A Tuscan proverb says, "Figlio d'attore, attore" ("The son of an actor is always an actor"); and this in Italy is pretty sure to be the case. The three greatest living actors, Salvini, Rossi and Majeroni, belong to families which have long been popular on the stage, and so do the actresses Ristori and Sedowsky. Signora Ristori made her debut as an infant in the cradle, and was for years a member of a troupe the leading lady of which was her late mother, Signora Maddalena Ristori, a woman of great talent and merit, whose death at an advanced age has recently occasioned her celebrated daughter poignant grief. There still exists in Italy a Venetian troupe of comedians whose ancestors were the first interpreters of the comedies of Goldoni, and several of them claim descent from players who enacted the tragedies and comedies of serious classical literature before the courts of Lucrezia Borgia and Leonora d'Este. In glancing over an Italian play-bill one is invariably struck by the fact that many of the artists bear the same name, and are evidently connected by ties of consanguinity or of marriage. In the Ristori troupe, for instance, there are several actors calling themselves by the same name as that great artist, and who are doubtless of her family. The Salvini company embraces, besides the two brothers Tommaso and Alessandro, several Piamontis, two or three Piccininis and two Colonellos. I once knew in Italy a manager named Spada who directed a little troupe of buffo actors consisting of his grandfather and grandmother, father and mother, three or four uncles and aunts, two brothers, and one or two sisters, in addition to himself, his wife and children. Such facts are in part accounted for by the social status—or rather want of status—of the profession. Down to within a very recent period ecclesiastical censures weighed heavily upon all actors, and Christian burial was denied them unless during their final illness they had formally declared their intention to abandon the stage in case of recovery. So severe a condemnation on the part of the clergy naturally produced a strong prejudice against those who connected themselves in any way with the stage; and it is only recently that in Italy, a land where social changes are slow, the doors of her somewhat formal society have been opened to admit even persons so distinguished in every sense of the word as are Ristori, Piamonti, Salvini and Rossi. The social unfriendliness of the audiences—who can applaud so enthusiastically that a stranger witnessing for the first time their noisy demonstrations would easily believe every man and woman in the theatre ready to die for the sake of the admired artist—is doubtless the cause of the patriarchal system observable in the formation of Italian dramatic companies. The members thereof prefer adopting their fathers' profession rather than enter another where they would be constantly mortified by being pointed at as the children of actors.

A little research into the history of the stage in Italy will enlighten the reader as to the true cause both of the harsh condemnation of the Church and of the prejudice of society against this great profession. The plays of the old Romans were proverbially loose both in their plots and dialogues, and Juvenal has spoken of the actors of his time with the bitterest contempt. During the Middle Ages the members of the various religious confraternities monopolized the stage with their sacred dramas and mysteries, and the "profane stage," as an Italian writer calls it, was so degraded that more than once both the Church and State had to use their influence to put down performances which were too infamous to be here described. When the Renaissance came the drama was reinstated in the position it occupied during the days of Roman civilization, but the plays of this period were merely imitations of the Latin comedies; and if we may judge by the most celebrated of them which still exists—the Mandragora of Macchiavelli, for example—far exceeded their models in obscenity. When Benedict XIV. ascended the pontifical throne he established a severe censorship, and inaugurated the harsh system to which I have already alluded, with the effect of banishing immoral productions from the stage, though without improving its intellectual tone. In the eighteenth century Goldoni appeared and gave to the world his graceful comedies, which were followed by the lyric dramas of Metastasio and the lofty tragedies of Alfieri. Since then there has been a succession of able dramatists—Monti, Gozzi, Manzoni, Pellico, Ippolito d'Asti, etc.; and as the class of plays acted was elevated, so the character of the performers was also improved. From being dissolute they became generally respectable; and at present it may be safely asserted that a better-conducted, more frugal or industrious class of men and woman can scarcely be found than are the Italian players. That class of actresses with whom their profession is only a means of displaying their beauty and splendid but often ill-gotten robes and jewelry, is little known in Italy, Such persons would be scarcely tolerated either by their comrades or by the public. Indeed, although within the past few years, owing to the unsettled state of affairs, a great many plays of questionable morality have been acted, especially in Rome, still the tone of the performances usually witnessed in an Italian theatre is greatly above the average of what even Americans applaud; and a French play has to go through more careful pruning for the Italian stage than for ours.

The Italian actors have always been in the habit of forming themselves into troupes, or, as they call them, compagnie, placed under the direction of one person, who is both manager and principal performer. They divide these troupes according to the various kinds of acting; thus, there are companies of tragic, melodramatic and comic actors, but it is very rare to find a combination of tragedy and comedy in the same entertainment. There are at present about eighty different troupes of actors in Italy, including those devoted to the marionnette and dialect performances. The principal are the "Salvini," "Ristori," "Majeroni," "Sedowsky," and "Rossi" for tragedy, the "Bellotti Bon" for high comedy, and the "De Mestri" for farce and vaudeville. The "Ristori," "Salvini" and "Rossi" troupes have been the round of the world. The "Bellotti Bon" has, I believe, never quitted Italy. It is a remarkable combination of well-trained actors, devoted exclusively to the representation of modern society plays and dramas, mostly translated or adapted from the French. Bellotti-Bon, the director, is not excelled in his own line even on the stage of the Theatre Francais. His company is rich, and its scenery and dresses are tasteful. The late Signora Cazzola, formerly the leading lady of this troupe, was perhaps the best high-comedy and dramatic actress Italy has produced. Signer Salvini informed me that Alexandre Dumas fils told him he preferred this lady's interpretation of the role of Marguerite Gauthier (Camille) in La Dame aux Camelias to that of Madame Doche, who created the part. She produced a great effect when the dying Camille looks at herself in the glass for the first time after her long illness. Instead of screaming or fainting, as is usual with most actresses who undertake the character, Signora Cazzola stood for a long time gazing intently at the havoc disease had wrought upon her lovely countenance. Then, with a deep sigh and an expression of intense agony, she turned the mirror with its back toward her, implying that she could never again endure the pain of seeing herself reflected upon its truth-telling surface. On the toilette-table was a vase full of camellias—those beautiful but scentless flowers which were emblematic of her brilliant but artificial life. Taking one of these in her hand, she plucked it to pieces leaf by leaf, and when the last petal fell to the ground went quietly back to her bed, there hopelessly to await the coming on of death. Her parting with Armand was very pathetic, and her death, although harrowing and true to Nature, was not revolting, its horrors being moderated by artistic good sense and delicacy. This great artiste died young, worn out by the strong emotions she not only represented, but actually felt.

Signora Cazzola, together with Virginia Marini and Isolina Piamonti, was a pupil of Signor Salvini. Virginia Marini is well considered in Italy, and used to be the leading lady in the Salvini troupe. She now directs a company of her own, and has been succeeded in her former position by the estimable Signora Piamonti, whom Salvini declares to be one of the most versatile artistes he has ever known, equally good in the highest tragedy or the liveliest farce. Her Dalilla in Samson was much admired in America, but her rendering of the role of Francesca di Rimini in the tragedy of that name is perhaps her greatest performance.

Signora Sedowsky is undoubtedly the greatest tragic actress of Italy. She is perhaps less stately and grand than Ristori, but in fire and depth of feeling she greatly surpasses this eminent tragedienne. Her Phedre is pronounced by excellent judges equal to that of Rachel. Signora Sedowsky was born at Naples, and is the proprietress of three large theatres in that city. She is the wife of a wealthy nobleman. Notwithstanding her rank, she still keeps on the stage, but is received with honor in the first society. She has never acted out of Italy, and very rarely beyond the walls of Naples.

The superlative merits of Signora Ristori are so well known in America that the mere mention of her name is sure to recall some of the most delightful evenings ever spent by many of my readers. Her genius and beauty, her majesty and glorious method of declamation, have won her a foremost rank in her profession, and her virtues and nobility of conduct the esteem of all who have ever known her. There are indeed few women more estimable than Adelaide Ristori, Marchioness Capranica del Grillo. It may be a matter of surprise to some who are not aware of the fact when I tell them that in Italy Ristori is more famous in comedy than in tragedy. She is inimitable in such parts as the hostess in Goldoni's clever comedy of La Locandiera.

Of all Italian actors, Gustavo Modena was the most renowned. He is to the stage of his native land what Garrick was to that of England, and his conception of the various parts in classic drama, his "points," and even his dress, have become traditional, and are almost invariably retained by his followers. I never saw him act, but I once heard him recite in a private salon his famous role of Saul in Alfieri's tragedy of that name. In person he was tall and largely built, His countenance was not prepossessing, and, like Michael Angelo, he had a broken nose. His eye could assume a terrific aspect, and his voice was rich, powerful and varied in its tone. At times it rolled like thunder, while at other moments it was as soft and tender as the sweetest notes of a flute. Signor Modena died some years ago. He was the master of Salvini, and to him that illustrious actor does not hesitate to attribute much of his fame.

Rossi, the only living rival of Salvini, is still a young man, and doubtless has great talents. I think him even more impetuous and ardent than Salvini, but he is less intellectual, and his elocution is decidedly inferior.

Majeroni is an actor of the same school, but he is becoming old, and has a tendency to rant.

