who had sojourned in the Tana, he had illustrated them in a series of bold and vigorous sketches, and assuredly every breach of the Decalogue had here its portraiture, with some accompanying legend beneath to show in whose honour the picture had been painted. Pipo, who had supplied from memory all the incidents thus communicated, regarded these as perfect treasures, and was wont to show them with all the pride of a connoisseur. The maestro, so he ever called Franzoni, "The maestro,' said he, "never saw Cimballi, who strangled the Countess of Soissons, and yet, just from my description, he has made a likeness his brother would swear to. And, there, look at that fellow asking alms of the Cardinal Frescobaldi, that's Fornari. He's merely there to see the cardinal, and he's sure he can recognise him; for he is engaged to stab him, on his way to the Quirinal, the day of his election for Pope. The little fellow yonder, with the hump, is the Piombino, who poisoned his mother. He was drowned in the lake, out there. I don't think it was quite fair of the maestro to paint him in that fashion;" and here he would point to a little hump-backed creature rowing in a boat, with the devil steering, the flashing eyes of the fiend seeming to feast on the tortures of fear depicted in the other's face.

Several there were of a humorous kind. Here, a group of murderous ruffians were kneeling to receive a pontifical blessing. Here, a party of Papal carbineers were in full flight from the pursuit of a single horseman armed with a bottle; while, in an excess of profanity that Pipo shuddered to contemplate, there was a portrait of himself, as a saint, offering the safeguard of the Tana to all persecuted sinners; and what an illfavoured assemblage were they who thus congregated at his shrine !

We had not dwelt thus long on the frescoes of the Tana were it not that it was here, and amidst these strange fragments of contemporary history, the days of poor Gerald's convalescence were passed.

Few of us, dear reader, have not known what it is to taste of that curious existence, when issuing out of suffering and the dreary sorrows of

the sick bed, we begin to live again in all the freshness of uncloyed pleasure; how grateful to us then are the simplest of those enjoyments we had scarce deigned to notice in the days of our strength-how balmy every odour-how softly soothing every breath of air-how suggestive each cloud-shadow on the still mountain side and how thrilling the warble of the mellow blackbird that sings from the deep copse near. What an ecstasy, too, is the very stillnessthe silence that we can drink in without a pain to break its calming influence upon our souls. There is a strange retentiveness attached to these moments which all the most stirring scenes of after-life never succeed in effacing; and the tritest incidents, the most commonplace events, leave an impress which endure with us to the last.

Let us then imagine the poor boy, as days long he lay gazing on the singular groupings, and strange scenes, these walls presented. At first, to his half-settled intellect, they were but shapes of horror, wild and incongruous. The savage faces that scowled on him in paint, sat, in his dreams, beside his pillow. The terrible countenances and frantic gestures were carried into his sleeping thoughts, and often did he awake, with a cry of agony, at some fearful scene of crime thus suggested. As his mind acquired strength, however, they became a source of endless amusement. Innumerable stories grew out of them; romances, whose adventures embraced every land and sea; and his excited imagination revelled in inventing trials and miseries for some, while for others he sought out every possible escape from disaster. His solitude had no need of either companionship or books; his mind, stimulated by these sketches, could invent unweariedly, so that, at last, he really lived in an ideal world, peopled with daring adventurers, and abounding in accidents by flood and field.

It was while thus musing he lay stretched upon his bed of chestnut leaves that the door opened quietly, and a large, powerfully-built man entered, and walking, with noiseless steps, forward, placed a chair in front of Gerald, and sat down. The boy gazed stead

fastly at him, and so they remained a considerable time, each staring fixedly on the other. To one who, like Gerald, had passed weeks in weaving histories from the looks and expressions of the faces around him, the features on which he now gazed might well excite interest. Never was there, perhaps, a face in which adverse and conflicting passions were more palpably depicted. A noble and massive head, covered with a profusion of black hair, rose from temples of exquisite symmetry, greatly indented at either side, and forming the walls of two orbits of singular depth. His eyes were large, dark, and lustrous, the expression usually sad; here, however, ended all that indicated good in the face. The nose was short, with wide expanded nostrils, and the mouth large, coarse, and sensual; but the lower jaw it was, of enormous breadth, and projecting forwards, that gave a character of actual ferocity that recalled the image of a wild boar. The whole meaning of the face was powerpower and indomitable will. Whatever he meditated of good or evil, you could easily predict that nothing could divert him from attempting; and there was in the carriage of his head, all his gestures, and his air, the calm self-possession of one that seemed to say to the world, "I defy you."

