"Italian!" cried Mrs. Hazeldean. "Well, I said so from the first. Italian!-that's all, is it?" and she smiled.

Randal was more and more perplexed. The pupil of his eye contracted, as it does when we retreat into ourselves, and think, watch, and keep guard.

"And perhaps," resumed Mrs. Hazeldean, with a very sunny expression of countenance, "you have noticed this in Frank since he was here?"

"It is true," murmured Randal; "but I think his heart or his fancy was touched even before."

And, in the mean while, it is quite right that Frank should see the world, and try to distract his mind, or at least to know it. And I dare say it has been some thought of that kind which has prevented his coming here."

Randal, dreading a further and plainer éclaircissement, now rose, and saying, "Par"Very natural," said Mrs. Hazeldean; don me, but I must hurry over breakfast, and "how could he help it?-such a beautiful be back in time to catch the coach"-offered creature! Well, I must not ask you to tell his arm to his hostess, and led her into the Frank's secrets; but I guess the object of at- breakfast parlor. Devouring his meal, as if traction; and though she will have no for-in great haste, he then mounted his horse, tune to speak of-and it is not such a match as he might form-still she is so amiable, and has been so well brought up, and is so little like one's general notions of a Roman Catholic, that I think I could persuade Hazeldean into giving his consent.'

"Ah!" said Randal, drawing a long breath, and beginning with his practised acuteness to detect Mrs. Hazeldean's error, "I am very much relieved and rejoiced to hear this; and I may venture to give Frank some hope, if I find him disheartened and disponding, poor fellow !"

and, taking cordial leave of his entertainers, trotted briskly away.

All things favored his project-even chance had befriended him in Mrs. Hazeldean's mistake. She had not unnaturally supposed Violante to have captivated Frank on his last visit to the Hall. Thus, while Randal had certified his own mind that nothing could more exasperate the Squire than an alliance with Madame di Negra, he could yet assure Frank that Mrs. Hazeldean was all on his side. And when the error was discovered, Mrs. Hazeldean would only have to blame herself for it. "I think you may," replied Mrs. Hazeldean, Still more successful had his diplomacy provlaughing pleasantly. "But you should noted with the Riccaboccas; he had ascertained have frightened poor William so, hinting that the lady knew very little English. She has an accent, to be sure; but she speaks our tongue very prettily. I always forget that she's not English born! Ha, ha, poor William !"

Randal.-"Ha, ha!"

Mrs. Hazeldean."We had once thought of another match for Frank- -a girl of good English family."

Randal.-"Miss Sticktorights?"

Mrs. Hazeldean.-"No; that's an old whim of Hazeldean's. But he knows very well that the Sticktorights would never merge their property in ours. Bless you, it would be all off the moment they came to settlements, and had to give up the right of way. We thought of a very different match; but there's no dictating to young hearts, Mr. Leslie."

Randal. Indeed no, Mrs. Hazeldean. But since we now understand each other so well, excuse me if I suggest that you had better leave things to themselves, and not write to Frank on the subject. Young hearts, you know, are often stimulated by apparent difficulties, and grow cool when the obstacle vanishes."

Mrs. Hazeldean.-"Very possibly; it was not so with Hazeldean and me. But I shall not write to Frank on the subject, for a different reason though I would consent to the match, and so would William, yet we both would rather, after all, that Frank married an

the secret he had come to discover; he should induce the Italian to remove to the neighborhood of London; and if Violante were the great heiress he suspected her to prove, whom else of her own age would she see but him? And the old Leslie domains-to be sold in two years a portion of the dowry might purchase them! Flushed by the triumph of his craft, all former vacillations of conscience ceased. In high and fervent spirits he passed the Casino, the garden of which was solitary and deserted, reached his home, and, telling Oliver to be studious, and Juliet to be patient, walked thence to meet the coach and regain the capital.

CHAPTER XI.

VIOLANTE was seated in her own little room, and looking from the window on the terrace that stretched below. The day was warm for the time of year. The orange-trees had been removed under shelter for the approach of winter; but where they had stood sat Mrs. Riccabocca at work. In the Belvidere, Riccabocca himself was conversing with his favorite servant. But the casements and the door of the Belvidere were open; and where they sat, both wife and daughter could see the Padrone leaning against the wall, with his arms folded, and his eyes fixed on the floor; while Jackeymo, with one finger on his master's arm, was talking to him with visible earnestness. And the daughter from the

window, and the wife from her work, direct-health of her childhood. Her elastic steped tender anxious eyes towards the still her eyes full of sweetness and light-her thoughtful form so dear to both. For the bloom, at once soft and luxuriant-all spoke last day or two Riccabocca had been pecu- of the vital powers fit to sustain a mind of liarly abstracted, even to gloom. Each felt such exquisite mould, and the emotions of there was something stirring at his heart--a heart that, once aroused, could ennoble the neither as yet knew what. passions of the South with the purity and de

