should turn up" to bring me into notice. | fond of his mistress, that he won't let everybody Something did very soon "turn up" to distract come near her in the daytime without asking my thoughts from the solution of the difficulty; their business; so I don't know what he might for from the regions below came the unmis- do at night!" takable tones of a hurdy-gurdy, accompanied by peals of merry laughter; and not a little astonished was I to find that one of those nuisances which, when in my studious fits in Square, I had sometimes anathematized in phrases not perhaps to be met with in any of the theological works of the day, had followed me even here! I determined to go and have a look at the unexpected intruder.

plain that the lady's fortune could not be one tenth of what it was represented to be. Had they done so, the soi-disant Sir Markham was far too knowing to have persisted in such a piece of hazardous but unprofitable roguery. Each party had thus something to conceal. Innocence was not quite so innocent as it seemed to be, otherwise this blot would never have defaced the escutcheon of the house of Primley. Virtue is undoubtedly sometimes, made the dupe of Vice; but this generally happens when, as in the instance just referred to, she has first proved false to herself.

not belong to the class which is usually de nominated dangerous.' If it were natural for you to remember us, it was equally natural for us to remember you, as we had not many such visitors at the Lamb. Poor mamma often talked about you even in her last illness, and seemed to have a presentiment that you would some day or another come to see us again; and in that presentiment I have always shared. Would you believe it, scarcely ten minutes before you came in, when examining the contents of an old drawer, which had not been opened for years, I found the little purse which I worked for you according to promise a few weeks after you left us? Here it is-rather old-fashioned, I fear, by this time; but is it not a very remarkable coincidence that it should have turned up upon this particular evening?"

"It certainly is; and yet our lives are full of such coincidences, which, although apparently trivial in themselves, may nevertheless be not without their meaning. Some such have marked my journey hither, and you must not laugh at me, Miss Inmers, if I say that I have a very firm persuasion that this journey, so long meditated, and so long delayed, will not be eventually destitute of some memorable incidents. You remember what grand achievements I meditated at sixteen, and how I fancied

Let no one, however, suppose that I have given this explanation as if I were a prisoner at the bar, trying to make out the best possible plea on my own behalf. I need no such exculpation. I had come between three or four hundred miles with the express design of seeing Miss Inmers, and believing it to be morally as well as mathematically true, that between any two given points a straight line is the shortest line that can be, I determined to follow the straight line instead of the curve. From what I knew of young ladies in general, I scarcely thought that my request would be complied with without some deliberation. I did expect to succeed eventually, but my impression was, that the aged landlord himself would probably come, in the first place, to try to ascer-myself commissioned, like some knight-errant tain something of the character of his guest; and to this of course I could have no objection. In this conjecture I was mistaken very agreeably mistaken. That light quick step can't be Isie's, and yet 'tis scarcely possible thatyes, it was even so. Innocent, and confiding in that innocence, meditating no wrong, and fearing none, the same arch, guileless smile, which Although I spoke in a sportive tone, I soon I remembered so well in the child, still irradi- regretted the abruptness of my last remark. I ating her face, Mary Inmers stood again before have said that the face of Mary Inmers still me. The suddenness of her appearance, I beamed with the guileless innocence of childmust admit, confused me a little; but my em- hood; but it scarcely needed a second glance barrassment was only momentary, for, as she to show that sorrow had been there as wellextended her hand, she said gaily, "So you that sorrow, however, which, unaccompanied have never forgotten us altogether, Mr. Grand-by guilt, destroys none of the finer emotions of chaupp? Who could have thought that a promise, for fifteen years unfulfilled, would be thus unexpectedly fulfilled at last?"

"Indeed, Miss Inmers," I replied, "you gratify me more than I can tell; but you also astonish me. It was quite natural that I should remember you; for few are so callous as to forget, under any circumstances, those who have cheered them, as you did me-although of course I was too proud to own it then-when separated for the first time from the dear familiar faces that have guarded their childhood; but I had no hope that I should be welcomed as a long-expected stranger, and indeed rather feared that, on receiving my abrupt message from Isie, you would conclude that the governors of the nearest lunatic asylum were very likely to find one of their inmates missing in the morning!"