As Gerald gazed, in a sort of fascination, at these strange features; he was almost startled by the tone of a voice so utterly unlike what he was prepared for. The stranger spoke in a low, deep strain, of exquisite modulation, and with that peculiar mellowness of accent that seems to leave its echo in the heart after it. He had merely asked him how he felt, and then seeing the difficulty with which the boy replied, he went on to tell how he himself had discovered him on the side of the Lago-scuro, at nightfall, and carried him all the way to the Tana. "The luck was," said he, "that you happened to be light, and I strong."

"Say, rather, that you were kindhearted and I in trouble," muttered the boy, as his eyes filled up.

"And who knows, boy, but you may be right!" cried he, as though a sudden thought had crossed him;

"your judgment has just as much grounds as that of the great world!” As he spoke, his voice rose out of its tone of former gentleness, and swelled into a roll of deep, sonorous meaning; then changing again, he asked-"By what accident was it that you came there?"

Gerald drew a long sigh, as though recalling a sorrowful dream; and then, with many a faltering word, and many an effort to recall events as they occurred, told all that he remembered of his own history.

"A scholar of the Jesuit College; without father or mother; befriended by a great man, whose name he has never heard," muttered the other to himself. "No bad start in life for such a world as we have now before And your name?" "Gerald Fitzgerald. I am Irish by birth."

us.

The stranger seemed to ponder long over these words, and then said: "The Irish have a nationality of their own-a race-a language traditions. Why have they suffered themselves to be ruled by England ?"

"I suppose they couldn't help it,” said Gerald, half-smiling.

"Which of us can say that? who has ever divined where the strength lay till the day of struggle called it forth! Chance-chance-she is the great goddess!"

"I'd be sorry to think so," said Gerald, resolutely.

"Indeed, boy," cried the other, turning his large, full eyes upon the youth, and staring steadfastly at him; then passing his hand over his brow, he added, in a tone of much feeling, And yet it is as I have said. Look at the portraits around us on these walls. There they are, great or infamous, as accident has made them. That fellow yonder, with that noble forehead and generous look, he stabbed the confessor who gave the last rites to his father, just because the priest had heard some tales to his disadvantage-a scrupulous sense of delicacy moved himthere was a woman's name in it-and he preferred a murder to a scandal ! There, too, there's Marocchi, who poisoned his mother the day of her second marriage. Ask old Pipo if he ever saw a gentler-hearted creature; he lived here two years, and died of

the Maremma fever, that he caught from a peasant whom he was nursing. And there again, that wild-looking fellow, with the scarlet cap-he it was stole the Medici jewels out of the Pitti, to give his mistress; and killed himself afterwards, when she deserted him. Weigh the good and evil of these men's hearts, boy, and you have subtle weights if you can strike the balance for or against them. We are all but what good or evil fortune makes us, just as a landscape catches its tone from light, and what is glorious in sunshine, is bleak, and desolate, and dreary, beneath a leaden sky and lowering atmosphere!"

I'll not believe it," said the boy, boldly. "I have read of fellows that never showed the great stuff they were made of till adversity had called it forth. They were truly great !"

"Truly great!" repeated the other, with an intense mockery. "The truly great we never hear of. They die in workhouses or garrets-poor, dreary optimists, working out of their fine-spun fancies hopeful destinies for those who sneer at them. The idols men call great are but the types of Force-mere Force. One day it is courage; another, it is money; another day, political craft is the object of worship. Come, boy," said he, in a lighter vein, "what have these worthy Jesuits taught you?"

"Very different lessons from yours," said the youth, stoutly. "They taught me to honour and reverence those set in authority over me." "Good, and then

"They taught me the principles of my faith; the creed of the Church." "What Church ?"

"What but the one Church-the Catholic !"

"Why, there are fifty, child, and each with five hundred controversies within it. Popes denying Councils; Councils rejecting Popes; Synods against Bishops; Bishops against Presbyters. What a mockery is it all!" cried he, passionately. "We who, in our imperfect forms of language, have not even names for separate odours, but say, 'this smells like the violet, and that like the rose,' presume to talk of eternity and that vast universe around us, as though our paltry vocabulary could compass such

themes. But to come back: were you happy there?"

No; I could not bear the life, nor did I wish to be a priest." "What would you be, then ?" "I wish I knew," said the boy, fervently.

"I'm a bad counsellor," said the other, with a half-smile; "I have tried several things, and failed in all.”

"I never could have thought that you could fail," said Gerald, slowly, as in calm composure he gazed on the massive features before him.

"I have done with failure now," said the other; "I mean to achieve success next. It is something to have learned a great truth, and this is one, boy-our world is a huge huntingground, and it is better to play wolf than lamb. Don't turn your eyes to those walls, as if the fellows depicted there could gainsay me-they were but sorry scoundrels, the bad ones; the best were but weakly good."

