never found time or thought to inquire.

Two or three years passed on thus, and the old marquis had grown to listen with amused familiarity to his daughter's prattle about the deformed youth, and no incident had varied the pleasant tenor of their lives and rambles, except that, Giulio once falling ill, Bettina had taken the young countess to his home, where she discovered that, young as he was, he had made some progress in moulding in clay, and was destined for a sculptor. This visit to the apartment of an obscure youth, however, the marquis had seen fit to object to; and though, at his daughter's request, he sent the young sculptor an order for his first statue, he peremptorily forbade all further intercourse between him and Violanta. In the paroxysm of her grief at the first disgrace she had ever fallen into with her master, Bettina disclosed to her young mistress, by way of justification, a secret she had been bound by the most solemn oaths to conceal, and of which she now was the sole living depository-that this deformed youth was born in the castle of the Cesarini, in Romagna, of no less obscure parentage than the castle's lord and lady, and being the first child after the dispensation of marriage, and a son, he was consequently the rightful heir to the marquisate and estates of Cesarini; and the elder son, by the terms of that dispensation, was illegitimate.

This was astounding intelligence to Violanta, who, nevertheless, child as she was, felt its truth in the yearnings of her heart to Giulio ; but it was with no little pains and difficulty on Bettina's part, that she was persuaded to preserve the secret from her father. The Romagnese knew her master's weakness; and as the birth of the child had occurred during his long absence from the castle, and the marchioness, proud of her eldestborn, had determined from the first that he alone should enjoy the name and honours of his father, it was not very probable that upon the simple word of a domestic, he would believe a deformed hunchback to be his son and heir.

The intermediate history of Giulio,

Bettina knew little about, simply informing her mistress, that, disgusted with his deformity, the unnatural mother had sent him to nurse in a faroff village of Romagna, and that the interest of a small sum which the marquis supposed had been expended on masses for the souls of his ancestors, was still paid to his foster-parents for his use.

From the time of this disclosure, Violanta's life had been but too happy. Feeling justified in contriving secret interviews with her brother; and possessing the efficient connivance of Bettina, who, like herself, seemed almost to worship the pure-minded and gentle Giulio, her heart and her time were blissfully crowded with interest. So far, the love that had welled from her heart had been all joyous and untroubled.

It was during the absence of the marquis and his daughter from Rome, and in an unhealthy season, that Giulio, always delicate in health, and liable to excessive fits of depression, had fallen ill in his solitary room, and, but for the friendly care of a young artist whom he had long known, must have died of want and neglect. As he began to recover, he accepted the offer of Amieri, his friend, to share with him a lodging in the elevated air of the Corso, and the more readily, that this room chanced to overlook the palace of Cesarini. Here Violanta found him on her return; though displeased that he was no longer alone, she still continued, when Amieri was absent, to see him sometimes in his room, and their old haunts without the walls were frequented as often as his health and strength would permit. A chance meeting of Violanta and Amieri in his own studio, however, made it necessary that he should be admitted to their secret, and the consequence of that interview and others which Violanta found it impossible to avoid, was a passion in the heart of the enthusiastic painter, which consumed, as it well might, every faculty of his soul.

We are thus brought to an evening of balmy May, when Giulio found himself alone. Biondo had been painting all day on the face of his nymph, endeavouring in vain to give it any other features than those of the lady of his intense worship, and hav

ing gone out to ramble for fresh air and relaxation in the Corso, Giulio thought he might venture to throw across his ball of thread and send a missive to his sister, promising her an uninterrupted hour of his society.

With these preliminaries, our story will now run smoothly on.

"Come in, carissima!" said the low, silver-toned voice of the deformed sculptor, as a female figure, in the hood and cloak of an old woman, crossed the threshold of his chamber.

"Dear Giulio !" And she leaned slightly over the diminutive form of her brother, and first kissing his pale forehead, while she unfastened the clasp of Bettina's cloak of black silk, threw her arms about him as the disguise fell off, and multiplied, between her caresses, the endearing terms in which the language of that soft clime is so prodigal.