Solitude makes some natures more timid, some more bold. Violante was fearless. When she spoke, her eyes frankly met your own; and she was so ignorant of evil, that as yet

From this courage, combined with affluence of idea, came a delightful flow of happy converse. Though possessing so imperfectly the accomplishments ordinarily taught to young women, and which may be cultured to the utmost, and yet leave the thoughts so barren, and the talk so vapid-she-had that accomplishment which most pleases the taste, and commands the love of the man of talent; especially if his talent be not so actively employed as to make him desire only relaxation where he seeks companionship-the accomplishment of facility in intellectual interchange-the charm that clothes in musical words beautiful womanly ideas.

"I hear him sigh at this distance," said Violante softly, as she still watched her father; "and methinks this is a new grief, and not for his country. He spoke twice yesterday of that dear English friend, and wished that he were here."

Violante's room silently revealed the na-votion of the North. ture of the education by which her character had been formed. Save a sketch book which lay open on a desk at hand, and which showed talent exquisitely taught (for in this Riccabocca had been her teacher), there was no-she seemed nearly unacquainted with shame. thing that spoke of the ordinary female accomplishments. No piano stood open, no harp occupied yon nook, which seemed made for one; no broidery frame, nor implements of work, betrayed the usual and graceful resources of a girl; but ranged on shelves against the wall were the best writers in English, Italian, and French; and these betokened an extent of reading, that he who wishes for a companion to his mind in the sweet company of woman, which softens and refines all it gives and takes in interchange, will never condemn as masculine. You had but to look into Violante's face to see how noble was the intelligence that brought soul to those lovely features. Nothing hard, nothing dry and stern was there. Even as you detected knowledge, it was lost in the gentleness of grace. In fact, whatever she gained in the graver kinds of information, became transmuted, through her heart and her fancy, into spiritual golden stores. Give her some As she said this, unconsciously the virgin tedious and arid history, her imagination seiz- blushed, her hands drooped on her knee, and ed upon beauties other readers had passed by, she fell herself into thought as profound as and, like the eye of the artist, detected every her father's, but less gloomy. From her arriwhere the Picturesque. Something in her val in England, Violante had been taught a mind seemed to reject all that was mean and grateful interest in the name of Harley L'Escommonplace, and to bring out all that was trange. Her father, preserving a silence that rare and elevated in whatever it received. seemed disdain, of all his old Italian intimates, Living so apart from all companions of her had been pleased to converse with open heart age, she scarcely belonged to the Present of the Englishman who had saved where countime. She dwelt in the Past, as Sabrina in trymen had betrayed. He spoke of the solher crystal well. Images of chivalry-of the dier, then in the full bloom of youth, who, Beautiful and the Heroic-such as, in read-unconsoled by fame, had nursed the memory ing the silvery line of Tasso, rise before us, of some hidden sorrow ainidst the pine-trees softening force and valor into love and song- that cast their shadow over the sunny Italian haunted the reveries of the fair Italian maid. lake; how Riccabocca, then honored and Tell us not that the Past, examined by cold happy, had courted from his seclusion the Philosophy, was no better and no loftier than English Signor, then the mourner and the the Present; it is not thus seen by pure and voluntary exile; how they had grown friends generous eyes. Let the Past perish, when it amidst the landscapes in which her eyes had ceases to reflect on its magic mirror the beau- opened to the day; how Harley had vainly tiful Romance which is its noblest reality, warned him from the rash schemes in which though perchance but the shadow of Delusion. he had sought to reconstruct in an hour the Yet Violante was not merely the dreamer. ruins of weary ages; how, when abandoned, In her, life was so puissant and rich, that ac- deserted, proscribed, pursued, he had fled for tion seemed necessary to its glorious devel-life-the infant Violante clasped to his bosom opment-action, but still in the woman's-the English soldier had given him refuge, sphere-action to bless and to refine and to baffled the pursuers, armed his servants, acexalt all around her, and to pour whatever companied the fugitive at night towards the else of ambition was left unsatisfied into sym-defile in the Apennines, and, when the emispathy with the aspirations of man. Despite saries of a perfidious enemy, hot in the chase, her father's fears of the bleak air of England, came near, he said, "You have your child to in that air she had strengthened the delicate save! Fly on! Another league, and you are

"For mine! O then, do not make me

waist, with genuine affection, and without a single proverb at his heart-"Carissima, do deem myself mean, and the cause of meannot grieve so; we shall be back soon, and ness. For mine! Am I not your daughter travelling is expensive; rolling stones gather-the descendant of men who never feared?" no moss, and there is so much to see to at home."