"Well, from what I remember of the gentleman, I think I can answer for it that he does

of old, to rescue captive princesses and spellbound maidens; and you see that I still occa sionally indulge in day-dreams of chivalry. Should you, then, be haunted by the dread of any possible or even imaginary evil, tell me of it, and try what sort of a necromancer I shall prove myself to be!"

our nature, but rather imparts to all a sweet, though chastened intensity. It was very evident that I had touched a sensitive chord. We read of

"A tear so limpid and so meek,

It would not stain an angel's cheek!" And surely of such a nature were those pearly drops which, in spite of all her efforts to restrain them, my incautious words had caused to fall thick and fast. This was, indeed, a distressing change from the merry manner in which our conversation had commenced; but, after all, it was, perhaps, better that this little outburst of feeling should have occurred at the time it did, as it was the means of very mateterially strengthening the bond of sympathy between us, "Haud ignara mali, miseris succurrere disco!" I did what I could to calm that sorrow, which time alone, and not always time itself, can altogether assuage, and poor Mary soon regained

her tranquillity, and made many apologies for there could be little doubt about the identity. what she called her foolish weakness-anything, He had not dared to press his own suit pershe said, that vividly recalled the remembrance of her dear mother, as seeing me again had done, affected her deeply-and besides, she had other trials.

"Yes, I replied," I know you have."

"Indeed! I did not think it possible that you could have heard anything about us, unless some fairy geni, like those of whom you once told me such marvellous tales, has been carrying information to you!"

"If my informant was a fairy, he was certainly a very substantial one-much more so than those good creatures are generally represented to be: but have you never thought of inquiring how it was that I came to know where to find you?"

sonally with Miss Inmers, but he had been tactician enough to secure the services of a far more successful pleader, in the person of her aged father, who, now that there could be no hope of ever again welcoming the lost Harry, took every opportunity of urging her to bestow her hand on one whom he firmly believed would be to her a true and tender protector, when left, as she soon must be, a lonely orphan. The struggle was a severe one with poor Mary-filial affection and gratitude to a supposed benefactor on the one hand; on the other the her to her wealthy suitor must be those of certainty that the fetters that would bind gratitude, not of love; and sometimes even now, although "instant come and instant gone," a "still, small voice" of hope whispering in her ears, "the lost may yet be found, the absent may yet return."

"I had quite forgotten that; but now of course I am most anxious to learn how it was; and as you must know something of what a woman's curiosity is when once aroused, you "I am sure," she said, after a rather long will not be so cruel as to keep me in suspense.' pause in our conversation, "all we have in this world we owe to Mr. Blandon, and I should be "Certainly not. I found a new tenant at the Lamb, but in honest James Lindsay I be- ungrateful not to wish and pray for his happilieve I also found a friend. He it was who toldness; but this is too much." me where you had gone, and several other things as well, which interested me very much."

"Oh, Mr. Lindsay! I always liked him very much, and I believe I was something of a favourite with him: but he surely did not tell you

"Too much indeed, Miss Inmers; never let the simple possibility of such a sacrifice being required at your hands torment you again. I have not seen this model of disinterested benevolence; but, from what I have heard of him, I have certain suspicions of my own regarding his real character, which I may some day be able to verify. I do not know if you have ever "Yes, Miss Inmers: feeling assured that I doubted whether or not there might be another was to be trusted-as I flatter myself he did-face behind that fair mask, but I do know that and seeing that I was not actuated by mere pry- you cannot love him, and surely no consideraing inquisitiveness, the good man told me un-tion on earth will ever induce you to vow and reservedly all he knew, and all he thought." promise to do so.

all?"

"All ?"

"Yes, all; and you must not, indeed you must not, be displeased with him for speaking, nor with me for listening!"

The subject, which it would have been so difficult under ordinary circumstances to broach, having in this manner, as it were, broached itself, we very soon found ourselves discussing, with all the freedom of old and intimate friends, certain matters in which it is proverbially difficult, and I fear proverbially dangerous, too, for a lady to receive even an intimate friend as a confidant. I am not going to detail minutely the conversation which ensued. It will be sufficient to state that Mr. Lindsay's information turned out to be quite correct. There was no attempt to disguise or conceal that. Mr. Blandon, who had spent a day there quite recently, had told her that intelligence had reached him, in reply to repeated inquiries, that a young man answering the description of the missing Greenbank had been drowned in attempting to cross one of the rivers in a remote part of the United States, and that from various links-trifling, perhaps, when taken separately, but forming when connected a powerful chain of evidence

"No," I added, resuming my original lively manner, "the Grandchaupps, you know, are all gifted with the wonderful second-sight, by virtue of which I can see, and that, too, before twelve moons have waned, the wedding guests assembled. I see the proud triumphant smile of the bridegroom, as he turns for one moment from the blushing bride to acknowledge the compliment of the old shoe, which one of his friends has thrown after the carriage which is to convey the happy pair to the nearest_station on the Utopia and Fairy-Land Railway, but that is not the smile of Mr. William Blandon."

"Oh, nonsense, Mr. Grandehaupp; but (and here the little hand, which had rested passively in mine, trembled violently) do you really think that he is still alive? I had schooled myself to think of him as one who had passed from earth for ever (at least I thought that I had done so), for blank despair is sometimes less painful than racking doubt; but I will not deny that your words sound like the echo of some of my own late waking dreams. I know you have spoken kindly, but have you spoken wisely? Is it not foolish-is it not wrong thus to indulge in

delusive hopes, which are altogether unwarranted ?"

