conceal any thing-coward!" said Walton, in a deep and threatening voice, that quivered with rage. "Where were you coming from, when I met you in the dark? Speak! conceal nothing from me, or I will dash you to pieces, and trample you under my feet. You are the man: is it not so?-confess!"

Bloxham was thunderstruck; and, joining his hands and throwing himself on his knees, "I swear to you," he said, "I am not guilty: it was not I that killed Bland." And he embraced the banker's feet.

"How can I have pity on you, monster, after what you have done? No, you shall die, and in the presence of your accomplice; it is before her eyes that I mean to immolate you! And already Mr. Walton was dragging him to the stairs leading to his wife's apartment. Pale and frozen with fear, Bloxham offered no resistance, and let himself be carried like a child.

Mrs. Walton had partly undressed herself, and was standing at her bedroom door. The fearful cries, and discharge of fire-arms, had reduced her to a state of the most dreadful consternation. She had already divined the truth, that her husband had merely feigned his departure, and dreaded that a collision had taken place between him and Henri, in which the discharge of fire-arms had been fatal to the latter. She was not a nervous woman, yet these hideous nocturnal occurrences had dreadfully agitated her.

As the banker dragged Bloxham up the stairs, and met his lady standing at the door, he flung her back, with his left hand, into the middle of the floor.

"What means this brutality? she exclaimed.

"Behold your paramour!" was the banker's reply.

The scene which followed it would be impossible to describe. Proudly conscious of her innocence, and repelling with dignity the brutality of her husband, yet feeling that she had gravely erred in giving De Cormon a secret interview, her manner was one continued struggle of firmness with timidity, in which however the former

Die, infernal traitor!" exclaimed Walton in a tone of the deepest concentrated rage.

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Spare-spare me, master, and I will tell you all. You are in error. It is not a poor menial like me, but a gentleman, who has dishonoured you. I know it all!"

The banker stood for a moment with pale and quivering lips. The next instant he was dragging Bloxham to an adjoining apartment. He double-locked the door, and raised Bloxham to his legs. This villain was possessed of extraordinary cunning; and having penetrated through De Cormon's disguise from the first, and had his suspicions pointed by some eager inquiries which De Cormon had made with regard to the banker's domestic arrangements, and, more especially, as to Mrs. Walton, he had contrived to pick his pocket of a letter which the latter had writ-" ten to the former in French, and which, though it was as a sealed book to him, he knew to have proceeded from the banker's lady, for he had seen her hand-writing before, and it was signed, "Elise." This letter he now drew forth, and gave to Walton.

With trembling hands, and eyes almost bursting from their sockets, the banker unfolded the letter, and devoured its contents.

"Damnation!" he exclaimed," it is the Vendean. Dead! dead! It was all a scheme-a scheme to ac

complish my dishonour." And he clenched his hands and gnashed his teeth in ungovernable fury.

A sudden thought struck him, and it irradiated his whole countenance with a baleful and demoniac light.

"Max," he said, "I perfectly understand your position. I know that the story you trumped up was utterly false. But I inquire not now into that. The Frenchman is my bitterest enemy. We must hang him, and upon your evidence. You perceive!" Max nodded his head in approval. The banker was now an altered man. His new design had taken entire possession of his mind, and he became suddenly and almost miraculously calm. He led Bloxham forward to the room, which had been the scene of the fearful struggle, and the police authorities having now arrived, quietly ordered De Cormon into custody upon the charge of " wilful murder,' on the testimony of his servant Bloxham.

As the constables bore the Vendean off, the banker's countenance glowed with malignant delight, mingled with intense hatred, for in that face he traced the original of a miniature which he had discovered some time before in one of his wife's secret drawers, and dashed into a thousand atoms.

The trial took place; and the Vendean was found guilty upon the clearest evidence. Bloxham gave his testimony with all the tact of a most accomplished villain, and was subjected to a very slight cross-examination. De Cormon contented himself with declaring his innocence; but not a syllable further would he breathe, fearful of compromising his adored Eliza.

In the course of a few days this

devoted martyr of love was executed on the scaffold. Never did mortal man die more firmly. He felt that his doom was inevitable; and would have suffered a thousand deaths rather than betray her for whom alone he desired to live. The consciousness of innocence supported him to the last, even when the hideous noose of ignominy was fastened around his throat; and he died breathing her name!

The moment the news of this frightful consummation, which her brutal husband carried in triumph, reached Mrs. Walton's ears, she went raging mad. All the care of the most eminent physicians was vainly expended on her cure. Her case was utterly hopeless. In the private madhouse, in which she was length confined, she was pronounced the most completely incurable.

at

The inexorable banker, at the expiration of two years of a remorse so terrible, that earth became a perfect hell to him, was robbed of the bulk of his wealth by the villain whom he had made the instrument of his inhuman vengeance; and slew himself with the very dagger with which Bloxham had murdered the unfortunate Bland, and which was adduced in evidence against the chivalrous Vendean.

