"I thank you," replied the stranger, with a courteous bow, in a gentle voice, but I am more incommoded by the contined air inside a coach than by the free atmosphere without, however sharp it may be, and you see I am well guarded against its attacks." and mexperienced as he was, had plunged him | an observer would have guessed him to be into a state of great mental distress. Not only young, and by no means uncomely. Concluding bad his fond illusion with reference to Ellen him to be an invalid, Allan, somewhat ashamed teen suddenly and painfully dispelled, but his of the churlish silence he had hitherto mainfeelings in every direction had been sorely wrung. tained towards his fellow-travellers, expressed To part thus suddenly, and for a period of which a hope that he experienced no inconvenience be saw not the termination, from the mother to from the cold wind then blowing in their faces, whom he was so devotedly attached, and whom adding that, if he were subject to any pectora! be had never hitherto quitted; from the brother complaint, it might have been more prudent to whom he loved so dearly; from Adam Brown, travel inside. whose friendship he had so many motives for cultivating, and whose disapproval of his flight had been so energetically expressed; from Woodcote, in which he had passed so many happy years; and to go forth upon the wide world, friendless and alone, without even any definite plan as to whither he should turn, or how he should employ himself-the violent severing of all these ties was like tearing his heart up by the roots. There was hope, indeed, at the bottom of the Pandora's box now opening before him, for he trusted that his voluntary exile might tend to prosper the fortunes and the loves of Ellen and Walter; but this wish, sweet and gratifying as it was, did not prevent the tears from gathering in his eyes, as he sat on the top of the London coach, almost unconscious whither he was wending, and too deeply immersed in his own sad thoughts to pay the least attention to his fellow-passengers. "I believe," resumed Allan, "that Cheltenham and its vicinity, which I have just left, are considered very favourable for persons affected by pulmonary ailments. A friend of mine, who used to suffer much from asthma, finds himself considerably better since he came to reside under the Cotswold Hills, at a place called Woodcote." "Woodcote !" ejaculated the stranger, "Yes, you may possibly have heard of him, his name is Adam Brown." "Adam Brown!" echoed the man, reddening suddenly, and fidgeting in his seat. "Yes; do you know him ?" Who is "Not I: how should I know him? he? what is he? where is Woodcote? I never heard of it-never heard of him." His auditor tone in which this was spoken, so different from the placid blandness of his previous demeanour; but, attributing it to the irritability of an invalid, he endeavoured to continue the conversation by some commonplace remarks on the scenery. His companion, however, made no reply, and, as the stage again moved on, he closed his eyes, nodded his head, and fell, or appeared to fall, into a deep sleep, so that Allan relapsed into silence and melancholy thoughts for another ten or twelve miles, when the stage again stopped to change horses, drawing up under a sign suspended over the middle of the road. Sometimes, while perusing plays or novels of which the scene was laid in London, he had felt a wish to visit the mighty metropolis, to inspect its time-hallowed and story-fraught public build-was struck by the agitated manner and husky ings, to gaze upon its magnificence, to mingle With its countless population, to enjoy for a short time its unrivalled shows and gayeties: but now that he was on the point of realizing all that he had desired, his glittering aspirations faded altogether from his mind, and his thoughts reverted with a regretful yearning to the loved home from which he was flying, and where the current of his life had hitherto flowed on with such unvaried serenity and peace. Everything now recalled to him that happy home, the villages that he passed being only noticed that they might reflect back to him some feature of Woodcote. Every cottage that resembled his, mother's; every green, or brook, or clump of trees, that bore the smallest likeness to similar objects in the vicinity of his abode, served but to increase his sadness; even the odours that were wafted from the fields or gardens were unrefreshing to his imagination, for they reminded him of the many delightful walks he had taken with his mother, or Ellen, or Walter, through scented bean-fields or by May-flower hedges-waiks rendered still sweeter by that dear companionship -walks which perchance might never be re sumed! It chanced that, at this moment, a workman, bestriding the