Tommaso Salvini, our late visitor, is of Milanese parentage, and was born in the Lombard capital on January 1, 1830. His father, as I have already said, was an able actor, and his mother a popular actress named Guglielmina Zocchi. When quite a boy he showed a rare talent for acting, and performed in certain plays given during the Easter holidays in the school where he was educated, with such rare ability that his father determined to devote him to the stage. For this purpose he placed him under the tuition of the great Modena, who conceived much affection for him. The training received thus early from such able hands soon bore fruits, and before he was thirteen Salvini had already won a kind of renown in juvenile characters. At fifteen he lost both his parents, and the bereavement so preyed upon his spirits that he was obliged to abandon his career for two years, and returned once more under the tuition of Modena. When he again emerged from retirement he joined the Ristori troupe, and shared with that great actress many a triumph. In 1849, Salvini entered the army of Italian independence, and fought valiantly for the defence of his country, receiving in recognition of his services several medals of honor. Peace being proclaimed, he again appeared upon the stage in a company directed by Signer Cesare Dondini. He played in the Edipo of Nicolini—a tragedy written expressly for him—and achieved a great success. Next he appeared in Alfieri's Saul, and then all Italy declared that Modena's mantle had fallen on worthy shoulders. His fame was now prodigious, and wherever he went he was received with boundless enthusiasm. He visited Paris, where he played Orasmane, Orestes, Saul and Othello. On his return to Florence he was hospitably entertained by the marquis of Normanby, then English ambassador to the court of Tuscany, and this enlightened nobleman strongly encouraged him to extend his repertory of Shakespearian characters. In 1865 occurred the sixth centenary of Dante's birthday, and the four greatest Italian actors were invited to perform in Silvio Pellico's tragedy of Francesca di Rimini, which is founded on an episode in the Divina Commedia. The cast originally stood on the play-bills thus: Francesca, Signora Ristori; Lancelotto, Signor Rossi; Paulo, Signor Salvini; and Guido, Signor Majeroni. It happened, however, that Rossi, who was unaccustomed to play the part of Lancelotto, felt timid at appearing in a character so little suited to him. Hearing this, Signor Salvini, with exquisite politeness and good-nature, volunteered to take the insignificant part, relinquishing the grand role of Paulo to his junior in the profession. He created by the force of his genius an impression in the minor part which is still vivid in the minds of all who witnessed the performance. The government of Florence, grateful for his urbanity, presented him with a statuette of Dante, and King Victor Emmanuel rewarded him with the title of knight of the Order of the Saints Maurice and Lazarus. Later he received from the same monarch a diamond ring, with the rank of officer in the Order of the Crown of Italy. In 1868, Signer Salvini visited Madrid, where his acting of the death of Conrad in La Morte Civile produced such an impression that the easily-excited Madrilese rushed upon the stage to ascertain whether the death was actual or fictitious. The queen, Isabella II., conferred upon the great actor many marks of favor, and so shortly afterward did King Louis of Portugal, who frequently entertained him at the royal palace of Lisbon.

Signor Salvini's recent visit to America I need scarcely mention: its triumphs are still fresh in the memory of the public, and the only drawback to its complete success was the unhappy fact that the eminent artist did not appeal to his audiences in their own language.

I know of nothing more remarkable than the difference which exists between the Salvini of the stage and the Salvini of private life, the one so imposing, impetuous and fiery, the other so gentle, urbane, and even retiring. He is a gentleman possessing the manners of the good old school—courtly and somewhat ceremonious, reminding one of those Italian nobles of the sixteenth century of whom we lead in the novels of Giraldo Cinthio and Fiorentino—uomini illustri, e di civil costumi. His greeting is cordial and his conversation delightful, full of anecdote and marked with enthusiasm for his art. When I first became acquainted with him I was of opinion that his interpretation of Hamlet was based only upon the translated text, but in the course of a very long conversation on the subject I discovered that he was well acquainted (through literal translations) not only with the text, but also with the notes and comments of our leading critics. In speaking of the part in which he is altogether unrivaled he said, "I am of opinion that Shakespeare intended Othello to be a Moor of Barbary or some other part of Northern Africa, of whom there were many in Italy during the sixteenth century. I have met several, and think I imitate their ways and manners pretty well. You are aware, however, that the historical Othello was not a black at all. He was a white man, and a Venetian general named Mora. His history resembles that of Shakespeare's hero in many particulars. Giraldo Cinthio, probably for better effect, made out of the name Mora, moro, a blackamoor; and Shakespeare, unacquainted with the true story, followed this old novelist's lead; and it was well he did so, for have we not in consequence the most perfect delineation of the peculiarities of Moorish temperament ever conceived?" The costumes worn by Salvini in this play are copied from those depicted in certain Venetian pictures of the fifteenth century in which several Moorish officers appear. It took him many years to master this role, and he assured me he could not play it more than three times in succession without experiencing terrible fatigue. "It is a matter of wonder to me," he observed, "that English actors can play a great character like this so many nights in succession; and, above all, that they retain self-possession whilst the fidgety noise of scene-shifting is going on behind them. To avoid this, I have been obliged to cut Othello into six acts, and to make many changes in Hamlet." The intensity of feeling with which he throws himself into the part he is representing was especially evident on the occasion of his playing Saul. After the performance I was invited to go behind the scenes to speak with him, and was surprised as well as pained to find him utterly exhausted. I could not help saying, "How can you exert yourself thus to please so few people?" There were scarcely four hundred persons assembled to see this sublime performance. He answered with honest simplicity, "They have paid their money, and are entitled to the best I can do for them; besides that, when I am on the stage I forget the world and all that is in it, and live the character I represent." "You will," said I, "make a grand Lear." "Yes," he replied, "I think I shall be able to make something out of the old king. I have been reading the tragedy for some time, but it will still take me two years to study it thoroughly."

Salvini related to me several anecdotes which show how quick he is to master any difficulties accident throws in his way. "Once I bought," he said, "a play of a poor young writer which I thought I could make something of; but when we came to rehearse it for the last time before representation, it seemed to me utterly flat and unprofitable. The piece was called La Suonatrice d'Arpa ('The Harp-Girl'). The actors all said the last act was so stupid that we should make a fiasco. I at last hit upon an idea. We had, however, only a few hours to execute it in. I changed the story: instead of the play ending happily, I made the father kill his daughter accidentally, and then die of grief. All the dialogue had to be improvised by the leading actress and myself. I played the father, and Signora Piamonti the daughter. Such was the success of our invention that the piece was played eight nights in succession, and a rival actor, hearing of the triumph achieved by The Harp-Girl, bought from the author for a handsome sum the privilege of acting it in certain districts which were not included in my purchase of the drama. Not being aware of the alterations we had made, and performing it according to the letter of the text, he made un fiasco solenne—a dead failure."

After the first performance of Zaire I took the liberty of observing to Salvini that a superb piece of "business" which marks his acting in the last act was not to be found in the text. "Oh," he replied, "I will tell you the origin of it. I was playing at Naples, and one night, when I threw the body of my murdered wife upon the ottoman in the last act, my burnouse fell off and fixed itself to my waist like a tail. I saw at once that if I was not careful I should provoke laughter, and instantly imagined that I would pretend to believe the clinging drapery was the wounded Zaire grasping me behind. I appeared to dread even to look round, lest I should encounter her pallid face. I hesitated, I trembled, and when with a supreme effort I at last grasped the burnouse and cast it from me, I still lacked the courage to ascertain what it really was, and stood shivering before the white heap it made upon the floor. Finally, just as I thought public curiosity to know what I was going to do began to grow weary, I stooped down and seizing the white mantle dashed it from me with contempt, showing by the gesture that I had discovered what it was, and felt anger that such a trifle should thus alarm a bold man who had committed murder." This pantomime obtained for Salvini at the New York Academy of Music one of his greatest ovations.

When asked why he did not learn English, "Ah!" he replied, "I am too old; and even if I mastered it, I could not control my knowledge of it. When excited I should be lapsing into Italian, which would be very absurd. You asked me the other day why I do not play Orestes. I should make a queer young Greek with an Apollo-like figure now-a-days! The time was when I looked the part and acted it well, and then I liked to play it. I must leave it, with many other good things, to younger men." Speaking about dramatic elocution, he said, "The best method is obtained by close observation of Nature, and above all by earnestness. If you can impress people with the conviction that you feel what you say, they will pardon many shortcomings. And, above all, study, study, study! All the genius in the world will not help you along with any art unless you become a hard student. It has taken me years to master a single part."

Salvini's visit to America has been fruitful of a double good. He has shown forth the splendor of Italian genius, even revealing to us new marvels in that mine of wealth, the works of the greatest Bard of the English-speaking race; and he has gone back to Italy to tell her people of things he has seen in the New World which his great compatriot discovered—as wonderful in their way as any related by Othello to Desdemona's willing ear.

R. DAVEY.



THREE FEATHERS.

BY WILLIAM BLACK, AUTHOR OF "A PRINCESS OF THULE."

CHAPTER XX.

TINTAGEL'S WALLS.

What was the matter with Harry Trelyon? His mother could not make out; and there never had been much confidence between them, so that she did not care to ask. But she watched, and she saw that he had, for the time at least, forsaken his accustomed haunts and ways and become gloomy, silent and self-possessed. Dick was left neglected in the stables: you no longer heard his rapid clatter along the highway, with the not over-melodious voice of his master singing "The Men of Merry, Merry England" or "The Young Chevalier." The long and slender fishing-rod remained on the pegs in the hall, although you could hear the flop of the small burn-trout of an evening when the flies were thick over the stream. The dogs were deprived of their accustomed runs; the horses had to be taken out for exercise by the groom; and the various and innumerable animals about the place missed their doses of alternate petting and teasing, all because Master Harry had chosen to shut himself up in his study.

The mother of the young man very soon discovered that her son was not devoting his hours of seclusion in that extraordinary museum of natural history to making trout-flies, stuffing birds and arranging pinned butterflies in cases, as was his custom. These were not the occupations which now kept Master Harry up half the night. When she went in of a morning, before he was up, she found that he had been covering whole sheets of paper with careful copying out of passages taken at random from the volumes beside him. A Latin grammar was ordinarily on the table—a book which the young gentleman had brought back from school free from thumb-marks. Occasionally a fencing-foil lay among these evidences of study, while the small aquaria, the cases of stuffed animals with fancy backgrounds and the numerous bird-cages had been thrust aside to give fair elbow-room.