They sat down at the foot of a group in marble, and each told the little history of the hours they had spent apart. They grew alike as they conversed; for their's was that resemblance of soul, to which the features answer only when the soul is breathing through. Unless seen together, and not only together, but gazing on each other in complete abandonment of heart, the friends that knew them best would have said they were unlike. Yet Amieri's nymph on the canvas was like both, for Amieri drew from the picture burnt on his own heart by love, and the soul of Violanta lay breathing beneath every lineament.

"You have not touched the marble to-day;" said the countess, taking the lamp from its nail, and shedding the light aslant on the back of the statue.

"No! I have lifted the hammer twenty times to break it in pieces !"

"Ah! dearest Giulio! talk not thus! Think it is my image you would destroy !"

"If it were, and truly done, I would sooner strike the blessed crucifix. But, Violanta! there is a link wanting in this deformed frame of mine! The sense of beauty, or the power to body it forth, wants room in me. I feel it-I feel it!"

Violanta ran to him and pressed

temples to her bosom. There was a tone of conviction in his voice that she knew not how to answer.

He continued, as if he were musing

aloud.

"I have tried to stifle this belief in my bosom, and have never spoken of it till now-but it is true! Look at that statue ! Parts of it are like nature-but it wants uniformity-it wants grace-it wants what I wantproportion! I never shall give it that, because I want the sense, the consciousness, the emotion, of complete and godlike movement. It is only the well-formed who feel this. Sculptors may imitate gods! for they are made in God's image. But oh, Violanta! I am not!"

66

My poor brother!"

"Dear-dear Giulio!" He dropped his head again, and she felt his tears penetrate to her bosom.

"Leave this melancholy theme," she said, in an imploring tone," and let us talk of other things! I have something to tell you, Giulio !”

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'Raphael was beautiful," he said, raising himself up, unconscious of the interruption," and Giorgione and Titian both nobly formed, and Michael Angelo had the port of an archangel! Yes, the soul inhabits the whole body, and the sentiment of beauty moves and quickens through it all. My tenement is cramped!-Violanta !"'

"Well, dear brother!"

"Tell me your feelings when you first breathe the air in a bright morning in spring. Do you feel graceful? Is there a sensation of beauty? Do you lift yourself and feel swan-like and lofty, and worthy of the divine image in which you breathe? Tell me truly, Violanta."

"I knew it! I have a faint dream

gonist; but spite of the pressing business of the hour, the wonderful and solemn beauty of the ruins that lay steeped in moonlight at his feet, awoke, for an instant, all of the painter in his soul.

"Is it not glorious, Lenzoni ?" he said, pointing with his rapier to the softened and tall columns that carried their capitals among the stars.

"We have not come out to sketch, Amieri!" was the reply.

"True, caro! but my fingers work as if the pencil was in them, and I forget revenge while I see what I shall never sketch again !"

Lenzoni struck his hand heavily on Amieri's shoulder, as if to wake him from a dream, and looked close into his face.

Amieri's antagonist was a strongly made man of thirty, costly in his dress, and of that class of features eminently handsome, yet eminently displeasing. The origin of the quarrel was an insulting observation, coupled with the name of the young Countess Cesarini, which Biondo, who was standing in the shadow of a wall, watching her window from the Corso, accidentally overheard. A blow on the mouth was the first warning the stranger received of a listener's neighbourhood, and after a momentary struggle they exchanged cards, and separated to meet in an hour, with swords, at the fountain, on the Palatine.

Amieri was accounted the best foil in the ateliers of Rome, but his antagonist, the Count Lamba Malaspina,

the fountain !"

The moon shone soft on the greensward rim of the neglected fountain that once sparkled through the "gold palace" of Nero. The white edges of half buried marble peeped here and there from the grass; and beneath the shadow of an ivy-covered and tottering arch, sang a nightingale, the triumphant possessor of life amid the forgotten ashes of the Cæsars. Amieri listened to his song.

"You are prompt, signor !" said a gay-voiced gentleman, turning the corner of the ruined wall, as Biondo, still listening to the nightingale, fed his heart with the last sweet words of Violanta.

"Sempre pronto, is a good device,” answered Lenzoni, springing to his feet. "Will you fight side to the moon, signors, or shall we pull straws for the choice of light ?"

Amieri

in France, and had the reputation of an accomplished swordsman. was slighter in person, but well-made, and agile as a leopard; but when Lenzoni looked into the cool eye of Malaspina, the spirit and fire which he would have relied upon to ensure his friend success in an ordinary contest, made him tremble now.

