!

myself; yet yet I feel an alleviation, a joy-yes, even a joy, such as I have never before known during the whole of my horrible life!"

"It is a little taste," said Federigo, "which God gives you, to incline you to his service, and encourage you resolutely to enter upon the new course of life which lies before you, and in which you will have so much to undo, so much to repair, so much to mourn over!"

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'Unhappy man that I am!" exclaimed the Signor: "how many, oh, how many things for which I can do nothing besides mourn! But at least I have undertakings scarcely set on foot which I can break off in the midst, if nothing more: one there is which I can quickly arrest, which I can easily undo and repair."

Federigo listened attentively while the Unnamed briefly related, in terms of perhaps deeper execration than we have employed, his attempt upon Lucia, the sufferings and terrors of the unhappy girl, her importunate entreaties, the frenzy that these entreaties had aroused within him, and how she was still in the castle.

"Ah, then let us lose no time!" exclaimed Federigo, breathless with eagerness and compassion. "You are indeed blessed! This is an earnest of God's forgiveness! He makes you capable of becoming the instrument of safety to one whom you intended to ruin. God bless you! Nay, he has blessed you! Do you know where our unhappy protégée comes from?"

The Signor named Lucia's village.

"It's not far from this," said the Cardinal, "God be praised; and probably so saying, he went towards a little table and rang a bell. The cross-bearing chaplain immediately attended the summons with a look of anxiety, and instantly glanced towards the Unnamed. At the sight of his altered countenance, and his eyes still red with weeping, he turned an inquiring gaze upon the Cardinal; and perceiving, amidst the invariable composure of his countenance, a look of solemn pleasure and unusual solicitude, he would have stood with open mouth in a sort of ecstasy, had not the Cardinal quickly aroused him from his contemplations by asking whether, among the parish priests assembled in the next room, there was one from

"There is, your illustrious Grace," replied the chaplain.

"Let him come in directly," said Federigo, " and with him the priest of this parish."

VOL. XIV. - 28

The chaplain quitted the room, and on entering the hall where the clergy were assembled, all eyes were immediately turned upon him; while, with a look of blank astonishment, and a countenance in which was still depicted the rapture he had felt, he lifted up his hands, and waving them in the air, exclaimed, "Signori! Signori! Hæc mutatio dexteræ Excelsi” [This change is from the right hand of the Almighty]. And he stood for a moment without uttering another word.

AN EPISODE OF THE PLAGUE IN MILAN.

(From "The Betrothed.")

[The hero of the novel, young Renzo Tramaglino, enters Milan on foot, seeking his lost betrothed, Lucia Mondella. Among the scenes of suffering and horror which continually meet his eyes is the following.]

RENZO had already gone some distance on his way through the midst of this desolation, when he heard, proceeding from a street a few yards off, into which he had been directed to turn, a confused noise, in which he readily distinguished the usual horrible tinkling.

At the entrance of the street, which was one of the most spacious, he perceived four carts standing in the middle: and as in a corn market there is a constant hurrying to and fro of people, and an emptying and filling of sacks, such was the bustle here, - monatti intruding into houses, monatti coming out, bearing a burden upon their shoulders, which they placed upon one or other of the carts; some in red livery, others without that distinction; many with another still more odious, - plumes and cloaks of various colors, which these miserable wretches wore in the midst of the general mourning, as if in honor of a festival. From time to time the mournful cry resounded from one of the windows," Here, monatti!" And with a still more wretched sound, a harsh voice rose from this horrible source in reply, "Coming directly!" Or else there were lamentations nearer at hand, or entreaties to make haste; to which the monatti responded with oaths.

Having entered the street, Renzo quickened his steps, trying not to look at these obstacles further than was necessary to avoid them: his attention, however, was arrested by a remarkable object of pity, such pity as inclines to the contemplation of its object; so that he came to a pause almost without determining to do so.

Coming down the steps of one of the doorways, and advancing towards the convoy, he beheld a woman, whose appearance announced still remaining though somewhat advanced youthfulness; a veiled and dimmed but not destroyed beauty was still apparent, in spite of much suffering and a fatal languor, that delicate and at the same time majestic beauty which is conspicuous in the Lombard blood. Her gait was weary, but not tottering; no tears fell from her eyes, though they bore tokens of having shed many; there was something peaceful and profound in her sorrow, which indicated a mind fully conscious and sensitive enough to feel it. But it was not merely her own appearance which in the midst of so much misery marked her out so especially as an object of commiseration, and revived in her behalf a feeling now exhausted-extinguished in men's hearts. She carried in her arms a little child, about nine years old, now a lifeless body; but laid out and arranged, with her hair parted on her forehead, and in a white and remarkably clean dress, as if those hands had decked her out for a long-promised feast, granted as a reward. Nor was she lying there, but upheld and adjusted on one arm, with her breast reclining against her mother's, like a living creature; save that a delicate little hand, as white as wax, hung from one side with a kind of inanimate weight, and the head rested upon her mother's shoulder with an abandonment deeper than that of sleep; her mother; for even if their likeness to each other had not given assurance of the fact, the countenance which could still display any emotion would have clearly revealed it.

A horrible-looking monatto approached the woman, and attempted to take the burden from her arms; with a kind of unusual respect, however, and with involuntary hesitation. But she, slightly drawing back, yet with the air of one who shows neither scorn nor displeasure, said, "No! don't take her from me yet: I must place her myself on this cart- here." So saying, she opened her hand, displayed a purse which she held in it, and dropped it into that which the monatto extended towards her. She then continued: "Promise me not to take a thread from around her, nor to let any one else do so, and to lay her in the ground thus."

The monatto laid his right hand on his heart; and then, zealously and almost obsequiously, rather from the new feeling by which he was, as it were, subdued, than on account of the unlooked-for reward, hastened to make a little room on the car

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