"Perhaps," said Mrs. Trelyon to herself with much satisfaction—"perhaps, after all, that good little girl has given him a hint about Parliament, and he is preparing himself."

A few days of this seclusion, however, began to make the mother anxious; and so one morning she went into his room. He hastily turned over the sheet of paper on which he had been writing: then he looked up, not too well pleased.

"Harry, why do you stay in-doors on such a beautiful morning? It is quite like summer."

"Yes, I know," he said. "I suppose we shall soon have a batch of parsons here: summer always brings them. They come out with the hot weather—like butterflies."

Mrs. Trelyon was shocked and disappointed: she thought Wenna Rosewarne had cured him of his insane dislike to clergymen—indeed, for many a day gone by he had kept respectfully silent on the subject.

"But we shall not ask them to come if you'd rather not," she said, wishing to do all she could to encourage the reformation of his ways. "I think Mr. Barnes promised to visit us early in May, but he is only one."

"And one is worse than a dozen. When there's a lot you can leave 'em to fight it out among themselves. But one!—to have one stalking about an empty house, like a ghost dipped in ink! Why can't you ask anybody but clergymen, mother? There are whole lots of people would like to run down from London for a fortnight before getting into the thick of the season: there's the Pomeroy girls as good as offered to come."

"But they can't come by themselves," Mrs. Trelyon said with a feeble protest.

"Oh yes, they can: they're ugly enough to be safe anywhere. And why don't you get Juliott up? She'll be glad to get away from that old curmudgeon for a week. And you ought to ask the Trewhellas, father and daughter, to dinner: that old fellow is not half a bad sort of fellow, although he's a clergyman."

"Harry," said his mother, interrupting him, "I'll fill the house if that will please you; and you shall ask just whomsoever you please."

"All right," said he: "the place wants waking up."

"And then," said the mother, wishing to be still more gracious, "you might ask Miss Rosewarne to dine with us: she might come well enough, although Mr. Roscorla is not here."

A sort of gloom fell over the young man's face again: "I can't ask her—you may if you like."

Mrs. Trelyon stared: "What is the matter, Harry? Have you and she quarreled? Why, I was going to ask you, if you were down in the village to-day, to say that I should like to see her."

"And how could I take such a message?" the young man said, rather warmly, "I don't see why the girl should be ordered up to see you as if you were conferring a favor on her by joining in this scheme. She's very hard-worked; you have got plenty of time; you ought to call on her and study her convenience, instead of making her trot all the way up here whenever you want to talk to her."

The pale and gentle woman flushed a little, but she was anxious not to give way to petulance just then: "Well, you are quite right, Harry: it was thoughtless of me. I should like to go down and see her this morning; but I have sent Jakes over to the blacksmith's, and I am afraid of that new lad."

"Oh, I will drive you down to the inn. I suppose among them they can put the horses to the wagonette," the young man said, not very graciously: and then Mrs. Trelyon went off to get ready.

It was a beautiful, fresh morning, the far-off line of the sea still and blue, the sunlight lighting up the wonderful masses of primroses along the tall banks, the air sweet with the resinous odor of the gorse. Mrs. Trelyon looked with a gentle and childlike pleasure on all these things, and was fairly inclined to be very friendly with the young gentleman beside her. But he was more than ordinarily silent and morose. Mrs. Trelyon knew she had done nothing to offend him, and thought it hard she should be punished for the sins of anybody else.

He spoke scarcely a word to her as the carriage rolled along the silent highways. He drove rapidly and carelessly down the steep thoroughfare of Eglosilyan, although there were plenty of loose stones about. Then he pulled sharply up in front of the inn, and George Rosewarne appeared.

"Mr. Rosewarne, let me introduce you to my mother. She wants to see Miss Wenna for a few moments, if she is not engaged."

Mr. Rosewarne took off his cap, assisted Mrs. Trelyon to alight, and then showed her the way into the house.

"Won't you come in, Harry?" his mother said.

"No."

A man had come out to the horses' heads.

"You leave 'em alone," said the young gentleman: "I sha'n't get down."

Mabyn came out, her bright young face full of pleasure.

"How do you do, Mabyn?" he said coldly, and without offering to shake hands.

"Won't you come in for a minute?" she said, rather surprised.

"No, thank you. Don't you stay out in the cold: you've got nothing round your neck."

Mabyn went away without saying a word, but thinking that the coolness of the air was much less apparent than that of his manner and speech.

Being at length left to himself, he turned his attention to the horses before him, and eventually, to pass the time, took out his pocket-handkerchief and began to polish the silver on the handle of the whip. He was disturbed in this peaceful occupation by a very timid voice, which said, "Mr. Trelyon." He turned round and found that Wenna's wistful face was looking up to him, with a look in it partly of friendly gladness and partly of anxiety and entreaty. "Mr. Trelyon," she said, with her eyes cast down, "I think you are offended with me. I am very sorry: I beg your forgiveness."

The reins were fastened up in a minute, and he was down in the road beside her. "Now look here, Wenna," he said. "What could you mean by treating me so unfairly? I don't mean in being vexed with me, but in shunting me off, as it were, instead of having it out at once. I don't think it was fair."

"I am very sorry," she said. "I think I was very wrong, but you don't know what a girl feels about such things. Will you come into the inn?"

"And leave my horses? No," he said, good-naturedly. "But as soon as I get that fellow out, I will; so you go in at once, and I'll follow you directly. And mind, Wenna, don't you be so silly again, or you and I may have a real quarrel; and I know that would break your heart."

The old pleased smile lit up her face again as she turned and went in-doors: he meanwhile proceeded to summon a hostler by shouting his name at the pitch of his voice.

The small party of women assembled in the parlor were a trifle embarrassed: it was the first time that the great lady of the neighborhood had honored the inn with a visit. She herself was merely quiet, gentle and pleased, but Mrs. Rosewarne, with her fine eyes and her sensitive face all lit up and quickened by, the novel excitement, was all anxiety to amuse and interest and propitiate her distinguished guest. Mabyn, too, was rather shy and embarrassed: she said things hastily, and then seemed afraid of her interference. Wenna was scarcely at her ease, because she saw that her mother and sister were not; and she was very anxious, moreover, that these two should think well of Mrs. Trelyon and be disposed to like her.

The sudden appearance of a man with a man's rough ways and loud voice seemed to shake these feminine elements better together, and to clear the air of timid apprehensions and cautions. Harry Trelyon came into the room with quite a marked freshness and good-nature on his face. His mother was surprised: what had completely changed his manner in a couple of minutes?

"How are you, Mrs. Rosewarne?" he cried in his off-hand fashion. "You oughtn't to be in-doors on such a morning, or we shall never get you well, you know; and the doctor will be sending you to Penzance or Devonport for a change. Well, Mabyn, have you convinced anybody yet that your farm-laborers with their twelve shillings a week are better off than the slate-workers with their eighteen? You'd better take your sister's opinion on that point, and don't squabble with me. Mother, what's the use of sitting here? You bring Miss Wenna with you into the wagonette, and talk to her there about all your business-affairs, and I'll take you for a drive. Come along. And of course I want somebody with me: will you come, Mrs. Rosewarne, or will Mabyn? You can't?—then Mabyn must. Go along, Mabyn, and put your best hat on, and make yourself uncommonly smart, and you shall be allowed to sit next the driver—that's me."

And indeed he bundled the whole of them about until they were seated in the wagonette just as he had indicated; and away they went from the inn-door.

"And you think you are coming back in half an hour?" he said to his companion, who was much pleased and very proud to occupy such a place. "Oh no, you're not. You're a young and simple thing, Mabyn. These two behind us will go on talking now for any time about yards of calico and crochet-needles and twopenny subscriptions, while you and I, don't you see, are quietly driving them over to Tintagel—"

"Oh, Mr. Trelyon!" said Mabyn.

"You keep quiet. That isn't the half of what's going to befall you. I shall put up the horses at the inn, and I shall take you all down to the beach for a scramble to improve your appetite; and at the said inn you shall have luncheon with me, if you're all very good and behave yourselves. Then we shall drive back just when we particularly please. Do you like the picture?"

"It is delightful: oh, I am sure Wenna will enjoy it," Mabyn said. "But don't you think, Mr. Trelyon, that you might ask her to sit here? One sees better here than sitting sideways in a wagonette."

"They have their business-affairs to settle."

"Yes," said Mabyn petulantly, "that is what every one says: nobody expects Wenna ever to have a moment's enjoyment to herself. Oh, here is old Uncle Cornish—he's a great friend of Wenna's: he will be dreadfully hurt if she passes him without saying a word."

"Then we shall pull up and address Uncle Cornish. I believe he used to be the most thieving old ruffian of a poacher in this county."

There was a hale old man of seventy or so seated on a low wall in front of one of the gardens, his face shaded from the sunlight by a broad hat, his lean gray hands employed in buckling up the leathern leggings that encased his spare calves. He got up when the horses stopped, and looked in rather a dazed fashion at the carriage.

"How do you do this morning, Mr. Cornish?" Wenna said.

"Why, now, to be sure!" the old man said, as if reproaching his own imperfect vision. "'Tis a fine marnin', Miss Wenna, and yue be agwoin' for a drive."

"And how is your daughter-in-law, Mr. Cornish? Has she sold the pig yet?"

