the size of my finger. Upon the horizon a red-hulled steamship streamed a long unbroken line of smoke; a large vessel, clouded with canvas, lay becalmed, doubling her snowy image in the water. Beyond the pier a row of gulls floated on the tide, flaking the blue with a whiteness of foam.

I seated myself on the grass. Under the benignant eye of that placid day my mind grew calm and happy. My mysterious fair one's rejec tion of the bouquet was indeed a brusque, even a rude, certainly a decided hint that she wished to have nothing to do with me. In my mellower mood I sought and easily found an excuse for her very downright action. That she desired seclusion was evident from her residing at Cliffegate; and she was quite right to resist any effort to violate her privacy; yet all the same this action of hers has vastly increased curiosity. It not only inflamed my desire, but doubled my resolution to know her.

Who was this strange woman-this moonlight wanderer-this midnight shape of sorrow and beauty? What wild impulsive nature was hers, driving her into the night to wander, with her pleading eyes gleaming like the exhalations kindled in the gloom? And why should this action be wrapped in secrecy-so hidden, that not her own servant should be conscious of it?

To me alone, it seemed, had it been given to encounter this mysterious being to have met her face to face beneath the starlight—to have marked the lighted pathos of her eyes.

I was not surprised that she should have frightened me, man as I was. I did not reproach myself with my timidity. She had presented an object of terror, before which a stouter heart than mine might have quailed without shame. In the broad daylight I might easily have resolved to walk again to the place where I had met her; but in my heart I knew very well that when the night came, when I looked out upon the sombre shadows and chilly light, I should shrink from the encounter.

I remained long upon the cliff, drinking in the beauty of the day, now indolently glancing at the pages of the book, now watching the excursion of a sea-gull from the flock, with my thoughts ever reverting to the woman whose acquaintance I had resolved to make, let it cost what it would. The declining afternoon at length cautioned me to be gone, for dinner would be waiting; and rising, I leisurely sauntered homewards.

On entering the hall, I met Mrs. Williams.

"There is a gentleman in the drawing-room, sir," she remarked, "who came about an hour ago."

my What's

"A gentleman!" I exclaimed, mentally running over the list of friends, and wondering which of them had found me out. his name?"

"He gave it, but I couldn't catch it, sir. He looks like a foreigner." "By Jove, it must be Martelli!"

The gentleman I had engaged as companion. I had totally forgotten him. So far from having wondered that he had not written to say when he would come, the fact of my ever having replied to his letter had wholly escaped my memory. Good Heaven! thought I, what has come to my mind that it should not have retained this matter?

I threw my hat on the hall-table and entered the drawing-room.

A man rather below the middle height and of slight build stood at the window with his back to the door. He turned with a rapid movement as I entered. Perceiving me he advanced with a bow. "I have the pleasure of addressing Signor Martelli ?” I said. "You have, sir."

"I much regret that I should have caused you to wait so long. I had no idea you would arrive to-day."

"It is my own fault," he replied, with a deprecating wave of the hand. "I should have written to announce my coming. But the truth is, I, by some extraordinary accident, mislaid your letter, and, what was equally bad, could not find a copy of the paper in which your advertisement was. I was in despair. Yesterday, however, I found your letter, on which, as the delay was great already, I determined to go to you without writing. I shall owe you an apology for this want of ceremony."

"Not at all. But you must be heartily sick of waiting. Dinner will be ready in a quarter of an hour. Let me now conduct you to your room."

We mounted the stairs; I led him to a bedroom adjoining mine, and left him.

In the drawing-room I mused on his appearance. He looked about thirty-five years old-not older. His frame, slight as I have described, had an attenuated look, such as might come from a prolonged illness of a trying rather than a painful character. His complexion was sallow. His mouth was concealed by a large moustache. His nose was long and handsome; his eyes black, large, and scintillant with a ray not readily determinable-a light which in passion might be sinister, in melancholy pathetic, and in love appealing. He spoke English with a cultured accent, pronouncing his words decisively, like one who knows their value. His dress was black. I should have hardly guessed him a scholar by his air. His brow indeed was open, but manifested no power. To the keen observer the stylet of intellect is always perceptible in many a sudden line and curve. I had examined this man attentively (the interpretation of the face is sudden to those who know how to read it), but had marked nothing to indicate the qualities. I sought.

I studied him more attentively during dinner. His manners were singularly graceful, and his voice was flexible and harmonious. He was more easy and unembarrassed than his address at first promised; but weariness and impatience had probably induced a behaviour that was contrary to his usual demeanour. As a youth he must have been handsome, but his beauty had prematurely faded.

"Do you enjoy good health?" I asked.

"I must not complain," he answered.

"Your constitution at all events will suffer no injury from a residence here. Cliffegate is dull; but it is fanned by breezes as tempered and sweet as those of your own country."

Yes, sir. I tasted their sweetness as I came along. I had my finger on my pulse, and smiled at the elastic and temperate throbbing it returned. You are beautifully situated here. You must find this repose of great benefit to your studies ?"

"Ah, do not speak of my studies!" I exclaimed, shaking my head. "I am very slothful-intolerably indolent, and shall want all your enthusiasm to keep me to my work. What I chiefly need is the influence of a methodical mind. I am like one of those butterflies there, which pass from flower to flower, but gather no honey. You must teach me to resemble the busy bee.

