired, in a voice so hollow, yet so resolute and set, that one saw readily that fate had dealt already so sternly with the speaker that there was indeed scarcely any ill which could now shake him further.

"No ill-no ill-but oh, my God! it is a good that cuts more deeply than any evil we have undergone!"-exclaimed the boy, still sobbing half convulsively. "Gerald has come backcome back to us from the grave-with wealth, and happiness, and hope within his giving-when it is all too late!"

"Gerald come back! you are mad, boy!"-cried the elder and somewhat less impulsive Ulick. "Gerald is cold in a bloody grave beside Boyne water

Indeed he is not, Ulick," answered Gerald, advancing towards him with extended arms; "I was, indeed, severely wounded, but I came off alive, and managed to escape; and here I am, dear brother, with not much wealth indeed, but with good hope of happiness and comfort for the future. But

tell me, Ulick, tell me that this poor boy is distraught with suffering and sorrow-tell me, I pray you, as you would have me live, that Marcia is not dying!"

"Would God I could-would God, I could so tell you, Gerald-with any hope of speaking truly! But there is no hope now except in Heaven. She never was, you know, other than delicate and weak; and now famine, and cold, and hope deferred, and sorrow, have wasted her down to a shadow; and she has waned and faded day by day-paler and thinner, and more feeble, till it would seem that now there is nothing bodily about her. Her spirit is indeed as sweet and beautiful and strong as ever-but, Gerald, that spirit will be with its God to-morrow!"

He answered no word; but went in, silently and softly; and passing through the outer room, a large and once magnificent saloon, now all dismantled and stripped bare, and quite unfurnished with the exception of a pallet bed, a large rude table, and some two or three broken chairs, entered the bedchamber of his dying sister. Here, as in all that he had seen, everything was as clean as in the noblest mansion, but poor almost beyond anything that we can conceive of poverty. The very bed on which the sick girl lay was destitute of necessary coverings, and to supply the want of these a portion of her brothers' garments had been spread over her emaciated form; for it was winter, and, although in Italy, the cold of those large, fireless, and unfurnished chambers was damp, and of a piercing chillness. And she, the girl who lay there-living, but death-like! it was but too unquestionably evident, as those, who had so faithfully attended her, had not failed to perceive, that all in truth of life, save the last parting struggle, was already over. She lay upon her back, with one arm folded over her frail bosom, and so attenuated was her whole frame by the insidious malady which was consuming her, that it scarce seemed to elevate the bed-clothes; her thin transparent fingers, liker to the claws of a bird than to a human hand, clutched with a feverish grasp the linen which was scarce whiter than themselves, as it rose and fell with a motion hardly perceptible, so feeble was the breathing of the sleeper. The fine golden hair,

which had been ever so rich an ornament to her unrivalled beauty, now folded simply round the classic outlines of a head whose symmetry nothing could alter or impair, was dim and tangled, and clogged with the cold dews of coming dissolution. Her lovely features, still lovely, though all sharpened and emaciated, were pale and white as snow, with every blue vein visibly rising up above the surface of the skin. Her lips alone retained their natural hue, but high up on either cheek bone there was a small round spot of that intense and fearful crimson, which is perhaps the surest indication of that accursed disease, which ever seems to select for its victims the brightest and loveliest of our race. There needed no words now to convince Gerald Desmond that hope indeed had fled. He stood upon the threshold, motionless, voiceless, passionless; smitten as it would seem to stone, like her who in one hour beheld the whole of that fair progeny in which she so exulted pierced by the vengeful arrows of Latona's vengeance. He stood, and gazed, gazed steadfastly and silently, upon that dying sister whom his heart had so long yearned to gather to his bosom. He gazed apparently unmoved, for hope was dead within him, and he felt in the unutterable anguish of that moment as if he never should feel anything again. It was that girl, that sister, for whom his spirit had so toiled and grieved-for whom his hopes had so been kindledand now to find her thus! Not a tear came to bedew his burning eyelids, not a groan relieved the tension of his bursting bosom. His brothers stood behind him, and prepared, as they were, to see some passionate and lamentable outbreak of his feelings, they were appalled almost beyond conception by his calm air, and utter want, as it appeared, of any sense of agony or sorrow. By and by he kneeled down beside her bed, and burying his head in the coverlid, waited in speechless anguish the time of her awaking. An hour perhaps passed thus, and day was beginning to dawn faintly; and sounds of some early passengers and country carts were occasionally heard in the streets, when the poor invalid moved restlessly, and murmured something in her sleep-it was the name of Gerald-then! then! the tears gushed

a favorite haunt of Marcia Desmond. She had found there, in one of her lonely rambles, an antique tomb, the tomb of a Roman girl-like herself, young and most unhappy. There is, indeed, something very touching in the brief record which is borne by that time-worn slab, as it has been recorded by the mightiest bard of modern England; and when it is considered that Marcia found, or fancied, a strong similarity between the fortunes of the young Roman and her own, it will not be surprising that she should have chosen it as a favorite place of meditation, and, when she became aware that she was dying, that she should have selected its vicinity for her long home. A very old stone-pine shadows it with an almost gloomy umbrage; and in the leaves of that old pine there is a never silent whisper that harmonizes with the ripple of the little stream, the only other sound that is heard in these lovely precincts. Beneath the tree and beside the rivulet, stood the discolored slab that told where slept the sleep of ages

three tall chargers. The Desmondsfor they it was who were gathered for the last time round the bed of their cherished sister-had hung a garland on the headstone; had prayed and wept in silence over those loved ashes. And now they bent them, one by one, and kissed the turf that covered them, and rose up calm and tearless, and mounted their war-horses, and, without turning their heads, rode away rapidly on the way that led to France.

Another year passed over, and though the death of Marcia had cast a deep and continual gloom over the life of Gerald Desmond, he forced himself to maintain a firm and cheerful bearing, and did his duty ever, as a man, a soldier, and a Christian. His youngest brother, Spencer, had been admitted instantly on their return to Paris to an ensigncy in the English Guard, and Ulick was appointed captain in the French corps of Marines. The war still raged between the governments of France and England; although, since Ireland had been reduced completely by Ginckel, in the desperate affairs of Athlone and Aghrim, it was carried on almost entirely by sea. Powerful fleets had been equipped by both nations; and although the English, when supported by the Dutch squadron, were somewhat superior in numbers, that superiority was in no wise sufficient to deter their adversaries from disputing the possession of the narrow seas, with obstinate and daring gallantry. A large encampment had been formed on the coast of Normandy at La Hogue, in which no less than twelve thousand Irish, who had chosen to undergo exile from their native land, rather than to endure the government of King William, were assembled still under the commission and command of King James the Second, although new clothed and armed at the expense of the King of France. These gallant spirits, to reinforce whom the English Guards had been marched down from Paris, as well as several of the best regiments of the French Line, with a fine park of artillery,-were full of brightest hopes of being soon permitted to invade their own dear island, wherein they well knew that one bright gleam of success would stir up thousands, aye! tens of thousands, of wild fiery hearts to their assistance. Triumphant aspirations, high dreams