"Naw, she hasn't sold the peg. If yue be agwoin' thrue Trevalga, Miss Wenna, just yue stop and have a look at that peg: yue'll be 'mazed to see en. 'Tis many a year agone sence there has been such a peg by me. And perhaps yue'd take the laste bit o' refrashment, Miss Wenna, as yue go by: Jane would get yue a coop o' tay to once."

"Thank you, Mr. Cornish, I'll look in and see the pig some other time: to-day we sha'n't be going as far as Trevalga."

"Oh, won't you?" said Master Harry in a low voice as he drove on. "You'll be in Trevalga before you know where you are."

Which was literally the case. Wenna was so much engaged in her talk with Mrs. Trelyon that she did not notice how far away they were getting from Eglosilyan; but Mabyn and her companion knew. They were now on the high uplands by the coast, driving between the beautiful banks, which were starred with primroses and stitchwort and red dead-nettle and a dozen other bright and tender-hued firstlings of the year. The sun was warm on the hedges and the fields, but a cool breeze blew about these lofty heights, and stirred Mabyn's splendid masses of hair as they drove rapidly along. Far over on their right, beyond the majestic wall of cliff, lay the great blue plain of the sea; and there stood the bold brown masses of the Sisters Rocks, with a circle of white foam round their base. As they looked down into the south the white light was so fierce that they could but faintly discern objects through it; but here and there they caught a glimpse of a square church-tower or of a few rude cottages clustered on the high plain, and these seemed to be of a transparent gray in the blinding glare of the sun.

Then suddenly in front of them they found a deep chasm, with the white road leading down through its cool shadows. There was the channel of a stream, with the rocks looking purple amid the gray bushes; and here were rich meadows, with cattle standing deep in the grass and the daisies; and over there, on the other side, a strip of forest, with the sunlight shining along one side of the tall and dark-green pines. As they drove down into this place, which is called the Rocky Valley, a magpie rose from one of the fields and flew up into the firs.

"That is sorrow," said Mabyn.

Another one rose and flew up to the same spot.

"And that is joy," she said, with her face brightening.

"Oh, but I saw another as we came to the brow of the hill, and that means a marriage," her companion remarked to her.

"Oh no," she said quite eagerly, "I am sure there was no third one: I am certain there were only two. I am quite positive we only saw two."

"But why should you be so anxious?" Trelyon said, "You know you ought to be looking forward to a marriage, and that is always a happy thing. Are you envious, Mabyn?"

The girl was silent for a moment or two. Then she said, with a sudden bitterness in her tone, "Isn't it a fearful thing to have to be civil to people whom you hate? Isn't it, when they come and establish a claim on you through some one you care for? You look at them—yes, you can look at them—and you've got to see them kiss some one that you love; and you wonder she doesn't rush away for a bit of caustic and cauterize the place, as you do when a mad dog bites you."

"Mabyn," said the young man beside her, "you are a most unchristian sort of person this morning. Who is it you hate in such a fashion? Will you take the reins while I walk up the hill?"

Mabyn's little burst of passion still burned in her cheeks and gave a proud and angry look to her mouth, but she took the reins all the same, and her companion leapt to the ground. The banks on each side of the road going up this hill were tall and steep: here and there great masses of wild flowers were scattered among the grass and the gorse. From time to time he stopped to pick up a handful, until, when they had got up to the high and level country again, he had brought together a very pretty bouquet of wild blossoms. When he got into his seat and took the reins again he carelessly gave the bouquet to Mabyn.

"Oh, how pretty!" she said; and then she turned round: "Wenna, are you very much engaged? Look at the pretty bouquet Mr. Trelyon has gathered for you."

Wenna's quiet face flushed with pleasure when she took the flowers, and Mrs. Trelyon looked pleased and said they were very pretty. She evidently thought that her son was greatly improved in his manners when he condescended to gather flowers to present to a girl. Nay, was he not at this moment devoting a whole forenoon of his precious time to the unaccustomed task of taking ladies for a drive? Mrs. Trelyon regarded Wenna with a friendly look, and began to take a greater liking than ever to that sensitive and expressive face and to the quiet and earnest eyes.

"But, Mr. Trelyon," said Wenna, looking round, "hadn't we better turn? We shall be at Trevenna directly."

"Yes, you are quite right," said Master Harry: "you will be at Trevenna directly, and you are likely to be there for some time. For Mabyn and I have resolved to have luncheon there, and we are going down to Tintagel, and we shall most likely climb to King Arthur's Castle. Have you any objections?"

Wenna had none. The drive through the cool and bright day had braced up her spirits. She was glad to know that everything looked promising about this scheme of hers. So she willingly surrendered herself to the holiday, and in due time they drove into the odd and remote little village and pulled up in front of the inn.

So soon as the hostler had come to the horses' heads the young gentleman who had been driving jumped down and assisted his three companions to alight: then he led the way into the inn. In the doorway stood a stranger, probably a commercial traveler, who, with his hands in his pockets, his legs apart and a cigar in his mouth, had been visiting those three ladies with a very hearty stare as they got out of the carriage. Moreover, when they came to the doorway he did not budge an inch nor did he take his cigar from his mouth; and so, as it had never been Mr. Trelyon's fashion to sidle past any one, that young gentleman made straight for the middle of the passage, keeping his shoulders very square. The consequence was a collision. The imperturbable person with his hands in his pockets was sent staggering against the wall, while his cigar dropped on the stone. "What the devil—!" he was beginning to say, when Trelyon got the three women past him and into the small parlor. Then he went back: "Did you wish to speak to me, sir? No, you didn't: I perceive you are a prudent person. Next time ladies pass you, you'd better take your cigar out of your mouth or somebody'll destroy that two-pennyworth of tobacco for you. Good-morning."

Then he returned to the little parlor, to which a waitress had been summoned: "Now, Jinny, pull yourself together and let's have something nice for luncheon—in an hour's time, sharp. You will, won't you? And how about that Sillery with the blue star—not the stuff with the gold head that some abandoned ruffian in Plymouth brews in his back garden. Well, can't you speak?"

"Yes, sir," said the bewildered maid.

"That's a good thing—a very good thing," said he, putting the shawls together on a sofa. "Don't you forget how to speak until you get married. And don't let anybody come into this room. And you can let my man have his dinner and a pint of beer. Oh, I forgot: I'm my own man this morning, so you needn't go asking for him. Now, will you remember all these things?"

"Yes, sir; but what would you like for luncheon?"

"My good girl, we should like a thousand things such as Tintagel never saw, but what you've got to do is to give us the nicest things you've got: do you see? I leave it entirely in your hands. Come along, young people."

And so he bundled his charges out again into the main street of the village; and somehow it happened that Mabyn addressed a timid remark to Mrs. Trelyon, and that Mrs. Trelyon, in answering it, stopped for a moment; so that Master Harry was sent to Wenna's side, and these two led the way down the wide thoroughfare. There were few people visible in the old-fashioned place: here and there an aged crone came out to the door of one of the rude stone cottages to look at the strangers. Overhead the sky was veiled over with a thin fleece of white cloud, but the light was intense for all that, and indeed the colors of the objects around seemed all the more clear and marked.

"Well, Miss Wenna," said the young man gayly, "how long are we to remain good friends? What is the next fault you will have to find with me? Or have you discovered something wrong already?"

"Oh no," she said with a quiet smile, "I am very good friends with you this morning. You have pleased your mother very much by bringing her for this drive."

"Oh, nonsense!" he said. "She might have as many drives as she chose; but presently you'll find a lot of those parsons back at the house, and she'll take to her white gowns again, and the playing of the organ all the day long, and all that sham stuff. I tell you what it is: she never seems alive, she never seems to take any interest in anything, unless you're with her. Now, you will see how the novelty of this luncheon-party in an inn will amuse her; but do you think she would care for it if she and I were here alone?"

"Perhaps you never tried?" Miss Wenna said gently.

"Perhaps I knew she wouldn't come. However, don't let's have a fight, Wenna: I mean to be very civil to you to-day—I do, really."

"I am so much obliged to you," she said meekly. "But pray don't give yourself unnecessary trouble."

"Oh," said he, "I'd always be civil to you if you would treat me decently. But you say far more rude things than I do—in that soft way, you know, that looks as if it were all silk and honey. I do think you've awfully little consideration for human failings. If one goes wrong in the least thing, even in one's spelling, you say something that sounds as pleasant as possible, and all the same it transfixes one just as you stick a pin through a beetle. You are very hard, you are—mean with those who would like to be friends with you. When it's mere strangers and cottagers and people of that sort, who don't care a brass farthing about you, then I believe you're all gentleness and kindness; but to your real friends the edge of a saw is smooth compared to you."

"Am I so very harsh to my friends?" the young lady said in a resigned way.

"Oh, well," he said, with some compunction, "I don't quite say that, but you could be much more pleasant if you liked, and a little more charitable to their faults. You know there are some who would give a great deal to win your approval; and perhaps when you find fault they are so disappointed that they think your words are sharper than you mean; and sometimes they think you might give them credit for trying to please you, at least."

"And who are these persons?" Wenna said, with another smile stealing over her face.

"Oh," said he rather shamefacedly, "there's no need to explain anything to you: you always see it before one need put it in words."

Well, perhaps it was in his manner or in the tone of his voice that there was something which seemed at this moment to touch her deeply, for she half turned and looked up at his face with her honest and earnest eyes, and said to him kindly, "Yes, I do know without you telling me; and it makes me happy to hear you talk so; and if I am unjust to you, you must not think it intentional. And I shall try not to be so in the future."

Mrs. Trelyon was regarding with a kindly look the two young people walking on in front of her. Whatever pleased her son pleased her, and she was glad to see him enjoy himself in so light-hearted a fashion. These two were chatting to each other in the friendliest manner: sometimes they stopped to pick up wild flowers: they were as two children together under the fair and light summer skies.