cross-pole whence it hung, was securing it by an additional nail, for it had received some damage, when the noise of his hammer, arousing the stranger from his slumber, occasioned him to look suddenly up and to fix his eyes upon the carpenter for nearly half a minute, during which brief interval he drew the lower part of his face out of the respirator. At this moment Allan observed that he had a deep scar on the left side of his cheek-a circumstance which he would probably have forgotten as soon as he had noticed it, had he not recolFrom this mournful revery he was not awaken- lected that Chubbs had described the mysteed until they had completed nearly half their rious monk as having an exactly similar mark. journey, when his attention was aroused by the Coupling this fact with his evident emotion at somewhat singular appearance of a man who the mention of Woodcote, he could not help mounted the coach while the horses were being fixing his eyes upon him with an eager and a changed, and sat down beside him. Wrapped penetrating look, which was no sooner detected up in a large loose cloak, which concealed the by his fellow-traveller than he replaced the whole upper portion of his form, his eyes en-respirator in evident confusion, and changed his cased in green goggles, while his throat and mouth were enveloped in a black respirator, such as is worn by persons of weak lungs, it was not easy to form a notion either of his general cast of countenance or of his age; but so far as an opinion might be risked from the contour of his form and the visible portion of his face, position to the back of the roof, merely saying that he was afraid to face the cold wind any longer. This movement rather tending to confirm Allan's suspicions, he felt strongly tempted to sound him by making some allusion to Chubbs and his cart, but in his present position it wi not easy to hold a parley with him, and, had it | been practicable, he began to doubt, after a little consideration, whether it would be justifiable. Chubbs had not spoken very positively as to this supposed cicatrice; even if he were correct in describing it, other men might be similarly marked; and he felt that he had no right to cross-question a fellow-traveller thus casually encountered, still less to presume that he had been engaged in a night adventure of so mysterious, not to say so disreputable a character. Besides, the person they had seen in a monastic dress was represented, both by Chubbs and Brown, as old and bald-headed, whereas the individual who had just left his side was apparently young, and wore a bushy head of hair. As he was evidently, however, anxious to conceal himself, Allan, in spite of these discrepancies, continued to associate him with the runaway monk, and determined to keep his eye upon him during the remainder of the journey, in the hope that something might occur before they reached London to confirm or rebut his suspicions. Great, therefore, was his mortification on finding, when they again stopped, that he had left the coach, having got down, as it appeared, at the foot of the last hill, and struck immediately into a crossroad. The coachman stated, when questioned on the subject, that he had never seen the gentleman before; that he had no luggage whatever, not even a carpetbag; and that he had paid his fare to London. It was evident, then, that he had intended to proceed thither a design which he would appear to have abandoned on account of the accidental exposure of his chin to the scrutiny of his fellowtraveller. Such, at least, was Allan's conjecture, which, whether well founded or not, furnished him with abundant materials for surmise and suspicion, and thus helped to withdraw his thoughts from the consideration of his own grievances. Other considerations, suggested by the novel character of the objects surrounding him, tended to divert his attention, for he was now approaching the mighty metropolis of which he had heard, and read, and thought so much, but which had hitherto presented itself to his imagination as the dim and mysterious phantasm of a province covered with houses, churches, and palaces, rather than as a reality which was ever to be subjected to his waking senses. As yet its position was only signified by a distant and dense mass of vapours, whence the all-surmounting dome of St. Paul's heaved itself up into the air with a graceful majesty, or the gilded cross of some lofty spire would emerge for a moment in the shifting lights of a windy evening, again to be veiled in smoke-clouds, thus stimulating only to disappoint his curiosity. Other and nearer changes attracted his notice as they proceeded. Handsomely appointed carriages of every description, bearing back the rich citizens to their country houses, passed them in