"And how about the silver lining?"

"Faint perhaps, but still there."

"Is it foolish, Miss Inmers, or is it wrong to The door had closed upon Mary Inmers, and believe in a superintending Providence, whose left to myself I cannot say that my meditations hand is sufficient to bring back the wanderer for the first few minutes were of the most and to heal the broken-hearted, whose preroga-pleasing character. I had, in fact, carelessly tive it is to balance the weighty scales in which are meted out the just rewards of right and wrong, which no mortal hand may essay to do? I believe (the various steps which have led to that belief I need not, at present, recapitulate) that the friend and lover of your childhood will yet be restored to you, and, though it is scarcely my province to attempt the part of the moralist, I also venture to predict that if such happiness should be in store for you, you will be gradually led, in after-life, to look upon those dreary years of sorrow and trial as a wisely-appointed ordeal, the necessity of which you will then, somehow, be enabled to understand, although you cannot understand it now. What is future is always uncertain, and, although the gathering cloud may sometimes almost fill you with dismay, try if, in the midst of the murky gloom, you can catch a glimpse of the "silver lining."

"Good advice, which I am sure I shall try to follow as far as I am able. And now I must leave you; but remember you have promised to take breakfast with papa and me in the morning. You should have seen his surprise when I showed him your card and message; for many a quiet laugh has he had at mamma and me when discussing the probabilities of your even revisiting us; but I am sure it will be a real pleasure to him to make your acquaintance."

"And the pleasure will be as great on my part as on his. I mean, you know, to take a week or two with you, if you will allow me; but, before beginning to explore this magnificent region, I expect to be favoured by you with a list of the places best worth seeing, and the legends connected with them, for each spot here looks as if it must have its legend."

unlocked the "skeleton_chamber," which I fear is to be found in most breasts, however well it may be concealed; but, as the phantoms which revealed themselves there have nothing to do with our present tale, they shall not be permitted to leave their prison-house. And, although the fact may appear exceedingly shocking to certain young ladies of the sentimental-class, it is a fact, nevertheless, that the appearance of supper upon the table very quickly restored me to my usual equanimity. Some one has remarked that you can never find at any given place the particular article for which that place is specially celebrated, unless it be coals at Newcastle, rogues in Chancery-lane, and abuse in Billingsgate. Let the author of that assertion order a hot joint of Bleakmontshire mutton at the Percy Arms after an exhilarating walk across the moors, along with a moderate supply of that glorious nectar, nicknamed “bitter beer," and I venture to predict, that before he has half finished his repast he will have added another exception to a rule, which I admit to be generally correct.

An interesting old volume and an excellent cigar kept me up until a late, or rather, perhaps, an early hour, and, on looking out of my window, after retiring to my room, I was surprised to see a man, whom, although partly hidden by the garden-wall, I soon recognized by the light of the moon to be no other than our old friend of the hurdy-gurdy, standing with his eyes fixed intensely on the other end of the building. What could it mean? He had certainly promised to serenade the lady, but nobody believed that he would do it; besides, his instrument was nowhere visible, and altogether his attitude was, to "A few months later I could perhaps direct say the least of it, somewhat suspicious. Deteryou, or even guide you to some localities that mined if possible to ascertain what his object would interest you; but I fear very much that was, I was proceeding to open my window in in this wintry weather the most agreeable scenery order to speak to him; but this was not so easily that I can show you will be found in the im-done as I expected, and startled by the noise, mediate vicinity of our parlour fire."

"Thank you. I shall be pretty sure to be found in that neighbourhood about nine o'clock to-morrow; and now good night, for I fear I have been selfish in detaining you so long."

"Oh! no; but now I must really go. Good night, and pleasant dreams of your lady-love; for, in spite of all that you have said to the contrary, I know there must be such a reality somewhere."

66

No, Miss Inmers, 'the sainted maiden,' the lost Lenore, has gone, and nothing remains for me but the hideous black raven, croaking its everlasting "never more."

he walked off with a rapid but firm step—a step, colour of his face-and was soon lost to sight, I thought, that scarcely corresponded with the in the adjoining thicket. Strange! I thought. Yes-everything around me is strange to-night; but, as I sat and mused on the events of the last two days, I could not help in some way peared to James Lindsay, opposite to the Lamb, associating the disguised watcher that had apin the early morning, with the figure which I had just seen gazing up so earnestly, in the clear moonlight, at the bow window over the garden.

(To be continued.)

THE QUEENS OF NAPLES.

BY ANTONIO NICOLO.

(Author of "Ten Years in the Dungeons of Naples.")