They went down and along a narrow valley, until they suddenly stood in front of the sea, the green waters of which were breaking in upon a small and lonely creek. What strange light was this that fell from the white skies above, rendering all the objects around them sharp its outline and intense in color? The beach before them seemed of a pale lilac, where the green waves broke in a semicircle of white. On their right some masses of ruddy rock jutted out into the cold sea, and there were huge black caverns into which the waves dashed and roared. On their left and far above them towered a great and isolated rock, its precipitous sides scored here and there with twisted lines of red and yellow quartz; and on the summit of this bold headland, amid the dark green of the sea-grass, they could see the dusky ruins—the crumbling walls and doorways and battlements—of the castle that is named in all the stories of King Arthur and his knights. The bridge across to the mainland has, in the course of centuries, fallen away, but there, on the other side of the wide chasm, were the ruins of the other portions of the castle, scarcely to be distinguished in parts from the grass-grown rocks. How long ago was it since Sir Tristram rode out here to the end of the world, to find the beautiful Isoulde awaiting him—she whom he had brought from Ireland as an unwilling bride to the old king Mark? And what of the joyous company of knights and ladies who once held high sport in the courtyard there? Trelyon, looking shyly at his companion, could see that her eyes seemed centuries away from him. She was quite unconscious of his covertly staring at her, for she was absently looking at the high and bare precipices, the deserted slopes of dark sea-grass and the lonely and crumbling ruins. She was wondering whether the ghosts of those vanished people ever came back to this lonely headland, where they would find the world scarcely altered since they had left it. Did they come at night, when the land was dark, and when there was a light over the sea only coming from the stars? If one were to come at night alone, and to sit down here by the shore, might not one see strange things far overhead or hear some sound other than the falling of the waves?

"Miss Wenna," he said—and she started suddenly—"are you bold enough to climb with me up to the castle? I know my mother would rather stay here."

She went with him mechanically. She followed him up the rude steps cut in the steep slopes of slate, holding his hand where that was possible, but her head was so full of dreams that she answered him when he spoke only with a vague yes or no. When they descended again they found that Mabyn had taken Mrs. Trelyon down to the beach, and had inveigled her into entering a huge cavern, or rather a natural tunnel, that went right through underneath the promontory on which the castle is built. They were in a sort of green-hued twilight, a scent of seaweed filling the damp air, and their voices raising an echo in the great hall of rock.

"I hope the climbing has not made you giddy," Mrs. Trelyon said in her kind way to Wenna, noticing that she was very silent and distrait.

"Oh no," Mabyn said promptly. "She has been seeing ghosts. We always know when Wenna has been seeing ghosts: she remains so for hours."

And, indeed, at this time she was rather more reserved than usual all during their walk back to luncheon and while they were in the inn; and yet she was obviously very happy, and sometimes even amused by the childlike pleasure which Mrs. Trelyon seemed to obtain from these unwonted experiences.

"Come, now, mother," Master Harry said, "what are you going to do for me when I come of age next month? Fill the house with guests—yes, you promised that—with not more than one parson to the dozen? And when they're all feasting and gabbling, and missing the targets with their arrows, you'll slip quietly away, and I'll drive you and Miss Wenna over here, and you'll go and get your feet wet again in that cavern, and you'll come up here again and have an elegant luncheon, just like this. Won't that do?"

"I don't quite know about the elegance of the luncheon, but I'm sure our little excursion has been very pleasant. Don't you think so, Miss Rosewarne?" Mrs. Trelyon said.

"Indeed I do," said Wenna, with her big, earnest eyes coming back from their trance.

"And here is another thing," remarked young Trelyon. "There's a picture I've seen of the heir coming of age—he's a horrid, self-sufficient young cad, but never mind—and it seems to be a day of general jollification. Can't I give a present to somebody? Well, I'm going to give it to a young lady who never cares for anything but what she can give away again to somebody else; and it is—well, it is—Why don't you guess, Mabyn?"

"I don't know what you mean to give Wenna," said Mabyn naturally.

"Why, you silly! I mean to give her a dozen sewing-machines—a baker's dozen—thirteen. There! Oh, I heard you as you came along. It was all, 'Three sewing-machines will cost so much, and four sewing-machines will cost so much, and five sewing-machines will cost so much. And a penny a week from so many subscribers will be so much, and twopence a week from so many will be so much;' and all this as if my mother could tell you how much twice two was. My arithmetic ain't very brilliant, but as for hers—And these you shall have, Miss Wenna—one baker's dozen of sewing-machines, as per order, duly delivered, carriage free—empty casks and bottles to be returned."

"That is very kind of you, Mr. Trelyon," Wenna said—and all the dreams had gone straight out of her head so soon as this was mentioned—"but we can't possibly accept them. You know our scheme is to make the sewing club quite self-supporting—no charity."

"Oh, what stuff!" the young gentleman cried. "You know you will give all your labor and supervision for nothing: isn't that charity? And you know you will let off all sorts of people owing you subscriptions the moment some blessed baby falls ill. And you know you won't charge interest on all the outlay. But if you insist on paying me back for my sewing-machines out of the overwhelming profits at the end of next year, then I'll take the money. I'm not proud."

"Then we will take six sewing-machines from you, if you please, Mr. Trelyon, on those conditions," said Wenna gravely. And Master Harry—with a look toward Mabyn which was just about as good as a wink—consented.

As they drove quietly back again to Eglosilyan, Mabyn had taken her former place by the driver, and found him uncommonly thoughtful. He answered her questions, but that was all; and it was so unusual to find Harry Trelyon in this mood that she said to him, "Mr. Trelyon, have you been seeing ghosts, too?"

He turned to her and said, "I was thinking about something. Look here, Mabyn: did you ever know any one, or do you know any one, whose face is a sort of barometer to you? Suppose that you see her look pale and tired or sad in any way, then down go your spirits, and you almost wish you had never been born. When you see her face brighten up and get full of healthy color, you feel glad enough to burst out singing or go mad: anyhow, you know that everything's all right. What the weather is, what people may say about you, whatever else may happen to you, that's nothing: all you want to see is just that one person's face look perfectly bright and perfectly happy, and nothing can touch you then. Did you ever know anybody like that?" he added rather abruptly.

"Oh yes," said Mabyn, in a low voice: "that is when you are in love with some one. And there is only one face in all the world that I look to for all these things, there is only one person I know who tells you openly and simply in her face all that affects her, and that is our Wenna. I suppose you have noticed that, Mr. Trelyon?"

But he did not make any answer.



CHAPTER XXI.

CONFESSION.

The lad lay dreaming in the warm meadows by the side of a small and rapid brook, the clear waters of which plashed and bubbled in the sunlight as they hurried past the brown stones. His fishing-rod lay beside him, hidden in the long grass and the daisies. The sun was hot in the valley—shining on a wall of gray rock behind him, and throwing purple shadows over the clefts; shining on the dark bushes beside the stream and on the lush green of the meadows; shining on the trees beyond, in the shadow of which some dark red cattle were standing. Then away on the other side of the valley rose gently-sloping woods, gray and green in the haze of the heat, and over these again was the pale blue sky with scarcely a cloud in it. It was a hot day to be found in spring-time, but the waters of the brook seemed cool and pleasant as they gurgled by, and occasionally a breath of wind blew over from the woods. For the rest, he lay so still on this fine, indolent, dreamy morning that the birds around seemed to take no note of his presence, and one of the large woodpeckers, with his scarlet head and green body brilliant in the sun, flew close by him and disappeared into the bushes opposite like a sudden gleam of color shot by a diamond.

"Next month," he was thinking to himself as he lay with his hands behind his head, not caring to shade his handsome and well-tanned face from the warm sun—"next month I shall be twenty-one, and most folks will consider me a man. Anyhow, I don't know the man whom I wouldn't fight or run or ride or shoot against for any wager he liked. But of all the people who know anything about me, just that one whose opinion I care for will not consider me a man at all, but only a boy. And that without saying anything. You can tell, somehow, by a mere look, what her feelings are; and you know that what she thinks is true. Of course it's true—I am only a boy. What's the good of me to anybody? I could look after a farm—that is, I could look after other people doing their work—but I couldn't do any work myself. And that seems to me what she is always looking at: 'What's the good of you, what are you doing, what are you busy about?' It's all very well for her to be busy, for she can do a hundred thousand things, and she is always at them. What can I do?"

Then his wandering day-dreamings took another turn: "It was an odd thing for Mabyn to say—'That is when you are in love with some one.' But those girls take everything for love. They don't know how you can admire, almost to worshiping, the goodness of a woman, and how you are anxious that she should be well and happy, and how you would do anything in the world to please her, without fancying straight away that you are in love with her, and want to marry her and drive about in the same carriage with her. I shall be quite as fond of Wenna Rosewarne when she is married, although I shall hate that little brute with his rum and his treacle. The cheek of him, in asking her to marry him, is astonishing. He is the most hideous little beast that could have been picked out to marry any woman, but I suppose he has appealed to her compassion, and then she'll do anything. But if there was anybody else in love with her, if she cared the least bit about anybody else, wouldn't I go straight to her and insist on her shunting that fellow aside? What claim has he on any other feeling of hers but her compassion? Why, if that fellow were to come and try to frighten her, and if I were in the affair, and if she appealed to me even by a look, then there would be short work with something or somebody."

He got up hastily, with something of a gloomy and angry look on his face. He did not notice that he had startled all the birds around from out of the bushes. He picked up his rod and line in a morose fashion, not seeming to care about adding to the half dozen small and red-speckled trout he had in his basket.