Count Lamba bowed, and they crossed swords. Amieri had read his antagonist's character, like his friend, and, at the instant their blades parted, he broke down his guard with the quickness of lightning, and wounded him in the face. Malaspina smiled as he crossed his rapier again, and in the next moment Amieri's sword flew high above his head, and the count's was at his breast.

"Ask for your life, mio bravo!" he said, as calmly as if they had met by chance in the Corso.

"A'morté! villain and slanderer!" cried Amieri, and striking the sword from his bosom, he aimed a blow at Malaspina,which, by a backward movement, was received on the point of the blade. Transfixed through the wrist, Amieri struggled in vain against the superior strength and coolness of his antagonist, and falling on his knee, waited in silence for his death-blow. Malaspina drew his sword as gently as possible from the wound, and recommending a tourniquet to Lenzoni till a surgeon could be procured, washed the blood from his face in the fountain,

and descended into the Forum, humming the air of a new song.

Faint with loss of blood, and with his left arm around Lenzoni's neck, Biondo arrived at the surgeon's door. "Can you save his hand?" was the first eager question.

Amieri held up his bleeding wrist with difficulty, and the surgeon shook his head as he laid the helpless fingers in his palm. The tendon was entirely parted.

"I may save the hand," he said, "but he will never use it more!""

Amieri gave his friend a look full of anguish, and fell back insensible.

"Poor Biondo!" said Lenzoni, as he raised his pallid head from the surgeon's pillow. "Death were less misfortune than the loss of a hand like thine. The foreboding was too true, alas that thou never wouldst use pencil more!"

(To be continued.)

THE SPEEDY KEEL.

(Concluded from page 315.)

When Lovett stepped on deck, he started a little, though not disposed to be much surprised at what he had witnessed. Along the deck, which was naked when he first went below, was ranged a battery of neat and wellkept twenty-fours, a long eighteen was grinning on his circle amid-ships; racks were placed around the hatches and between the guns, well studded with shot; the red shirts and tarry caps of the men, were exchanged for the white dress and well blacked tarpaulin of the sailor; the young man who first ushered him into the cabin,

and who was now introduced as Captain Hollins' son, was pacing the deck trumpet in hand; and far astern, just

discernible in the distance, or rather on the starboard quarter, so swiftly had the schooner run, and so much to

windward, was the Thunderer tumbling along under a press of canvas, while the Speedy Keel under snug sail was slipping through it like a bird on the wing. Silently the old man watched Lovett's eye till it finally rested upon the distant frigate.

"We are dropping her fast, Mr. Lovett; she is already hull down, and three hours since, your captain hailed us not to run into him."

"Captain Hollins, I will allow the Speedy Keel to be the swiftest thing that ever cut the sea, but the Thunderer is also a fast vessel, though not one of your clippers."

"Well, well, Mr. Lovett, we will not quarrel about the matter, for I know how difficult it is for an old sailor to acknowledge the superiority of another vessel over his own; but fix your eye on the frigate, wondering to hear an old sailor quoting from the bard, and acknowledge at the same time, the truth and trite appropriateness of the quotation:

"Blow! swiftly blow, thou keel compelling gale,

'Till the broad sun withdraws his lessening ray;

Then must the Speedy schooner slacken sail,

That the slow frigate hold her lazy way.

Ah grievance sore, and listless dull delay,

To waste on sluggish hulks the sweetest breeze!

What leagues are lost, before the dawn of day,

Thus loitering pensive, on the willing seas,

The flapping sail haul'd down to halt for logs like these. There Mr. Lovett, with a small alteration in the third and fourth lines, I think you will find yourself in that which I have taken the liberty to make, disagreeable situation, yclept a quandary, to cull from your hoarded stores an answer as applicable."

laughing, and placing her hand on his "Ah, father," said Genevieve, shoulder, "do not think that you have won the battle by a masterly stroke; it tion from such as we that has struck is astonishment at hearing that quotaMr. Lovett dumb. Come, Mr. Lovett,

with your permission I will reply, and uphold the gallant frigate. "How gloriously her gallant course she goes;

Her white wings flying-never from her foes