she had run, to give a largesse from it to the strangers. Frederick, after talking a few minutes to the lady and gentleman, and telling them how he had fallen in with the foreigners, followed and overtook his companions, just as they had come in sight of Greenwells cottage, where he resided. "So there is our house now, just beyond the village," said Frederick, advancing to them. "The lady with whom I live will be very kind to you; and you must stay with her for a few days, and give her music, which she loves. What say you, pretty Charlotte?" Antonio here stepped forward between his sister and Hume, and said, with quick emphasis, “I will go with you, sir, and I shall let Charlotte follow me."

On arriving at the cottage, Frederick introduced the strangers to his relative, Mrs Mather, with whom he resided, and who, on learning their circumstances, kindly received them as her guests. They would have taken their departure next day, but in this they were resisted by the charitable old lady, who farther won from them the promise that they would stay with her for at least a week. Ere the expiry of that time, whether from the caprice or benevolence of her nature, or from her especial liking for Charlotte, who had gained rapidly upon her affections, Mrs Mather had conceived the design of adopting the two Italians, and preparing them for situations worthy of their good descent; and she was confirmed in her purpose when, on breaking the matter to Frederick Hume, it met with his entire concurrence. The next step was to gain the consent of Antonio, which might be no easy matter, as he seemed a strange and impracticable boy; but, somewhat to the surprise of Frederick, no sooner was the proposal made to him, than he heartily acceded to it. As for his sister, independent of her dislike to a wandering life, and her growing attachment to Mrs Mather, her brother's will was, in all cases, her law. It was then settled that Charlotte should be confidential maid to the old lady, to read to her at night, and assist her in making dresses for the poor, among whom she had a number of retainers; while Antonio should be sent to the Rev. Mr Baillie's, a clergyman, a few miles off, to board with him, and finish his education, which had been neglected since his father's death, that so he might be fitted for a liberal profession. Proud though Mrs Mather was of this scheme, her selfcomplacency was not without one qualification, in the cold and doubtful manner in which Miss Pearce nodded to the old lady's statement and explanation of her plan. As this woman, Miss Pearce, had it in her power, ere long, grievously to affect the fortunes of young Hume, we shall notice her here a little fully. She was the only daughter of a half-pay captain, whose death left her with a trifling annuity, and the proprietorship of a small house in

the village of Holydean. After the death of her husband, a wealthy retired merchant, who had spent the last years of his life at Greenwells, Mrs Mather, having no family, began to cast about for a companion, and Miss Pearce was soon found out to be one of those indispensable parasitical maidens whom old ladies like Mrs Mather impress into active service, in the seasons of raspberries, and the elder-vintages;-hold long consultations with on the eve of entertainments;-retain as their own especial butt in company, and a fag partner at whist when a better fourth hand is wanting ; appeal to in case of a (shall we name it?) lie, when there is danger of detection;-cherish and moralize with when the party is over; and, finally, would not dismiss, though one were to rise from the dead and cry out against the parasite. In addition to these implied qualifications, the amiable creature was a monopolist in ailments; and, of course, careless about the complaints of others, of which, indeed, when within reach of Mrs Mather's sympathy, she seemed to be jealous. In her person she was lean and scraggy, with a hard brown face, kiln-dried by nervous headachs. Her figure was very straight, and she was elastic in her motions as whalebone or hiccory, and might have been cut with advantage into tapes for tying up bundles of her favourite tracts, or sinewy bowstrings for Cupid, for his arrows, not to be shot at, but to be shot from. We need scarcely add, after all this, that her nose was very long, and so sharp it might have cleft a hailstone. When Frederick Hume was thrown a helpless orphan on the world, and Mrs Mather, who was a distant relative of his mother's, proposed to take him to herself and bring him up as if he were her own son, Miss Pearce, though she could not set her face directly against such a charitable arrangement, yet laboured to modify it by a counter-proposition, that the boy should be provided for, but by no means brought to the cottage. She was then, however, but in the spring-dawn of favour with her patroness, and her opinion being over-ruled, the boy was brought home to Mrs Mather, and daily grew in her affections. During his childhood, Miss Pearce advanced steadily in favour, and she was too jealous of divided influence, and too Jesuitical in her perseverance, not to improve every opportunity of challenging and modifying the growing affection of Mrs Mather for her adopted son, whose bold and frank nature was endearing him to every one. When this would not do, she began to change her battery, and tried by a new show of kindness, to make a party in the young eléve himself, whom yet she thoroughly hated. Whether it was, however, that he knew her enmity, and never forgave her for having once or twice secretly and severely pricked him with pins; or, whether, with the quick

instinct of childhood, which knows in a moment, and despises, the kind notice bestowed upon it for the sake of currying favour with parents, he virtually set down Pearce's new attentions to such a motive, certain it is, if he did not positively hate her, he never once stroked her purring vanity; and she, on the other hand, was, from his indifference, confirmed in her dislike. As Frederick grew up, he had many opportunities of shaking Miss Pearce's influenc with her patroness; but, as he thought her despicable merely, and not dangerous, he was too magnanimous to molest her. In that scheme of life to which the heart has long responded, what was at first a jarring element hath become a constituent part of the general sympathy; and from this it might be that Hume not only continued to endure Miss Pearce, but even loved her with the affection of habit.