quick succession; while the detached villas on either side the road, attesting in every detail the wealth of their occupants, exhibited an air of pretension and a class character of their own. Projecting porticoes, plaster pilasters, and ornamental entablatures of stucco, crowning the narrow wings, affected some claim to architectural design; the plate-glass windows, planted drive, flaunting flower-garden, and wellfenced paddock, wherein pastured two or three Alderney come or the eldest son's best hacknev, dignified with the name or a hunter, showed that the citizen who could afford to live eight or ten miles out of town assumed in some liule degree the character of a country gentleman. As the travellers drew nearer to London, these villas were planted closer to each other, in narrow slips of ground, until at length they could only maintain their independence and isolation from their neighbours by a side doorway and a hall of a few feet diameter. This distinctive dignity shortly disappeared; the squeezed, compact tenements assumed the form of streets, though a slip of front garden, planted with dingy poplars and sickly flowers, struggled by a few faint remnants of expiring rurality to preserve the neighbourhood from absolute Londonism. Again, as they whirled along, another change became manifest in the style of the suburban buildings. Smaller, meaner, dirtier, and still more densely wedged, the houses were brought close up to the foot-pavement for the convenience of the shops, the narrow slip of garden, transferred to the back of the building, being used for drying linen or for the purposes of trade, though even.here a little patch of sooty green, or a few flower-pots, showed an unwillingness to allow the lingering smiles of Nature to be altogether obliterated. While noticing these successive mutations, Allan was struck by the busy throngs of people, the endless varieties of vehicles passing and re passing, the ceaseless noises of wheels, and the clamour of the various cries-a grating dissonance, which increased to a stunning bewilderment when the stage rattled over the paved stones, amid the whole clattering turmoil, and bustle, and hubbub of multitudinous London. A stoppage of some continuance upon Westminster Bridge, where the carriages were blocked up in an immovable mass, while the stream of passengers on either side flowed on without interruption, actually startled him by its strange silence, enabling him, at the same time, to survey the novel scene around him with a more leisurely and collected observation. A few yards in advance of the stagecoach stood a funeral procession, with its sable plumes, returning from a burial in the country; from the deck of a steam-vessel, as it churned its foaming way through the waves beneath, sprang suddenly up the sound of jocund music, to the accompani ment of which a crew of male and female revellers were dancing merrily on the deck; at a little distance were seen two boats, dragging for the body of a female who had committed suicide by throwing herself from the bridge a few hours before; while both upon the land and water the mingled struggle of business and pleas ure, of life and death, was plied with an eagerness that seemed to blind each participator to every fate and every object but his own. At this moment a rather appalling thought flitted athwart the mind of Allan. What if the bridge, unable to support the accumulated masses above, were to be precipitated upon the boats below! Such an idea, in all probability, had not occurred to a single other individual of the whole crowd. Use and daily transit had driven away all thought of danger: besides, when an accommodation of any sort has long continued, we think that it has no longer any right, scarcely indeed any power, to cease. But this was the first time that Allan had crossed sc great a bridge, or seen so vast an assemblage. On his left were the houses of Parliament with all their historical associations, and the venerable Abbey, beneath whose pavement reposed the silent dust which had composed the Etellect and the vigour, the poetry, the science, the wisdom, and the valour of England, since first she had spread her arts and arms over the world, and had asserted her "proud pre-emience of teaching the nations how to live." Turning his eyes in an opposite direction, he swept over the whole western expanse of the city, now glooming in the dim and congregated vapours of evening, and presenting few disaguishable objects but spires and domes, and aa interminable succession of chimneys, each throwing up the smoky veil which was shortly to fall upon its head and hide it for the night. And each of those chimneys," thought Allan, for the houses were no longer visible," commanicates with family firesides, with gilded