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ing of sending Warren to inquire at the address Sarti had given her, when one day, as she was equipped for driving out, the valet brought in a small piece of paper which he said had been left for her ladyship by a man who was carrying fruit. The paper contained only three tremulous lines, in Italian :—

"Will the Eccelentissima, for the love of God, have pity on a dying man, and come to him?"

Lady Cheverel recognised the handwriting as Sarti's in spite of its tremulousness, and, going down to her carriage, ordered the Milanese coachman to drive to Strada Quinquagesima, Numero 10. The coach stopped in a dirty narrow street opposite La Pazzini's fruit-shop, and that large specimen of womanhood immediately presented herself at the door, to the extreme disgust of Mrs Sharp, who remarked privately to Mr Warren that La Pazzini was a "hijeous porpis." The fruit-woman, however, was all smiles and deep curtsies to the Eccelentissima, who, not very well understanding her Milanese dialect, abbreviated the conversation by asking to be shown at once to Signor Sarti. La Pazzini preceded her up the dark narrow stairs, and opened a door through which she begged her ladyship to enter. Directly opposite the door lay Sarti, on a low miserable bed. His eyes were glazed, and no movement indicated that he was conscious of their entrance.

On the foot of the bed was seated a tiny child, apparently not three years old, her head covered by a linen cap, her feet clothed with leather boots, above which her little yellow legs showed thin and naked. A frock, made of what had once been a gay flowered silk, was her only other garment. Her large dark eyes shone from out her queer little face, like two precious stones in a grotesque image carved in old ivory. She held an empty medicine-bottle in her hand, and was amusing herself with putting the cork in and drawing it out again, to hear how it would pop.

La Pazzini went up to the bed, and said, "Ecco la nobilissima donna!" but directly after screamed out, "Holy mother! he is dead!"

It was so. The entreaty had not

been sent in time for Sarti to carry out his project of asking the great English lady to take care of his Caterina. That was the thought which haunted his feeble brain as soon as he began to fear that his illness would end in death. She had wealth

she was kind-she would surely do something for the poor orphan. And so, at last, he sent that scrap of paper, which won the fulfilment of his prayer, though he did not live to utter it. Lady Cheverel gave La Pazzini money that the last decencies might be paid to the dead man, and carried away Caterina, meaning to consult Sir Christopher as to what should be done with her. Even Mrs Sharp had been so smitten with pity by the scene she had witnessed when she was summoned up-stairs to fetch Caterina, as to shed a small tear, though she was not at all subject to that weakness; indeed, she abstained from it on principle, because, as she often said, it was known to be the worst thing in the world for the eyes.

On the way back to her hotel, Lady Cheverel turned over various projects in her mind regarding Caterina, but at last one gained the preference over all the rest. Why should they not take the child to England, and bring her up there? They had been married. twelve years, yet Cheverel Manor was cheered by no children's voices, and the old house would be all the better for a little of that music. Besides, it would be a Christian work to train this little Papist into a good Protestant, and graft as much English fruit as possible on the Italian stem.

Sir Christopher listened to this plan with hearty acquiescence. He loved children, and took at once to the little black-eyed monkey-his name for Caterina all through her short life. But neither he nor Lady Cheverel had any idea of adopting her as their daughter, and giving her their own rank in life. They were much too English and aristocratic to think of anything so romantic. No! The child would be brought up at Cheverel Manor as a protegée, to be ultimately useful, perhaps, in sorting worsteds, keeping accounts, reading aloud, and otherwise supplying the

place of spectacles when her ladyship's eyes should wax dim.

So Mrs Sharp had to procure new clothes, to replace the linen cap, flowered frock, and leathern boots; and now, strange to say, little Catina, who had suffered many unconscious evils in her existence of thirty moons, first began to know conscious troubles. "Ignorance," says Ajax, "is a painless evil;" so, I should think is dirt, considering the merry faces that go along with it. At any rate, cleanliness is sometimes a painful good, as any one can vouch who has had his face washed the wrong way, by a pitiless hand with a gold ring

on the third finger. If you, reader, have not known that initiatory anguish, it is idle to expect that you will form any approximate conception of what Catina endured under Mrs Sharp's new dispensation of soap-and-water. Happily, this purgatory came presently to be associated in her tiny brain with a passage straightway to a seat of bliss -the sofa in Lady Cheverel's sitting-room, where there were toys to be broken, a ride was to be had on Sir Christopher's knee, and a spaniel of resigned temper was prepared to undergo small tortures without flinching.