"Teach me like thee, in various natures wise

To fall with dignity, with temper rise;
Form'd by thy converse happily to steer
From grave to gay, from lively to severe.'

"Pope's appeal to Bolingbroke could be gratified," he answered with a smile;" and if I were Lord Bolingbroke I might promise you the fulfilment of your wishes. But I may at least assure you that whatever service it is in my power to accord, will be rendered not only with pleasure, but with a high sense of the honour you will be doing me in submitting to my judgment."

"Of that I am sure. You see I lead a very recluse life here, and we shall be much together. You will observe many weaknesses in my character, which I trust no feeling of courtesy will prohibit you from correcting. My income, I may tell you, is ample for the wants and even for the ambitions of a single man. I am therefore deprived of the pleasure or labour of money-getting. Life to be made tolerable must have an object. My object is not a very definite one; but it is clear enough to be kept in view, and, whatever the sequel may prove, its prosecution must at least benefit me. The chief road to honour in this country lies through the Bar and the House of Commons. For the Bar I am unfitted by want of sympathy with the dull and dry labour of the law. The House of Commons is different. To be sure my knowledge of politics is at present superficial; but it need not remain So. An intelligent and even a profound acquaintance with any par

ticular study is practicable to one who, having sworn to master it, wisely orders his labour."

He assented with a cordial wave of the hand.

"But this is not all," I continued. "Much money was spent on my education; but never guessing at the useful impulses that some years later sent me to rusticate at Elmore Court, I allowed my stock of knowledge to drop bit by bit from memory. I have now to recover my lost ground; and it is in the study of general literature, as opposed to the particular literature of politics, that I would chiefly solicit your counsel and stimulus."

"I fully understand, and what is more, I fully sympathise with you," he rejoined, having listened to me with courteous interest. "You propose, sir, a very honourable pursuit, and with your talents I see no reason why you should not push it prosperously. Though I may injure myself by the confession, I must be allowed to say that your views and desires exhibit an order of understanding in which it would be presumptuous in me to profess an equality. Still I believe you will find me useful. I am a practical, and what you call in your country a plodding man. I shall try to be to you what your gardener there is to those flowers: he cannot make them, but he may add beauty to their colours by careful culture, and luxuriance to their growth by skilful pruning."

"Your image is very happy, though unjust to yourself," I said, flattered by his compliments, though secretly annoyed at not being able to disguise the emotion from myself as fully as I believed I did from him. "Your English betrays an intimate acquaintance with the language of this country-particularly with that colloquial and familiar portion of it which is always the most difficult to a foreigner. You must have lived long among us."

"Nearly all my life," he replied.

"I wish I could speak your language with the ease and fluency you pronounce mine."

"I trust you will, before long, sir," he answered with a smile.

"I know only a few words of Italian. What a sweet language it is!-a dialect of liquids. There is a melodious pathos in its pronunciation by Italians which is not to be found in any other languageleast of all in our rugged Runic. The English esteem it a capital vehicle for love-making."

k "You can talk more nonsense in it than you can in English. Your language is the language of good sense. You must think deeply and wisely to talk or write good English. But you have writers among you who are spoiling your language by introducing Germanised words. Now a compound word of twelve inches long may do very well to express the thoughts of a people who profess to understand Hegel, and mistake the delirious rhetoric of Jean Paul for inspiration.

But the language of Shakespeare does not need such amplification. He is the best illustrator you have of its genius-which is essentially simple-by expressing in it thoughts which are more profound than anything you will find in the German writers. And as to lovemaking, sir, what language but English could produce such sweet, touching, and tender syllables as Shakespeare and your best poets have put in the mouths of their lovers and mistresses?"

"For my part," I rejoined, laughing, "I have no experience of love-making, and can therefore express no opinion on the subject of its language."

"It is a bad game to play at, is love," he said.

"Most of the terms you use in cards belong to it-shuffling, hearts, knaves, and clubs too, if the police-stories of husbands beating their wives are to be believed. What books are you chiefly reading now, sir?"

I gave him a short list; then pushing my chair from the table.

rose.

"Do you smoke?" I asked him from the window.

"Thank you, yes."

"There are pipes and tobaccos of various kinds in my library. You have full permission to smoke in any room. There are no ladies here; and whilst fate permits, I choose to enjoy unbounded liberty." "Whilst fate permits! Does not that sound ominous ?"

"Very likely. Who knows? The future is full of the unexpected and the improbable."

He shrugged his shoulders and gravely shook his head, but made

no answer.

"See what a lovely evening it is!" I said. "We shall enjoy our tobacco in the open air. The servant shall bring us our coffee on the lawn. Do you get deeper and richer blues than that in Italy?" pointing to the sky.

He came into the balcony, bent to smell a geranium, and looking round him muttered,

"Beautiful indeed! too beautiful for happiness, sir; for it makes us feel our wants."

CHAPTER V.

I FOUND Martelli to be more useful to me than I could have expected. He had called himself practical, and he was practical. He was used to the punctilious regularity of schools, to the difficult inattention of pupils; and the habits these experiences had engendered well qualified him in one sense for the post I had offered. In one sense I say by which I mean my need of an influence to direct my studies. and keep me to them. But in him I missed what I had sought, and would have taken in preference, could I have found. Sympathies he