saloons or cobwebbed hovels, with parties assembled for weal or wo, but, at all events, for the enjoyment of social fellowship; and in all this outstretched mass of buildings, in all this mighty metropolis, with its myriads of inhabitants, I am without a single friend-I am alone. In the solitale of the country there is nothing oppressive, nothing withering; for if we are withdrawn from man, we are brought into nearer and sweeter communion with nature; but to be exiled from her, and all her soul-cheering charms and influences-to stand alone in the desert of a crowded city, without a single sympathizing bosom-to be in the world and not of it-this, this is indeed solitude; it.is more than isolation -it is the living death of the heart." or anything but the viands before them. Though he could not imitate their voracity in this respect, he was so far influenced by the example of his immediate neighbours as to call for a tumbler of warm negus and some biscuits, which he had just concluded when the waiter brought him a newspaper, concluding that its perusal would induce him to order a fresh supply of the beverage. His eye fell listlessly upon the columns, but his thoughts were at Woodcote with his mother, with Ellen, with Walter-with all that he loved upon earth, and all now far, far away from him. As he evinced no disposition to order a replenishment of the tumbler, the waiter informed him that a gentleman would be glad of the paper as soon as it was out of handan application which occasioned an immediate surrender of the broad sheet, and recalled his wandering thoughts. He had intimated his intention of sleeping at the hotel, and, as he found the time beginning to hang heavy upon his hands, he resolved to gratify his curiosity by taking a short stroll in the immediate vicinity. Having arrived just at the hour of dusk, ere the shops were fully lighted, he was dazzled and amazed, when, upon turning into the Quadrant, he found himself surrounded by a blaze of splendour from the gas-illumined windows and lamps, eclipsing even the rays of the full moon, which were thrown slantingly through the inter-columnar spaces, only to fade before the glare of artificial light. The beauty, the magnificence, the singularity of that double colonnade; the apparently interminable extent imparted to it by its winding course; the brightness of meridian day, when he had expected to step forth into the gloomy night; the variety and brilliance of the shops; the crowds of jostling pedestrians; the throng of whirling carriages in the serpentine street, seemed to his astonished senses an enchantment, a dream, that had conjured up some gorgeous scene out of the "Arabian Nights," or, rather, some vision of architectural grandeur from the classic soil of Athens or Rome. Lost in ever-increasing admiration, he paced the Quadrant, on both sides, for upward of an hour, when he returned to his hotel, and shortly retired to rest, anticipating some fantastic dream of the wonders he had seen; but he had scarcely laid his head upon the pillow when all vanished, and his brooding thoughts recurred-not without a feeling of self-reproach at their temporary alienation-to Woodcote, to his mother, to Ellen, to Walter. So completely was he saddened and crushed by this feeling, that the increasing crowds, as he advanced, only deepened the sense of his loneliness, and he closed his eyes in order to shut out the sight of fellow-creatures with whom he had no fellowship, until the coach arrived at the Regent Circus, when he stepped down upon the London pavement with a prostration of spirit such as he had never before experienced. Mechanically following the waiter into the coffeeroom, he stood in the midst of it for two or three minutes, gazing vacantly at the new scene around him, and hardly yet reconciled to the startling fact that he, a stranger, forlorn, helpless, and alone, was actually deposited in the centre of that huge arena wherein a million and a half of human beings were incessantly engazed in the great struggle for subsistence, for distinction, or advancement. Unexcited by ambitious hopes, and unsolicitous for wealth or fane, what business had he, an humble and unaspiring man of the fields, in this. fierce and Though his impetuous feelings had hurried whirring vortex-this metropolitan Maelstrom? him thus suddenly away from home, he had not A waiter dispersed his revery, and brought been so entirely absorbed by them as not to have him back to the business which must be plied formed some plan, however vague and shadowy, alike in town or country, by putting a bill of as to his destination and employment in Lon tare in his hands, and asking what he would be don. Determined not to withdraw one shilling pleased to have for dinner. "Whatever is from the