CHAPTER IV.

In three months from the time of Caterina's adoption, namely, in the late autumn of 1763-the chimneys of Cheverel Manor were sending up unwonted smoke, and the servants were awaiting in excitement the return of their master and mistress after a two years' absence. Great was the astonishment of Mrs Bellamy, the housekeeper, when Mr Warren lifted a little black-eyed child out of the carriage, and great was Mrs Sharp's sense of superior information and experience, as she detailed Caterina's history, interspersed with copious comments, to the rest of the upper servants that evening, as they were taking a comfortable glass of grog together in the housekeeper's

room.

A pleasant room it was, as any party need desire to muster in on a cold November evening. The fireplace alone was a picture: a wide and deep recess with a low brick altar in the middle, where great logs of dry wood sent myriad sparks up the dark chimney-throat; and over the front of this recess a large wooden entablature bearing this motto, finely carved in old English letters, "FEAR GOD AND HONOUR THE KING." And beyond the party, who formed a halfmoon with their chairs and wellfurnished table round this bright fireplace, what a space of chiaroscuro for the imagination to revel in! Stretching across the far end of the room, what an oak table, high enough

surely for Homer's gods, standing on four massive legs, bossed and bulging like sculptured urns! and, lining the distant wall, what vast cupboards, suggestive of inexhaustible apricot jam and promiscuous butler's perquisites! A stray picture or two had found their way down there, and made agreeable patches of dark brown on the buff-coloured walls. High over the loud-resounding double door hung one which, from some indications of a face looming out of blackness, might by a great synthetic effort be pronounced a Magdalen. Considerably lower down hung the similitude of a hat and feathers, with portions of a ruff, stated by Mrs Bellamy to represent Sir Francis Bacon, who invented gunpowder, and in her opinion, might ha' been better emplyed."

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But this evening the mind is but slightly arrested by the great Verulam, and is in the humour to think a dead philosopher less interesting than a living gardener, who sits conspicuous in the half circle round the fireplace. Mr Bates is habitually a guest in the housekeeper's room of an evening, preferring the social pleasures there the feast of gossip and the flow of grog-to a bachelor's chair in his charming thatched cottage on a little island, where every sound is remote but the cawing of rooks and the screaming of wild geese-poetic sounds, doubtless, but, humanly speaking, not convivial.

CLOWN.

Leave that to Shoddy. Here he comes. We may want him at the

finish.

(Enter SHODDY, dressed as a Cabman.)

SHODDY.

I say, tumble up, will you? This kind of weather don't agree with me! Is it to be Canton? Well-in with you! But, remember, my lads, you'll need to settle my fare, either now or hereafter. So take your time! Woa, Devilsdust! What a beast it is! All right? Then go it, ye cripples! (They drive off.)

SCENE XI.

Neighbourhood of Canton. Enter CHINESE singing.

CHORUS.

Sweet is summer-sweet her breathing
O'er the fair and flowery land
Spring her gentle brood bequeathing,
To her sister's ripening hand.
Swells the orange, waves the myrtle,
By the margin of the rills;
And the tea-plant, like a kirtle,
Gathers round the fragrant hills.
Mighty Foh! from war defend us!
Be our guardian as of yore,
Never may the sound tremendous
Of the cannon, shake our shore !
Never let us hear the clarion
Send its echo to the sky,

Though the rude and rough barbarian
Bend on us his gloomy eye!

(Enter an EX-PRESIDENT of the Peace Society.)

EX-PRESIDENT.

Rogues, ruffians, caitiffs, miscreants that you are!
Full time it is you taste the sweets of war!
What, scum! You'd bar my passage to Canton-
Me! whom great Jerry Bentham claimed as son—
Me! who let loose upon a darkened age

The ponderous works of that neglected sage-
Me! who, regardless both of sneer and gibe,
Retailed the gibberish of each heathen tribe-
Me! before whom, in terror and dismay,
The British House of Commons fled away-
Me! who have done, what Cromwell did before-
Cleared, in a trice, that antiquated floor!
Your empire to the centre I shall shake!
Ay, sordid villains, you do well to quake!
Peace is my watchword-Peace you shall regain,

When every beastly Chinaman is slain !

Ho, there! bombard! But, wait till I'm on board—

I'll make you know, you scoundrels, who's your lord!

(Exit the EX-PRESIDENT. The bombardment commences. Many unoffending Chinese are killed. Enter HARLEQUIN.)