"Mrs. Riccabocca gently escaped from her husband's arms. She withdrew her hands from her face, and brushed away the tears that stood in her eyes.

Violante looked sublime while she spoke; and as she ended she led her father gently on towards the door, which his wife had now gained.

"Jemima-wife mine!-pardon, pardon," cried the Italian, whose heart had been yearnAlphonso," she said touchingly, "hearing to repay such tenderness and devotion, me! What you think good, that shall ever come back to my breast-it has been long be good to me. But do not think that I closed-it shall be open to you now and for grieve solely because of our parting. No; I ever." grieve to think that, despite of all these years in which I have been the partner of your hearth and slept on your breast-all these years in which I have had no thought but, however humbly, to do my duty to you and yours, and could have wished that you had read my heart, and seen there but yourself and your child-I grieve to think that you still deem me as unworthy your trust as when you stood by my side at the altar."

In another moment, the wife was in her right place--on her husband's bosom; and Violante, beautiful peacemaker, stood smiling, awhile at both, and then lifted her eyes gratefully to heaven, and stole away.

CHAPTER XIII.

ON Randal's return to town, he heard mixed and contradictory rumors in the streets, and at the clubs, of the probable downfall of "Trust!" repeated Riccabocca, startled the Government at the approaching session and conscience-stricken; "why do you say of Parliament. These rumors had sprung up 'trust?' In what have I distrusted you! I suddenly, as if in an hour. True that, for am sure," he continued, with the artful volu- some time, the sagacious had shaken their bility of guilt, "that I never doubted your heads and said, “Ministers could not last.” fidelity--hooked-nosed, long-visaged foreign-True that certain changes in policy, a year or er though I be; never pryed into your let-two before, had divided the party on which ters; never inquired into your solitary walks; the Government depended, and strengthened never heeded your flirtations with that good-that which opposed it. But still its tenure in looking Parson Dale; never kept the money; and never looked into the account-books!" Mrs. Riccabocca refused even a sinile of contempt at these revolting evasions; nay, she seemed scarcely to hear them.

"Can you think," she resumed, pressing her hand on her heart to still its struggles for relief in sobs--" can you think that I could have watched, and thought, and tasked my poor mind so constantly, to conjecture what might best soothe or please you, and not seen, long since, that you have secrets known to your daughter--your servant-not to me? Fear not the secrets cannot be evil, or you would not tell them to your innocent child. Besides, do I not know your nature? and do I not love you because I know it?-it is for something connected with these secrets that you leave your home. You think that I should be incautious-imprudent. You will not take me with you. Be it so. I go to prepare for your departure. Forgive me if I have displeased you, husband."

Mrs. Riccabocca turned away; but a soft hand touched the Italian's arm.

office had been so long, and there seemed so little power in the Opposition to form a cabinet of names familiar to official ears, that the general public had anticipated, at most, a few partial changes. Rumor now went far beyond this. Randal, whose whole prospects at present were but reflections from the greatness of his patron, was alarmed. He sought Egerton, but the minister was impenetrable, and seemed calm, confident and imperturbed. Somewhat relieved, Randal then set himself to work to find a safe home for Riccabocca; for the greater need to succeed in obtaining fortune there, if he failed in getting it through Egerton. He found a quiet house, detached and secluded, in the neighborhood of Norwood. No vicinity more secure from espionage and remark. He wrote to Riccabocca, and communicated the address, adding fresh assurances of his own power to be of use. The next morning he was seated in his office, thinking very little of the details, that he mastered, however, with mechanical precision, when the minister who presided over that department of the public service sent for him into his private room, and begged him to take a letter to Egerton, with whom he wish

"O father, can you resist this? Trust her! -trust her! I am a woman like her! I answer for her woman's faith. Be yourself-ed to consult relative to a very important ever nobler than all others, my own father." "Diavolo! Never one door shuts but another opens," groaned Riccabocca. "Are you a fool, child? Don't you see that it was for your sake only I feared-and would be cautious?"

point to be decided in the cabinet that day. "I want you to take it," said the minister, smiling (the minister was a frank, homely man), "because you are in Mr. Egerton's confidence, and he may give you some verbal message besides a written reply. Egerton is

often over cautious and brief in the litera scripta."