narrow income of his family, already ready," was the reply: an answer which sum- barely sufficient for his mother's comfort, he remoned him in two or three minutes to a small ta- solved to apply to a distant relation, of the name ble and a joint, whose aspect, however inviting, of Lum, a house-agent and auctioneer, residing could not tempt him to eat; for where the head in Bloomsbury, and to solicit his aid in procuand the heart are full of busy thoughts and sad ring for him some employment which might suffeelings, the pleading even of an empty stomach fice to maintain him, until circumstances should will not always be regarded. To Allan, who allow his return to Woodcote. With this perhad never been in a coffee-room before, there son the Latimers had held no communication was something singularly unsocial and selfish for several years, but he was remembered among in the eager haste with which his neighbours, them as a kind-hearted, thriving man of busieach at his own little table, gobbled up their al-ness, with a good many connexions in the city, Lotted portion, without taking notice of anybodys that Allan deemed him the most likely per H son to promote his present views, at all events by his advice, if he could not immediately obtain for him a situation. What this might be, provided only that it were honourable, he cared not, for he had no false pride that he would suffer to interfere with the honest pride of independence. "Throw away, throw away!" cried the Ita1ian, with an indignant gesture. "What do the fools suppose time was made for? And you play better-molto meglio-than when we parted ?" "I think you will say so." "Bene, bene! and you will let me hear you. Stay, stay-aspettate un poco. Can you come now to my lodgings? just by—quite vicino.” Allan having given a willing assent, they turn Having studied a map of London until he had made himself master, as he thought, of the direct route to Bloomsbury, he sallied forth at an early hour of the following morning, again turned into Swallow-street, were admitted by a dirtying into the Quadrant, and again involuntarily stopping to admire its singular beauty, as well as the motley character of the people passing and repassing, who were already numerous. Spruce dapper clerks hurrying to the public offices, substantial shopkeepers walking from their westward or suburban residences, tradeswomen with their baskets and bundles, early Jews, and hawkers, all with eager, business-like faces, afforded a strange contrast to a set of loungers, lodgers in the Quadrant or its immediate vicini-spoil the string-in one cinque, one five minute, ty, dark, untoiletted, mustached, and bewhiskered men, mostly belonging to the Opera, the theatre, or gaming-houses, who sauntered out in slippers to smoke a cigar and while away half an hour before breakfast, or to gaze listlessly at the uninterrupted succession of omnibuses and other vehicles which were conveying a whole mercantile and trading population into the eastern quarters of the metropolis. While thus occupied, Allan heard a sharp, high-pitched voice ejaculate, "Vinti mille dio voli! three fourths, three fourths! Cospetto! what a Jew!" The oath and the peculiar voice were familiar to his ear; he looked round, and beheld a little old man in rather shabby black, with an aquiline nose, and a large, dark, eager eye, carrying his left arm in a sling, while the other leaned upon an umbrella as he paused for a moment in apparent communion with his own impatient thoughts. "Signor Crevetti," exclaimed Allan, "I am delighted to see you. Who would have thought that we should thus meet in London ?" Instantly dropping his right hand over the gold seals of his watch with an assumed air of nonchalance, but with an evident intention to protect those appendages, the Italian peered up in the face of his interrogator, wearing a look of searching though silent suspicion. "No wonder you have forgotten me," said Allan; "it is some time since we met, and yet I saw you often enough when I went over to Cheltenham to take lessons of you on the violoncello. You then used to say that Allan Latimer was the most promising of all your pupils." "Allan Latimer? Maraviglioso! so it is! Ah! you played beautiful, beautiful." And, so saying, he tucked the umbrella under his arm, and shook his pupil's hand with a real cordiality, which he would not have lavished on any but a good performer on his favourite instrument. Taking Allan's arm, and leading him along the Colonnade, the old Italian questioned him as to the cause of his visiting London, and soon obtained from his companion, who was naturally frank and unreserved, the full particulars of his little history, at the conclusion of which he again stopped and inquired, with an anxious look, whether he had