Bloxham, becoming beastly drunk upon the fruits of his ill-got plunder, within a month of its seizure, was drowned like a dog by his own involuntary act.

L.

"THIS is incomparably the best thing I have ever done!" said a young Spanish painter who had arrived but a few months before in Naples; and, retiring a few paces, he gazed with pride upon a painting to which he had just given the finishing touches. Caravaggio will confess now that he has at length found his equal. No, I will not give it another touch!" Thus speaking, he turned to the halffinished portrait of a lady which stood at the other end of the room, and which soon engrossed all his attention. From time to time, folding his arms, he would stop and study the progress of his work; then, with the singular naiveté of artistical enthusiasm he commented on all its beauties, and found the hand of the true painter evident in its most minute details.—“ I knew very well," said he, striking his forehead, "that there was something there! I could die this moment, and my name is rescued from oblivion. shall I not live to enjoy my reputation? Shall my fame be limited to the walls of this room! Shall I have no witnesses, no admirers? The courtly painters who surround the viceroy shut out from all access those who desire to make their talents known. Yes, yes, my masters! cringe and cling to your places, keep the keys of the palace, and shut me out! Let me remain a dauber all my life, if I do not find the means to get into the temple spite of your jealousy; and once in, I swear to drive out the traffickers who are there established."

But

Here the young enthusiast, leaning too heavily on his brush, disfigured the eye of the portrait upon which he was engaged with a large black spot. Whilst he was endeavouring to repair this accident the door opened, and an old servant, bent with age, and all wrinkled, entered the room. She wiped away, with her apron, the dust with which the tables were covered, and commenced the difficult task of ranging in order the sketches,

paints, brushes, and other paraphernalia of the painter's studio. She succeeded at length in clearing a little table, upon which she placed, with an air of satisfaction, what furnished but a very frugal repast. But our young painter did not as much as perceive her arrival.

"Holy virgin!" she said, "hearing you speak alone, I thought, God forgive me! that the devil himself was keeping you company. When will you cease dreaming, and you wide awake? Let me see what you have done. A fine production certainly!" looking at the painting which her master had just pronounced a chef-d'œuvre; "who else but the prince of darkness could have given you the idea of this horrible painting? Every time I look at it, my hair stands on end; and you are nevertheless full three months working at it. Are you astonished, after this, that our viceroy, the Conte di Monterei, does not become your patron? Ouf! I tremble at the sight of it-it is enough to make one sick !” "Really, my good Beatrice," slapping her familiarly on the shoulder, "I am quite mortified that it does not please you."-"There is something else still more mortifying, my poor child: it is the prospect of dying of hunger. Though your dinner to-day is a very frugal one, to-morrow's must be equally so, unless you can provide it yourself, for I am reduced to my last paulo. If you were so disposed, you could become as rich as the richest in Naples! Why don't you finish the Contessa di Venuto's portrait? She would have covered the canvass with gold, and you would have secured, to boot, the patronage of the viceroy. It would have made your fortune. But, no! you received her like a beggar, and ordered me, for the future, to say you were not at home. God knows what pain it gives me to tell such lies!"

"Don't speak to me of that Countess, Beatrice: an old hag with sunken eyes, and features all disfigured with

wrinkles! She has not even the dignity of old age. I would have made her uglier than she is, if that were possible."

"Do you see that? Nothing will suit my gentleman but young faces; but these fine faces bring no money, all the while."

"Ah! if I had to paint the portrait of the young girl I met the other day! only think, Beatrice, large blue eyes, full of languor!"

"Very good, very good! Pray finish your dinner."

"Beautiful fair hair; quite a rarity in this climate; her every movement develops a new grace. The sound

of her voice!"

him at all." he has been spoken to about you; he has a great opinion of your talent, and wishes, I suppose, to employ you. It will be ready money. What! are you going to refuse ?" Certainly not. If Panulfo is a connoisseur, he has only to come and fix a price on my large painting." "What! won't you go and see him?"

"But he knows you;

At this question, the painter turned away in a passion, muttering between his teeth some words, among which could be distinguished, "Utterly insupportable! lost inspiration!" Nonsense!" cried Beatrice, "I tell you, you shall go to Panulfo, if I were to push you by the shoulders.

"The sound of her voice is the sweetest music. What a perfect model for a Magdalen! Not the penitent, but the virgin, Magdalen, when she dreamed of love, and felt the first flashings of its fire."

"Will you be silent! That boy is a perfect volcano! What a misfortune that his ardour has been so misapplied! Dislike painting old women, forsooth! What is that I see?" she cried, catching a glimpse of the half-finished portrait; "why, it is the Contessa herself!"