Randal went first to Egerton's neighboring office he had not been there that day. He then took a cabriolet and drove to Grosvenor Square. A quiet-looking chariot was at the door. Mr. Egerton was at home; but the servant said, "Dr. F. is with him, sir; and perhaps he may not like to be disturbed." "What, is your master ill?"

"Not that I know of, sir. He never says he is ill. But he has looked poorly the last day or two."

Lord Spendquick was usually esteemed a gentleman without three ideas.

Randal smiled.

In the meanwhile the visitor had taken out a card from an embossed morocco case, and now presented it to Randal, who read thereon, "Baron Levy, No. -, Bruton St."

The name was not unknown to Randal. It was a name too often on the lips of men of fashion not to have reached the ears of an habitué of good society.

Mr. Levy had been a solicitor by profession. He had of late years relinquished his ostensible calling; and not long since, in consequence of some services towards the negotiation of a loan, had been created a baron by one of the German kings. The wealth of Mr. Levy was said to be only equalled by his good nature to all who were in want of a a temporary loan, and with sound expectations of repaying it some day or other.

Randal hesitated a moment; but his commission might be important, and Egerton was a man who so held the maxim, that health | and all else must give way to business, that he resolved to enter; and, unannounced, and unceremoniously, as was his wont, he opened the door of the library. He startled as he did so. Audley Egerton was leaning back on the sofa, and the doctor, on his knees before him, was applying the stethoscope to his breast. Egerton's eyes were partially closed as the door opened. But at the noise he sprang up, nearly oversetting the doctor. "Who's that? How dare you!" he exclaimed, in a voice of great anger. Then recognizing Ran--at least externally; and, in fact, he was dal, he changed color, bit his lip, and muttered drily, "I beg pardon for my abruptness; what do you want, Mr. Leslie?"

"This letter from Lord - ; I was told to deliver it immediately into your own hands; I beg pardon-"

"There is no cause," said Egerton, coldly. "I have had a slight attack of bronchitis; and as Parliament meets so soon, I must take advice from my doctor, if I would be heard by the reporters. Lay the letter on the table, and be kind enough to wait for my reply." Randal withdrew. He had never seen a physician in that house before, and it seemed surprising that Egerton should even take a medical opinion upon a slight attack. While waiting in the ante-room there was a knock at the street door, and presently a gentleman, exceedingly well-dressed, was shown in, and honored Randal with an easy and half familiar bow. Randal remembered to have met this personage at dinner, and at the house of a young nobleman of high fashion, but had not been introduced to him, and did not even know him by name. The visitor was better informed.

"Our friend Egerton is busy, I hear, Mr. Leslie," said he, arranging the camelia in his button-hole.

"Our friend Egerton!" It must be a very great man to say, Our friend Egerton."

"He will not be engaged long, I dare say," returned Randal, glancing his shrewd inquiring eye over the stranger's person.

"I trust not; my time is almost as precious as his own. I was not so fortunate as to be presented to you when we met at Lord Spendquick's. Good fellow, Spendquick; and decidedly clever."

You seldom saw a finer looking man than Baron Levy-about the same age as Egerton, but looking younger: so well preserved-. such magnificent black whiskers-such superb teeth! Despite his name and his dark complexion, he did not, however, resemble a Jew

not a Jew on the father's side, but the natural son of a rich English grand seigneur, by a Hebrew lady of distinction-in the opera. After his birth, this lady had married a German trader of her own persuasion, and her husband had been prevailed upon, for the convenience of all parties, to adopt his wife's son, and accord to him his own Hebrew name. Mr. Levy, senior, was soon left a widower, and then the real father, though never actually owning the boy, had shown him great attention-had him frequently at his house-initiated him betimes into his own highborn society, for which the boy showed great taste. But when my lord died, and left but a moderate legacy to the younger Levy, who was then about eighteen, that ambiguous person was articled to an attorney by his putative sire, who shortly afterwards returned to his native land, and was buried at Prague, where his tombstone may yet be seen. Young Levy, however, continued to do very well without him. His real birth was generally known, and rather advantageous to him in a social point of view. His legacy enabled him to become a partner where he had been a clerk, and his practice became great amongst the fashionable classes of society. Indeed, he was so useful, so pleasant, so much a man of the world, that he grew intimate with his clients-chiefly young men of rank; was on good terms with both Jew and Christian; and being neither one nor the other, resem bled (to use Sheridan's incomparable simile) the blank page between the Old and the New Testament.

Vulgar, some might call Mr. N. Levy, from his assurance, but it was not the vulgarity of a man accustomed to low and coarse society