continued his practice of the violoncello. "Continued!" exclaimed Allan; "I have done little else; it has become a passion with me, and I have been sometimes blamed for throwing away so much time upor it." looking maid-servant into a narrow door beside a handsome shop, and climbed up three flights of stairs, when the Italian took a key from his pocket, and inducted his companion into a wellfurnished apartment of good dimensions, though the atmosphere, suffused with the mingled odours of coffee and snuff, smelt close and unwholesome. "I never open my window," said Crevetti, who seemed to be aware of this little peculiarity, "because the fog and the damp air he down he go, one half-note below concert pitch.' This must have been an object worth consideration, there being two violoncellos in the room, besides a huge bass in the corner, and several violins dispersed about. "Via! scolajo mio,” cried the master: "there is my own violoncello, the best in all England-all but two and three others: he is tuned this morning; what shall you play?" Allan's eye fell upon some manuscript music on a stand: it was the tender, the mournful, the pathetic passage from the 'Sonnambula,' the Tutto e sciolto-the very piece which he had lately been practising with the greatest assiduity, because it had appealed the most touchingly to his feelings. Anything you like," replied Allan, with the excusable vanity of wishing to surprise his old master. Bene, bene! he is beautiful," replied Crevetti, pointing to the score, seating himself where he could best observe the handling of the instrument, and taking a previous pinch of snuff, that he might not interrupt the performance. After repeated and most energetic cries of "Bravo! bravissimo!" accompanied by vehement gesticulation and amazed upliftings of the shaggy gray eyebrows, Crevetti, when his pupil had concluded, started from his seat, threw his right arm around him, hugged him, kissed his cheek, and then almost danced around him, ejaculating, amid mingled bursts of English and Italian, that he actually wanted words to express his amazement-an averment which was perhaps meant as an excuse for his almost convulsive demonstrations of delight. "My dear Sir," he at length exclaimed, in a tone of profound respect, for he no longer looked upon him in the familiar light of a pupil, "my dear Sir, I am tutto stupefatto: you beat your old master all to a nothing-all the world beat him now. Ecco look here:" and he drew his bandaged hand from its sling. "One two days ago, the lid of a heavy piano fall on him-a hook tear him; there come a-how you call him?—a postema-an imposthume; and here I am, lame of all my fingers for a quindici, for a fortnight — perhaps for as much more." "This is unfortunate," said Allan, "for of course it prevents you playing." "Totalmente. I cannot give my lessons; I cannot play at the Opera-benché, I am one of the band. Ben bene, when I met you I had just seen Carlini: ah! he is a furbo, quite a misero, that old fellow. I showed him my hand, and said, 'What shall I pay you to give my les-dia; and if she is content with your play, you sons till I am well of this maledetto affare?' And shall accompany her at the concert: che dite? be told me, 'Three fourths of what you charge.' Ah, she will like you, molto, mollo !” Fiati mille diavoli! and the old Jew call himself my friend !" 66 If you think I am equal to it." "Bah! you shall have no fear: set you to work in questo punto-now, directly. There is the score; via! I will sit here and listen to you. Wait you till I take my snuff." The passage, as Allan had stated, being quite familiar to him, the bravos and delight of his auditor were not less exuberant and noisy than on his previous per "Have you a servant here who can carry the violoncello round to the Signora's?" demanded Allan, as the time drew near for their appointment. 1 "Not a very friendly offer, I must confess." "Ben bene, this is what I say to you. Ecco, my dear Sir! You want to get a little money for a short time-you shall give my lessons for me. Si, si! you must not shake your head; you are quite able. You shall give my lessons, and I will pay you one half-mezzo-you under-formance; but, as some trifling amendments stand: how say you?" Looking upon a musi- were suggested, it was played a second and a cal performer or teacher of any sort as one of third time, until the critic, who was so devoted the most elevated characters of existence, it to music that he could hear the same piece ten did not for a moment occur to Crevetti that his times repeated, provided the execution were of a young friend, although he had hitherto enjoy-high order, at length pronounced it to be faultless. ed a state of humble independence, would consider his proposition in any way