While he was thus irresolutely standing he caught sight of a girl's figure coming rapidly along the valley under the shadow of some ash trees growing by the stream. It was Wenna Rosewarne herself, and she seemed to be hurrying toward him. She was carrying some black object in her arms.

"Oh, Mr. Trelyon," she said, "what am I to do with this little dog? I saw him kicking in the road and foaming at the mouth; and then he got up and ran, and I caught him—"

Before she had time to say anything more the young man made a sudden dive at the dog, caught hold of him and turned and heaved him into the stream. He fell into a little pool of clear brown water: he spluttered and paddled there for a second, then he got his footing and scrambled across the stones up to the opposite bank, where he began shaking the water from his coat among the long grass.

"Oh, how could you be so disgracefully cruel?" she said, with her face full of indignation.

"And how could you be so imprudent?"' he said quite as vehemently. "Why, whose is the dog?"

"I don't know."

"And you catch up some mongrel little cur in the middle of the highway—He might have been mad."

"I knew he wasn't mad," she said: "it was only a fit; and how could you be so cruel as to throw him into the river?"

"Oh," said the young man, coolly, "a clash of cold water is the best thing for a dog that has a fit. Besides, I don't care what he had or what I did with him, so long as you are safe. Your little finger is of more consequence than the necks of all the curs in the country."

"Oh, it is mean of you to say that," she retorted warmly. "You have no pity for those wretched little things that are at every one's mercy. If it were a handsome and beautiful dog, now, you would care for that, or if it were a dog that was skilled in getting game for you, you would care for that."

"Yes, certainly," he said: "these are dogs that have something to recommend them."

"Yes, and every one is good to them: they are not in need of your favor. But you don't think of the wretched little brutes that have nothing to recommend them, that only live on sufferance, that every one kicks and despises and starves."

"Well," said he with some compunction, "look there! That new friend of yours—he's no great beauty, you must confess—is all right now. The bath has cured him. As soon as he's done licking his paws he'll be off home, wherever that may be. But I've always noticed that about you, Wenna: you're always on the side of things that are ugly and helpless and useless in the world; and you're not very just to those who don't agree with you. For after all, you know, one wants time to acquire that notion of yours—that it is only weak and ill-favored creatures that are worthy of the least consideration."

"Yes," she said rather sadly, "you want time to learn that."

He looked at her. Did she mean that her sympathy with those who were weak and ill-favored arose from some strange consciousness that she herself was both? His cheeks began to burn red. He had often heard her hint something like that, and yet he had never dared to reason with her or show her what he thought of her. Should he do so now?

"Wenna," he said, blushing hotly, "I can't make you out sometimes. You speak as if no one cared for you. Now, if I were to tell you—"

"Oh, I am not so ungrateful," she said hastily. "I know that two or three do; and—and, Mr. Trelyon, do you think you could coax that little dog over the stream again? You see he has come back again—he can't find his way home."

Mr. Trelyon called to the dog: it came down to the river's side, and whined and shivered on the brink.

"Do you care a brass farthing about the little beast?" he said to Wenna.

"I must put him on his way home," she answered.

Thereupon the young man went straight through the stream to the other side, jumping the deeper portions of the channel: he caught up the dog and brought it back to her; and when she was very angry with him for this mad performance, he merely kicked some of the water out of his trousers and laughed.

Then a smile broke over her face also. "Is that an example of what people would do for me?" she said shyly. "Mr. Trelyon, you must keep walking through the warm grass till your feet are dry; or will you come along to the inn, and I shall get you some shoes and stockings? Pray do, and at once. I am rather in a hurry."

"I'll go along with you, anyway," he said, "and put this little brute into the highway. But why are you in a hurry?"

"Because," said Wenna, as they set out to walk down the valley—"because my mother and I are going to Penzance the day after to-morrow, and I have a lot of things to get ready."

"To Penzance?" said he with a sudden falling of the face.

"Yes. She has been dreadfully out of sorts lately, and she has sunk into a kind of despondent state. The doctor says she must have a change—a holiday, really—to take her away from the cares of the house—"

"Why, Wenna, it's you who want the holiday—it's you who have the cares of the house," Trelyon said warmly.

"And so I have persuaded her to go to Penzance for a week or two, and I go with her to look after her. Mr. Trelyon, would you be kind enough to keep Rock for me until we come back? I am afraid of the servants neglecting him."

"You needn't be afraid of that: he's not one of the ill-favored—every one will attend to him," said Trelyon; and then he added, after a minute or two of silence, "The fact is, I think I shall be at Penzance also while you are there. My cousin Juliott is coming here in about a fortnight to celebrate the important event of my coming of age, and I promised to go for her. I might as well go now."

She said nothing.

"I might as well go any time," he said rather impatiently. "I haven't got anything to do. Do you know, before you came along just now, I was thinking what a very useful person you were in the world, and what a very useless person I was—about as useless as this little cur. I think somebody should take me up and heave me into a river. And I was wondering, too"—here he became a little more embarrassed and slow of speech—"I was wondering what you would say if I spoke to you, and gave you a hint that sometimes—that sometimes one might wish to cut this lazy life if one only knew how, and whether so very busy a person as yourself mightn't—don't you see?—give one some notion—some sort of hint, in fact—"

"Oh, but then, Mr. Trelyon," she said quite cheerfully, "you would think it very strange if I asked you to take any interest in the things that keep me busy. That is not a man's work. I wouldn't accept you as a pupil."

He burst out laughing. "Why," said he, "do you think I offered to mend stockings and set sums on slates and coddle babies?"

"As for setting sums on slates," she remarked with a quiet impertinence, "the working of them out might be of use to you."

"Yes, and a serious trouble too," he said candidly. "No, no—that cottage business ain't in my line. I like to have a joke with the old folks or a romp with the kids, but I can't go in for cutting out pinafores. I shall leave my mother to do my share of that for me; and hasn't she come out strong lately, eh? It's quite a new amusement for her, and it's driven a deal of that organ-grinding and stuff out of her head; and I've a notion some o' those parsons—"

He stopped short, remembering who his companion was; and at this moment they came to a gate which opened out on the highway, through which the small cur was passed to find his way home.

"Now, Miss Wenna," said the young man—"By the way, you see how I remember to address you respectfully ever since you got sulky with me about it the other day?"

"I am sure I did not get sulky with you, and especially about that," she remarked with much composure. "I suppose you are not aware that you have dropped the 'Miss' several times this morning already?"

"Did I, really? Well, then, I'm awfully sorry; but then you are so good-natured you tempt one to forget; and my mother she always calls you Wenna Rosewarne now in speaking to me, as if you were a little school-girl, instead of being the chief support and pillar of all the public affairs of Eglosilyan. And now, Miss Wenna, I sha'n't go down the road with you, because my damp boots and garments would gather the dust; but perhaps you wouldn't mind stopping two seconds here, and I'm going to go a cracker and ask you a question: What should a fellow in my position try to do? You see, I haven't had the least training for any one of the professions, even if I had any sort of capacity—"

"But why should you wish to have a profession?" she said simply. "You have more money than is good for you already."

"Then you don't think it ignominious," he said, with his face lighting up considerably, "to fish in summer and shoot in autumn and hunt in winter, and make that the only business of one's life?"

"I should if it were the only business, but it needn't be, and you don't make it so. My father speaks very highly of the way you look after your property; and he knows what attending to an estate is. And then you have so many opportunities of being kind and useful to the people about you that you might do more good that way than by working night and day at a profession. Then you owe much to yourself, because if every one began with himself, and educated himself, and became satisfied and happy with doing his best, there would be no bad conduct and wretchedness to call for interference. I don't see why you should be ashamed of shooting and hunting and all that, and doing them as well as anybody else, or far better, as I hear people say. I don't think a man is bound to have ambition and try to become famous: you might be of much greater use in the world, even in such a little place as Eglosilyan, than if you were in Parliament. I did say to Mrs. Trelyon that I should like to see you in Parliament, because one has a natural pride in any person one admires and likes very much, and one wishes—"

He saw the quick look of fear that sprang to her eyes—not a sudden appearance of shy embarrassment, but of absolute fear—and he was almost as startled by her blunder as she herself was. He hastily came to her rescue. He thanked her in a few rapid and formal words for her patience and advice; and, as he saw she was trying to turn away and hide the mortification visible on her face, he shook hands with her and let her go.

Then he turned. He had been startled, it is true, and grieved to see the pain her chance words had caused her. But now a great glow of delight rose up within him, and he could have called aloud to the blue skies and the silent woods because of the joy that filled his heart. They were but chance words, of course. They were uttered with no deliberate intention: on the contrary, her quick look of pain showed how bitterly she regretted the blunder. Moreover, he congratulated himself on his rapid piece of acting, and assured himself that she would believe that he had not noticed that admission of hers. They were idle words: she would forget them. The incident, so far as she was concerned, was gone.

But not so far as he was concerned. For now he knew that the person whom, above all other persons in the world, he was most desirous to please, whose respect and esteem he was most anxious to obtain, had not only condoned much of his idleness out of the abundant charity of her heart, but had further, and by chance, revealed to him that she gave him some little share of that affection which she seemed to shed generously and indiscriminately on so many folks and things around her. He, too, was now in the charmed circle. He walked with a new pride through the warm, green meadows, his rod over his shoulder: he whistled as he went, or he sang snatches of "The Rose of Allandale." He met two small boys out bird's-nesting: he gave them a shilling apiece, and then inconsistently informed them that if he caught them then or at any other time with a bird's nest in their hands he would cuff their ears. Then he walked hastily home, put by his fishing-rod, and shut himself up in his study with half a dozen of those learned volumes which he had brought back unsoiled from school.