"You do but pain me when you speak thus," said Gerald; "you make me think that you are one who, having done some great crime, waits to avenge the penalty he has suffered on the world that inflicted it.'

"What if you were partly right, boy? Not but I would protest against the word crime, or even fault, as applied to me; still you are near enough to make your guess a good one. I have a debt to pay, and I mean to pay it."

"I wish I had never quitted the college," said the boy, and the tears rolled heavily down his cheeks.

"It is not too late to retrace your steps. The cell and the scourge the fathers know the use of both-will soon condone your offence; and when they have sapped the last drop of manhood out of your nature, you will be all the fitter for your calling.'

With these harsh words, uttered in tones as cruel, the stranger left the room; while Gerald, covering his face with both hands, sobbed as though his heart were breaking.

"Ah! Gabriel has been talking to him; I knew how it would be," muttered old Pipo, as he cast a glance within the room. Poor child! better for him had he left him to die in the Maremma."

store for any of us. Men are talking in a way I never heard before. Boyer told me, two days ago, that the garrison of Paris was to be doubled, and Vincennes placed in a perfect state of defence."

A bitter laugh from the old chieftain showed how he relished these symptoms of terror.

"It will be no laughing matter when it comes," said Kelly, gravely. "But who have called here? Tell me their names," said the chief, sternly.

"Not one, not one-stay, I am wrong. The cripple who sells the water-melons at the corner of the Babuino, he has been here; and Giacchino, the strolling actor, comes every morning and says, 'Give my duty to his Royal Highness.'

A muttered curse broke from O'Sullivan, and Kelly went on, "It was on Wednesday last he wished to have a mass in the chapel here, and I went to the Quirinal to say so. They should, of course, have sent a cardinal; but who came?-the Vicar of Santa Maria maggiore. I shut the door in his face, and told him that the highest of his masters might have been proud to come in his stead.'

"They are tired of us all, Kelly," sighed the chieftain. "I have walked every day, of the eight long years I have passed here, in the Vatican gardens, and it was only yesterday a guard stopped me to ask if I were noble?-ay, by heaven, if I were noble! I gulped down my passion and answered, 'I am a gentleman in the service of his Royal Highness, of England; and he said, "That may well be, and yet give you no right to enter here.' The old Cardinal Balfi was passing, so I just said to his Eminence, 'Give me your arm, for you are my junior by three good years.' Ay, and he did it too, and I passed in; but I'll go there no more! no more!" muttered he sadly. "Insults are hard to bear when one's arm is too feeble to resent them."

Kelly sighed too; and neither spoke for some seconds. "What heavy breathings are those I hear?" cried Kelly, suddenly; some one has overheard us."

"Have no fears of that," replied the other; "it is a stout friar, taking his evening nap, on the stone bench yonder."

Kelly hastened to the spot, and by the struggling gleam of the lamp could just recognize Fra Luke, as he lay sleeping, snoring heavily.

"You know him, then?" asked O'Sullivan,

"That do I; he is a countryman of ours, and as honest a soul as lives; but yet I'd just as soon not see him here. Fra Luke," said he, shaking the sleeper's shoulder, "Fra Luke. By St. Joseph! they must have hard mattresses up there at the convent, or he'd not sleep so soundly here."

The burly friar at last stirred, and shook himself, like some great waterdog, and then turning his eyes on Kelly, gradually recalled where he

was.

"Would he see me, Laurence; would he just let me say one word to him," muttered he in Kelly's ear.

Impossible, Fra Luke, he is on a bed of sickness. God alone knows if he is ever to rise up from it!"

The Fra bent his head, and for some minutes continued to pray with great fervour, then turning to Kelly, said, "If it's dying he is, there's no good in disturbing his last moments; but if he was to get well enough to hear it, Laurence, will you promise to let me have two or three minutes beside his bed. Will you, at laste, ask him if he'd see Fra Luke. He'll know why himself."

"My poor fellow!" said Kelly, kindly; "like all the world, you fancy that the things which touch yourself must be nearest to the hearts of others. I don't want to learn your secret, Luke-Heaven knows I have more than I wish for in my keeping already!-but take my word for it, the Prince has cares enough on his mind, without your asking him to hear yours.'

"Will you give him this, then," said the Fra, handing him the bag with the money; "there's a hundred crowns in it, just as he gave it to me, Monday was a fortnight. Tell him, that- -"here he stopped and wiped his forehead, in confusion of thought; "tell him, that its not wanting any more for-for what he knows-that it's all over now; not that he's dead, though-God be praised!-but what am I saying? Oh, dear! oh, dear! after my swearing never to speak of him!"

"You are safe with me, Luke, depend on that. Only, as to the money,