derogatory. Nor did it so present itself to Allan, who, being free from any conventional prejudices of that nature, and determined not to encroach upon the Barrow income of his family, accepted the offer, only stipulating that it should be immediately cancelled in case he should prove incompetent to the discharge of its duties. At Crevetti's suggestion, and for the convenience of both parties, he engaged a comfortable bedroom in the same house, agreeing to take his meals, as often as it might suit him, with the Italian, who generally dined at a French restaurateur's in the immediate neighbourhood, when he did not make a sausage and a couple of French rolls at home a substitute for that repast. His portmanteau was accordingly transferred to Swallow-street, and Allan Latimer found himself, although he conid hardly credit the reality of so sudden a change, an inhabitant of London. CHAPTER XVI. SCARCELY had he been installed in his new apartment when Crevetti, who had disappeared for half an hour, bustled back into the room, forcing half a pinch of snuff up his hooked nose, and distributing the remainder over the floor, while he shrilly ejaculated, " Via! my young friend-for I call you now my scholar no more-fortunata mente, I found her just come down, just going to breakfast; and she say to me-Cielo! how she is always amabile!-let your friend come at one o'clock, ad un'ora, and he shall accompany me." Of whom are you talking?" demanded Allan. "Come? did I not tell you? Of Signora Guardia. You know her, of course ?" "Si, si," replied the Italian, "the best servant in the world-io medesimo. How says your proverb? He is a bad horse that will not carry his own-how you call it? Bene, he is my provender, and I shall carry him like a good horse. Cospetto! I should be an ass to pay just for to carry him round the corner." With these words he encased his favourite violoncello in a green bag, performing that operation as carefully as if it had been a delicate child; and had it indeed been his own flesh and blood, he could scarcely have appeared to love it more tenderly, Allan made some joking allusion of this nature, when the old man kissed the instrument with great emotion, exclaiming, “Ebbene! he is my child, my only child; and when he keeps in good tune, and I am well content of my play, I always kiss him, and tell him 'You have been a good boy He was once the favorito of Dragonetti, but he never love him as I do." So saying, he placed his darling under his arm, and bore his burden carefully along the Quadrant, until they reached the door of the Signora's residence, which was opened by an old gray-headed and gray-suited Italian, who began instantly chatting with Crevetti in his own language. No sooner, however, had his eye fallen upon Allan, than he started with an expression of some surprise, and, after again peering at his features, slowly but emphatically muttered a few words to himself, whereof the import was not to be distinguished. The drawing-room into which the visitants were ushered was of handsome dimensions and appearance, looking out upon the top of the colonnade, which, instead of being pierced with a skylight, as in most of the adjoining houses, presented the level surface of a little garden, ornamented with evergreens, shrubs, and exotic flowers. In the apartment, which at the moment of their arrival was unoccupied, might be observed the usual profusion of furniture and trinketry, scattered about with the air of disorderly noncha lence prescribed by fashion; but the whole was fresh and neatly kept. Music scores of various operas were heaped confusedly on the grand pi-' ano; a superb Persian robe, intended to be worn at the next opera performance, reposed upon the back of a handsome fauteuil; musical boxes, and Italian as well as English books, littered the tables; a beautiful though small figure of Psyche stood on a console; and the room was suffused with the odour of a tuberose planted in a hand"Per buona ventura-good, good! Ecco, you some china vase, by the side of which hung a shall rehearse him this morning with the Guar-canary-bird in a gilt cage. While Allan made "No, indeed; I never heard of the lady." "E possibile? is he possible?" ejaculated the Italian, while his eyebrows, uplifted in wonder, drove a succession of wrinkles up his brown forehead, like the wave-worn ripples upon the sands of the seashore. "Not heard of the cantatrice, the famous contra✪ singer? bellissima voce! Ebbene, I was to accompany her on the violoncello at a grand concert, where the Guardia is to sing Donizetti's aria-oh! he is beautiful!-out of the 'Torquato Tasso: Io l'udia nei suoi bei carmi. You recollect him? Si, si, you play him to me at Cheltenham." "I know it well; I have lately been practising the accompaniment." |