CHAPTER XXII.

ON WINGS OF HOPE.

When Trelyon arrived late one evening at Penzance he was surprised to find his uncle's coachman awaiting him at the station: "What's the matter, Tobias? Is the old gentleman going to die? You don't mean to say you are here for me?"

"Yaaes, zor, I be," said the little old man with no great courtesy.

"Then he is going to die if he sends out his horse at this time o' night. Look here, Tobias: I'll put my portmanteau inside and come on the box to have a talk with you—you're such a jolly old card, you know—and you'll tell me all that's happened since I last enjoyed my uncle's bountiful hospitality."

This the young man did: and then the brown-faced, wiry and surly little person, having started his horse, proceeded to tell his story in a series of grumbling and disconnected sentences. He was not nearly so taciturn as he looked: "The maaester he went suen to bed to-night: 'twere Miss Juliott sent me to the station, without tellin' en. He's gettin' worse and worse, that's sure: if yue be for giving me half a crown, like, or any one that comes to the house, he finds it out and stops it out o' my wages: yes, he does, zor, the old fule!"

"Tobias, be a little more respectful to my uncle, if you please."

"Why, zor, yue knaw en well enough," said the man in the same surly fashion. "And I'll tell yue this, Maaester Harry, if yue be after dinner with en, and he has a bottle o' poort wine that he puts on the mantelpiece, and he says to yue to let that aloaen, vor 'tis a medicine-zart o' wine, don't yue heed en, but have that wine. 'Tis the real old poort wine, zor, that yuer vather gied en—the dahmned old pagan!"

The young man burst out laughing, instead of reprimanding Tobias, who maintained his sulky impassiveness of face.

"Why, zor, I be gardener now, too: yaaes I be, to save the wages. And he's gone clean mazed about that garden—yaaes, I think. Would yue believe this, Maaester Harry, that he killed every one o' the blessed strawberries last year with a lot o' wrack from the bache, because he said it wued be as good for them as for the 'sparagus?"

"Well, but the old chap finds amusement in pottering about the garden—" said Master Harry.

"The old fule!" repeated Tobias, in an under tone.

"And the theory is sound about the seaweed and the strawberries; just as his old notion of getting a green rose by pouring sulphate of copper in at the roots."

"Yaaes, that were another pretty thing, Maaester Harry, and he had the tin labels all printed out in French, and he waited and waited, and there bain't a fairly guede rose left in the garden. And his violet glass for the cucumbers: he burned en up to once, although 'twere fine to hear'n talk about the sunlight and the rays and such nonsenses. He be a strange mahn, zor, and a dahmned close'n with his penny-pieces, Christian and all as he calls his-sen. There's Miss Juliott, zor, she's go-in' to get married, I suppose; and when she goes no one 'll dare spake to 'n. Be yue going to stop long this time, Maaester Harry?"

"Not at the Hollies, Tobias. I shall go down to the Queen's to-morrow: I've got rooms there."

"So much the better—so much the better," said the frank but inhospitable retainer; and presently the jogtrot old animal between the shafts was pulled up in front of a certain square old-fashioned building of gray stone which was prettily surrounded with trees. They had arrived at the Rev. Mr. Penaluna's house, and there was a young lady standing in the light of the hall, she having opened the door very softly as she heard the carriage drive up.

"So here you are, Harry; and you'll stay with us the whole fortnight, won't you? Come in to the dining-room—I have some supper ready for you. Papa's gone to bed, and he desired me to give you his excuses, and he hopes you'll make yourself quite at home, as you always do, Harry."

He did make himself quite at home, for, having kissed his cousin and flung his topcoat down in the hall, he went into the dining-room and took possession of an easy-chair.

"Sha'n't have any supper, Jue, thank you. You won't mind my lighting a cigar—somebody's been smoking here already. And what's the least poisonous claret you've got?"

"Well, I declare!" she said, but she got him the wine all the same, and watched him light his cigar: then she took the easy-chair opposite.

"Tell us about your young man, Jue," he said. "Girls always like to talk about that."

"Do they?" she said. "Not to boys."

"I shall be twenty-one in a fortnight. I am thinking of getting married."

"So I hear," she remarked quietly.

Now he had been talking nonsense at random, mostly intent on getting his cigar well lit, but this little observation rather startled him. "What have you heard?" he said abruptly.

"Oh, nothing—the ordinary stupid gossip," she said, though she was watching him rather closely. "Are you going to stay with us for the next fortnight?"

"No, I have got rooms at the Queen's."

"I thought so. One might have expected you, however, to stay with your relations when you came to Penzance."

"Oh, that's all gammon, Jue," he said: "you know very well your father doesn't care to have any one stay with you—it's too much bother. You'll have quite enough of me while I am in Penzance."

"Shall we have anything of you?" she said with apparent indifference. "I understood that Miss Rosewarne and her mamma had already come here."

"And what if they have?" he said with unnecessary fierceness.

"Well, Harry," she said, "you needn't get unto a temper about it, but people will talk, you know; and they say that your attentions to that young lady are rather marked, considering that she is engaged to be married; and you have induced your mother to make a pet of her. Shall I go on?"

"No, you needn't," he said with a strong effort to overcome his anger. "You're quite right—people do talk, but they wouldn't talk so much if other people didn't carry tales. Why, it isn't like you, Jue! I thought you were another sort. And about this girl, of all girls in the world!"

He got up and began walking about the room, and talking with considerable vehemence, but no more in anger. He would tell her what cause there was for this silly gossip. He would tell her who this girl was who had been lightly mentioned. And in his blunt, frank, matter-of-fact way, which did not quite conceal his emotion, he revealed to his cousin all that he thought of Wenna Rosewarne, and what he hoped for her in the future, and what their present relations were, and then plainly asked her if she could condemn him.

Miss Juliott was touched: "Sit down, Harry: I have wanted to talk to you, and I don't mean to heed any gossip. Sit down, please—you frighten me by walking up and down like that. Now, I'm going to talk common sense to you, for I should like to be your friend; and your mother is so easily led away by any sort of sentiment that she isn't likely to have seen with my eyes. Suppose that this Miss Rosewarne—"

"No, hold hard a bit, Jue," he said imperatively. "You may talk till the millennium, but just keep off her, I warn you."

"Will you hear me out, you silly boy? Suppose that Miss Rosewarne is everything that you believe her to be. I'm going to grant that, because I'm going to ask you a question. You can't have such an opinion of any girl, and be constantly in her society, and go following her about like this, without falling in love with her. Now, in that case would you propose to marry her?"

"I marry her!" he said, his face becoming suddenly pale for a moment. "Jue, you are mad! I am not fit to marry a girl like that. You don't know her. Why—"

"Let all that alone, Harry: when a man is in love with a woman he always thinks he's good enough for her; and whether he does or not he tries to get her for a wife. Don't let us discuss your comparative merits: one might even put in a word for you. But suppose you drifted into being in love with her—and I consider that quite probable—and suppose you forgot, as I know you would forget, the difference in your social position, how would you like to go and ask her to break her promise to the gentleman to whom she is engaged?"

Master Harry laughed aloud in a somewhat nervous fashion: "Him? Look here, Jue: leave me out of it—I haven't the cheek to talk of myself in that connection—but if there was a decent sort of fellow whom that girl really took a liking to, do you think he would let that elderly and elegant swell out in Jamaica stand in his way? He would be no such fool, I can tell you. He would consider the girl first of all. He would say to himself, 'I mean to make this girl happy; if any one interferes, let him look out!' Why, Jue, you don't suppose any man would be frightened by that sort of thing?"

Miss Juliott did not seem quite convinced by this burst of scornful oratory. She continued quietly, "You forget something, Harry. Your heroic young man might find it easy to do something wild—to fight with that gentleman in the West Indies, or murder him, or anything like that, just as you see in a story—but perhaps Miss Rosewarne might have something to say."

"I meant if she cared for him," Trelyon said, looking down.

"Granting that also, do you think it likely your hot-headed gentleman would be able to get a young lady to disgrace herself by breaking her plighted word and deceiving a man who went away trusting in her? You say she has a very tender conscience—that she is so anxious to consult every one's happiness before her own, and all that. Probably it is true. I say nothing against her. But to bring the matter back to yourself—for I believe you're hot-headed enough to do anything—what would you think of her if you or anybody else persuaded her to do such a treacherous thing?"

"She is not capable of treachery," he said somewhat stiffly. "If you've got no more cheerful things to talk about, you'd better go to bed, Jue. I shall finish my cigar by myself."

"Very well, then, Harry. You know your room. Will you put out the lamp when you have lit your candle?"

So she went, and the young man was left alone in no very enviable frame of mind. He sat and smoked while the clock on the mantelpiece swung its gilded boy and struck the hours and half hours with unheeded regularity. He lit a second cigar, and a third; he forgot the wine. It seemed to him that he was looking on all the roads of life that lay before him, and they were lit up by as strange and new a light as that which was beginning to shine over the world outside. New fancies seemed to awake with the new dawn. For himself to ask Wenna Rosewarne to be his wife! Could he but win the tender and shy regard of her eyes he would fall at her feet and bathe them with his tears. And if this wonderful thing were possible—if she could put her hand in his and trust to him for safety in all the coming years they might live together—what man of woman born would dare to interfere? There was a blue light coming in through the shutters. He went to the window: the topmost leaves of the trees were quivering in the cold air far up there in the clearing skies, where the stars were fading out one by one, and he could hear the sound of the sea on the distant beach, and he knew that across the gray plain of waters the dawn was breaking, and that over the sleeping world another day was rising that seemed to him the first day of a new and tremulous life, full of joy and courage and hope.