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I want a certain sum in silver, down,
Which, if you render, we may spare the town.
If not, pray do exactly as you please :
I'll burn your cities, confiscate your teas!

(Enter PANTALOON and CLOWN.)

PANTALOON.

Stop, Harlequin! By Jove, this is too bad!
This greatly doth exceed your license, lad!

CLOWN.

And so say I. It is a burning shame.
Ain't you ashamed, old spangles, of this game ?

HARLEQUIN.

Ha! why the mischief do you interfere?
You fellows surely have no business here!

PANTALOON.

What! would you have us simply shoulders shrug,
When massacre is rife, you old humbug?

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Well! let us hear his name. Produce your minion.

PANTALOON.

I would name Shoddy.

HARLEQUIN.

That's to say, the Devil! Well, bring him in: I know him; he'll be civil. But, ere he comes, you'd better move your legs! Here we must store a lot of powder kegs.

(Marines roll in ammunition.)

Next, by your leave, I'll wave my magic wand,
And summon all the members of our band,
Lest lack of counsel lead us to extremes.
Ho, Columbine, Sprite, Scaramouch and Jeames!

(They enter along with SHODDY.)

Now then to business! Shoddy, take your place,

And I shall instantly propound my case.

(SHODDY sits down on the powder-barrels. Terrific explosion. All the characters are blown to smithereens.

FINIS.

SCENES OF CLERICAL LIFE.-NO. II.

MR GILFIL'S LOVE-STORY.

PART II.-CHAPTER III.

THE last chapter has given the discerning reader sufficient insight into the state of things at Cheverel Manor in the summer of 1788. In that summer, we know, the great nation of France was agitated by conflicting thoughts and passions, which were but the beginning of sorrows. And in our Caterina's little breast, too, there were terrible struggles. The poor bird was beginning to flutter and vainly dash its soft breast against the hard iron bars of the inevitable, and we see too plainly the danger, if that anguish should go on heightening instead of being allayed, that the palpitating heart may be fatally bruised.

Meanwhile, if, as I hope, you feel some interest in Catina and her friends at Cheverel Manor, you are perhaps asking, How came she to be there? How was it that this tiny, dark-eyed child of the south, whose face was immediately suggestive of olive-covered hills, and taper-lit shrines, came to have her home in that stately English manor-house, by the side of the blonde matron, Lady Cheverel-almost as if a humming-bird were found perched on one of the elmtrees in the park, by the side of her ladyship's handsomest pouter-pigeon? Speaking good English, too, and joining in Protestant prayers; surely, she must have been adopted and brought over to England at a very early age? She was.

During Sir Christopher's last visit to Italy with his lady, fifteen years before, they resided for some time at Milan, where Sir Christopher, who was an enthusiast for Gothic architecture, and was then entertaining the project of metamorphosing his plain brick family mansion into the model of a Gothic manor-house, was bent on studying the details of that marble miracle, the Cathedral. Here Lady Cheverel, as at other Italian cities where she made any protracted stay, engaged a maestro to give her

lessons in singing, for she had then not only fine musical taste, but a fine soprano voice. Those were days when very rich people used manuscript music, and many a man who resembled Jean Jacques in nothing else, resembled him in getting a livelihood "à copier la musique à tant la page." Lady Cheverel having need of this service, Maestro Albani told her he would send her a poveraccio of his acquaintance, whose manuscript was the neatest and most correct he knew of. Unhappily, the poveraccio was not always in his best wits, and was sometimes rather slow in consequence; but it would be a work of Christian charity worthy of the beautiful Signora to employ poor Sarti.

The next morning, Mrs Sharp, then a blooming abigail of three-andthirty, entered her lady's private room, and said, "If you please, my lady, there's the frowiest, shabbiest man you ever saw outside, and he's told Mr Warren as the singing master sent him to see your ladyship. But I think you'll hardly like him to come in here. Belike he's only a beggar."

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show him in immediately." Mrs Sharp retired, muttering something about "fleas and worse." She had the smallest possible admiration for fair Ausonia and its natives, and even her profound deference for Sir Christopher and her lady could not prevent her from expressing her amazement at the infatuation of gentlefolks in choosing to sojourn among " Papises, in countries where there was no getting to air a bit o' linen, and where the people smelt o' garlick fit to knock you down."

However, she presently reappeared, ushering in a small meagre man, sallow and dingy, with a restless wandering look in his dull eyes, and an excessive timidity about his deep reverences, which gave him the air of a man who had been long a soli

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