"What do you say now, Beatrice? Am I still a lazy, stubborn, headstrong, good-for-nothing? Will you be always scolding me?"

"Very well," continued Beatrice, with all the importance of a connoisseur; "very well indeed! Good God! what has happened to her eye? it looks as if 'twere out."

"Oh!" replied the artist, laughing at the recollection of this accident, "'tis nothing. I thought I had spread on my palette those scoundrels who shut me out, and".

you please. Fie! it is perfectly shameful.

Such conduct indicates a bad heart. Are you alone in the world, that you should think of conducting yourself so foolishly? When you shall have passed away, what will become of poor old Beatrice, who never left you? My dear child," she continued in a caressing tone, " I know you love me, and you don't wish I should repent my affection for you. If I offended you a while ago by speaking lightly of your painting, you must forgive me, though-come, here is your sword and your new cappello, which gives you such a gallant air when you wear it so, a little on one side. Your doublet, alas! is quite worn. Conceal it with your cloak. That will do very well! Now hold up your head, my boy, assume a haughty air, and turn up your moustaches. Really, you have the appearance and the gait of the Emperor Charles the Fifth. Should there be any ladies at Panulfo's, be all gallantry and attention. I have been young myself, do you see, and I speak from experience."

"Curse upon these old duennas!" muttered the young man, half angry, half laughing, one cannot have a moment's ease with them!"

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The painter was introduced by two servants into a splendidly furnished apartment. Before the windows extended a spacious garden, from which the eye could range unconstrained, until it was lost in the deep blue of the Mediterranean. A man of lofty

It

stature, but vulgar appearance, was walking up and down the room. was Panulfo. His daughter, Laura, was seated at the window, supporting her head with her snowy hand, as she inhaled the freshening sea-breeze. The artist bowed on entering the room; but his confidence forsook him at once, and he stopped, all trembling, at the sight of her whose beauties he had been describing but an hour before to Beatrice. He had scarcely resolution to stammer her name. Panulfo attributed this agitation to his slight acquaintance with the world; and with an affectation of bonhommie, he condescended to reassure him. The familiar tone in which he spoke, roused the young painter from the ecstasy in which he was plunged, and becoming himself once more, he resumed his air of natural dignity; and raising his head: "No, Signor," he replied, "it is not your luxury, nor your riches, nor the accessaries of wealth, which are so imposing to other men, that have dazzled me; but God always manifests himself to me in the beauty of his creatures, and if you saw me so confused, it was because I was admiring one of his most perfect works."

It was now Laura's turn to blush. She recognized the same young man, whose eyes had gazed on her before in evident admiration. Panulfo made no remark on this silent scene, and without being conscious of it, he increased the interest which his daughter had already conceived for the young artist. Whilst the merchant, swollen with a sense of his own importance, supported the character of protector of the fine arts, Laura listened with anxiety to every word that fell from him, and whenever he said anything offensive, she cast a look at the young artist, which more than compensated for the humiliation to which he had been subjected.

"It is said that you are not without talent," pronounced Panulfo. The painter made a slight inclination of his head. "But you are poor, and obliged to work hard. For my part, I have always had a desire to encourage artists. I hope you will prove yourself worthy of the interest am about to take in you."

The painter compressed his lips so as to restrain the answer which his hurt pride had suggested. Laura turned towards him :- Are you not a stranger in this city?" she said, with the sweetest of voices, and most enchanting of accents. "I was born in Spain," replied the young man, his countenance brightening up," at Xativa, near Valencia.-I left my family when very young. I consider myself now an Italian, such a multitude of objects bind me to this beautiful land! I have resided at Rome, at Venice, at Parma, at Florence, wherever the genius of painting flourished. I am now stopping at Naples, and I feel that I shall never leave it."

Whilst he was speaking, Laura could not refrain from admiring his animated countenance, and the fire that flashed from his eyes. "May I ask," resumed Panulfo, "to what we are indebted for this flattering preference." The painter blushed, but recovering his composure, he said quietly :- "That is my secret." Laura thought it prudent for her now to interfere." Ma, mio padre," she said, “your questions are indiscreet. This Signor wishes, perhaps, to give you to understand that he is captivated with"...

'Yes, Signora," interrupted the painter with warmth, casting an expressive glance at her beautiful features; "from the bottom of my heart, and that for ever!" Laura precipitately stooped her head to conceal the blush that covered her face and neck.

"Let us drop that subject," said Panulfo. "This child reproaches me with being curious, when she herself is a hundred times more so. Let us sit down and talk of business. Would you consider twenty five ducats sufficient! In a word, what is your price?"-"Tell me first what description of painting you desire."-" Here is what I would propose to you :—the wind has thrown down my old sign, and I would wish to have it replaced by something more respectable." "A sign!" cried the proud young artist, about to rise from his seat; but a look of supplication from Laura fixed him to his