[TO BE CONTINUED.]



ON THE VIA SAN BASILIO.

In Rome, 1851; a cold, dreary day in December—one of those days in which a man's ambition seems to desert him entirely, leaving only its grinning skeleton to mock him. Depressing as was the weather to a man who had cheerfulness as a companion by which to repel its blustering attacks, and raise his mind above the despondency it was calculated to produce, how much more so to one whose hope had gone out as a flickering lamp in a sudden gust of wind, and the sharp steel of whose ambition had turned to pierce his own heart!

Such a man, on the day mentioned, was walking along the Via San Basilio. He was small in stature, poorly clad, and so thin, and even cadaverous, that the casual observer might have been under apprehension lest a gust of wind a little stronger than the average might blow him entirely away; yet his air and manner were proud and haughty, and what little evidences of feeling peered through the signs of dissipation too apparent on his naturally attractive face were those of genuine refinement. He was accompanied by a cicerone, or servant, as villainous-looking a fellow as one often meets, even in Italy, where an evil expression is so often seen stamped on handsome features.

Along the Via San Basilio the two men walked until they stood opposite the door of No. 51. Sacred ground this, and historical as well. Art had her votaries here, as the tourist of to-day will find she still has, at whose shrines pilgrims from afar and from near worshiped, and grew better and stronger for their ministrations. Crawford, then at the acme of his fame, had his constantly-thronged studio in the immediate vicinity, while those at No. 51 embraced, among others, that of Tenerani, the famous Italian sculptor, whose work is always in such fine dramatic taste, although he never sacrifices his love and deep feeling of reverence for Nature, combining that with the most delightful charms of Greek art. Among this artist's most noted works will be remembered his "Descent from the Cross," which tourists visiting the Torlonia chapel in the Lateran never gaze upon without a thrill. The house was owned and also occupied by Bienaime, a French sculptor who afterward became famous.

In the immediate vicinity stands the famous Palazzo Barberini, begun by Urban VIII. (Maffeo Barberini), who sat in the pontifical chair from 1623 to 1644, and finished by Bernini in 1640. This palace contains many paintings of historical interest by Raphael, Titian, Guido, Claude and others. The one by the first-mentioned artist is a Fornarina, and bears the autograph of the painter on the armlet. But the picture that attracts the most attention here is one of world-wide reputation, copies, engravings and photographs of which are everywhere to be met with—Guido's Beatrice Cenci. A great divergence of opinion, as is well known, exists in regard to the portrait. It bears the pillar and crown of the Colonnas, to which family it probably belonged. According to the family tradition, it was taken on the night before her execution. Other accounts state that it was painted by Guido from memory after he had seen her on the scaffold. Judging from the position in which the poor girl's head is represented, one would more readily give credence to the latter story, and think the artist's memory had preserved her look and position as she turned her head for a last look at the brutal, bellowing crowd behind.

In the piazza of the palace is a very beautiful fountain, utilized by one of the oldest Roman statues, representing a faun blowing water from a conch-shell.

But we must return to the Via San Basilio, and the two wayfarers we left standing in front of No. 51. After gazing a moment at the number to assure themselves that they were right, they entered, and knocked at the first door, which was opened by the occupant of the apartment. He was an artist and a man of very marked characteristics. Seven years later Hawthorne wrote as follows of him: "He is a plain, homely Yankee, quite unpolished by his many years' residence in Italy. He talks ungrammatically; walks with a strange, awkward gait and stooping shoulders; is altogether unpicturesque, but wins one's confidence by his very lack of grace. It is not often that we see an artist so entirely free from affectation in his aspect and deportment. His pictures were views of Swiss and Italian scenery, and were most beautiful and true. One of them, a moonlight picture, was really magical—the moon shining so brightly that it seemed to throw a light even beyond the limits of the picture; and yet his sunrises and sunsets, and noontides too, were nowise inferior to this, although their excellence required somewhat longer study to be fully appreciated."

After this introduction by our sweet and quaint romancer, the reader will hardly need be told that the two strangers stood in the presence of America's now illustrious artist, George L. Brown. But one seeing him then, as he stood almost scowling at the two strangers, would hardly have idealized him into the artist whose pencil has done so much of late years to give American art a distinctive name through his poetical delineations of the rare, sun-tinted atmosphere that hovers over Italian landscapes. However, our apology for him must be that the day was raw and blustering, and that he had no sooner caught sight of the men through his window, as they hesitatingly entered the door, than his suspicions were aroused.

The Italian acted as spokesman, and inquired if there were any rooms to let in the building. Brown, thinking this the easiest way of ridding himself of the visitors, went in search of the landlord, who came, and after a moment's conversation the whole party entered the studio, much to its owner's displeasure.

The cicerone did most of the talking, though now and then the other made a remark or two in broken Italian. But this was only for the first few moments. He soon became oblivious of all save art, of which one could see at a glance he was passionately fond. One of Mr. Brown's pictures—a large one he was then engaged on—particularly attracted his attention. He drew closer and closer to the canvas, examining it with a minuteness that showed the connoisseur, and finally remarked: "It is very fine in color, sir, and the atmosphere is delicious. Why have I not heard of you before?" examining the corner of the canvas for the artist's name, but speaking in a tone and with an air that gave Brown the impression he was indulging in the random flattery so current in studios. So, ignoring the question, he asked with a slight shrug of the shoulders, "Are you an artist?"

"I paint a little," was the reply, with an air of modesty which Brown mistook for the bashful half-assertion of some daubing amateur.

Just then the cicerone came forward and announced that the bargain was completed and the room ready for occupancy.

"I shall be happy—no, happy is not a good word for me—I shall be glad to see you in my studio when I have moved in, and perhaps you may see some things to please you."

So saying, the stranger departed, leaving Brown not a whit better impressed with him than at first.

The next morning the two called again, when the gentleman made an examination of the room selected the day before, having met Mr. Brown in the hall-way and invited him in. On entering, the new occupant took from his pocket a piece of chalk and a compass and made a number of circles and figures on the floor to determine when the sun would shine in the room. Brown watched him with a certain degree of curiosity and amusement, and finally, concluding he was half crazy, returned to his own studio.

The next day the cicerone called alone to see about some repairs, when Brown hailed him: "Buono giorno. Che e questo?" ("Good-day. Who is that?")

"Non sapete?" ("Don't you know?"), was the Italian's response. "Why, that is the celebrated Brullof."

Brown started as though shot. First there flashed through his brain the remembrance of how cavalierly he had treated the distinguished artist, and then a quick panorama of his recent history, which had been the gossip of studios and art-circles for some time back. "I must go to him," he said, "and apologize for not treating him with more deference."

"Non, signore," was the cicerone's response. "Never mind: let it rest. He is a man of the world, and pays little heed to such things. Besides, he is so overwhelmed with his private griefs that he has probably noticed no slight."

However, when the great Russian artist took possession of his studio his American brother of the pencil made his apology, and received this response; "Don't waste words on so trivial a matter. Do I not court the contempt of a world that I despise to my heart's core? Say no more about it. Run in and see me when agreeable; and if you have no better callers than such a plaything of fate as I, maybe you will not refuse me occasional admittance."

The Russian artist now shunned notoriety as he had formerly courted it. Little is known of his history beyond mere rumor, and that only in artistic circles. He was born at St. Petersburg in 1799 or 1800, and gave himself to the study of art at an early age, becoming an especial proficient in color and composition. One of his most widely-known works is "The Last Days of Pompeii," which created great enthusiasm a quarter of a century ago. This, however, was painted during his career of dissipation, and its vivid coloring seemed to have been drawn from a soul morbid with secret woes and craving a nepenthe which never came.

The young artist was petted and idolized by the wealth and nobility of St. Petersburg, where he married a beautiful woman, and became court-painter to the czar Nicholas about the year 1830. For some years no couple lived more happily, and no artist swayed a greater multitude of fashion and wealth than he; but scandal began to whisper that the czar was as fond of the handsome, brilliant wife of the young court-painter as the cultivated people of St. Petersburg were of the husband's marvelously colored works; and when at last the fact became known to Brullof that the monarch who had honored him through an intelligent appreciation of art had dishonored him through a guilty passion for his wife, he left St. Petersburg, swore never again to set foot on Russian soil or be recognized as a Russian subject, and, plunging headlong into a wild career of dissipation, was thenceforth a wanderer up and down the continent of Europe.

It was when this career had borne its inevitable fruit, and he was but a mere wreck of the polished gentleman of a few years previous, that Brullof came to the Via San Basilio, where, as soon as the fact became known, visitors began to call. Among the first were the Russian ambassador and suite, who were driven up in a splendid carriage, with liveried attendants; but after the burly Italian had announced to his master who was in waiting, the door was closed, and with no message in return the representatives of the mightiest empire on the globe were left to withdraw with the best grace they could muster for the occasion. Similar scenes were repeated often during the entire Roman season. He saw but few of his callers—Russians, never.

The Russian and the American artists became quite intimate during the few months they were thrown together, and Mr. Brown has acknowledged that he owes much of the success of his later efforts to hints received from the self-exiled, dying Russian.

"Mr. Brown," he said on one occasion, while examining the picture on the artist's easel, "no one since Claude has painted atmosphere as you do. But you must follow Calame's example, and make drawing more of a study. Draw from Nature, and do it faithfully, and with your atmosphere I will back you against the world. That is bad," pointing to the huge limb of a tree in the foreground: "it bulges both ways, you see. Now, Nature is never so. Look at my arm," speaking with increased animation, and suddenly throwing off his coat and rolling up his shirt-sleeve. "When you see a convexity, you will see concavity opposite. Just so in Nature, especially in the trunks and limbs of trees."