One might have supposed, that ere the time to which our narrative now refers, Miss Pearce would have been tired of intrigue, and would have seen the folly of being jealous in the favour which she had proved exactly, and from which she knew so little was ever to be gained or lost; but a Jesuit would be a Jesuit still, were the Church of Rome utterly annihilated, and petty intrigue merely for its own sake, and little selfish arrangements of circumstances, although nothing was to be gained, constituted the very breath of Miss Pearce's nostrils; and, therefore, it is not to be wondered at, that, when Mrs Mather stated her design of adopting the two Italians, as above mentioned, she heard it with that umph, and nod, which express-not that a thing has been assented to—but merely that it has been literally and distinctly heard. Her objections were entered under a masked battery. She began by praising Mrs Mather's unbounded benevolence of heart. She hoped they would be grateful; they could not be too grateful; nay, they could never be grateful enough. She allowed the conversation to take a general turn, then tried to control it gradually to her purpose, and found an opportunity of relating, as if incidentally, how a certain lady, whom once she knew, had been ruined by a foreign protegee whom she had unwisely cherished. She touched upon swindling, vagrants, and obscurely alluded to legislature, and the alien act. Notwithstanding all such hints, however, the thing was settled in the affirmative; the boy Antonio was sent to stay with Mr Bailie, and Charlotte commenced work under the immediate auspices of her new patroness. The regularity and certainty of her new mode of life, soon subdued the roving qualities which her character might have slightly acquired, and which quickly give a corresponding wildness to the features. Her dark and comely beauty remained quick and expressive, but it was sobered under the accom

paniments of an English dress, and tamed by the meek offices of our country's excellent morality. Her eye was still drunk with light as when morning comes upon the streams, but it waited and took commands from the looks of her mild hostess. The footstep of the reclaimed wanderer might still be light and airy, but now she went about the house softly, under an excellent ministry. In health she became Mrs Mather's delight, and still more so when the infirmities of the good old lady required delicate attentions. Like the glorious Una of Spenser's Fairy Queen, the kind eyes of this beautiful Italian, even amidst affliction, "made a light in a shady place."

Frederick Hume forgot not his promise to wait upon Signora Romelli, and inform her, that his minstrel-patient was quite well on the morning after the day when he was ill in her house. At the same time, he presented a card from Mrs Mather, requesting a mutual acquaintanceship. A friendly intercourse grew up accordingly, and, ere the fall of the season, Signor Romelli and his daughter were at least once every week at Greenwells Cottage, to the huge dismay of Miss Pearce, but the delight of our young surgeon, who began most deeply to love the beautiful Julia Romelli. She was taller and fairer than the maid Cardo: her locks were nut-brown: her eye was a rich compromise betwixt the raven and the blue dove, a deep violet,

"like Pandora's eye,

When first it darken'd with immortal life."

She was quick, capricious, and proud; bold in her pouting displeasure, which was like a glancing day of sunshine and stormy showers: but then she was ardent in her friendships, and very benevolent; ready, withal, nay in haste, to confess her faults, in which case her amende honorable, and her prayer for pardon, were perfectly irresistible. A heart of her ambition, and so difficult to be won, insensibly exalted her in the eyes of the dashing and manly Frederick; who, without any ostensible calculation of selfish vanity, loved her the more deeply, that she was a conquest worthy of boldest youth. Notwithstanding her superior qualifications, and the ardour of his suit, we infer that the fair Julia kept shy and aloof, and at the same time that her lover was only the more deeply determined to make her his, from the circumstance that, in a few months, he had condescended to calculate how he stood in her father's affections, and was studious to accommodate himself to the manner of the Signor, who was grave in his deportment, and almost saturnine, seldom moved to smiles, and never to

laughter; and who, though he could talk fluently, and with eloquence, seemed, in general, to wear some severe constraint upon his spirit.

CHAPTER II.

THINGS were in this state when the winter session came round, which called Frederick to Edinburgh, to prosecute still farther his medical studies. The summer following he continued in town studying botany; and after making a tour through the Highlands of Scotland, it was about the middle of autumn ere he returned to Greenwells Cottage.

He found Charlotte Cardo improved in beauty and accomplishments, and advanced in favour with every one who knew her; even Miss Pearce herself condescended to patronize her publicly and privately. But what pleased him most of all, was to find that Julia Romelli was still a frequent visiter at the Cottage. The season of harvest too, had given a vacation to Mr Bailie's scholars, and Antonio Cardo was now at home beside his sister; and the harp and the song of the Italian twins were not forgotten when the sweet gloaming came on. Deeply occupied in spirit as Hume was with thoughts of his fair and shy Signora, he was yet constrained to attend to the abrupt and strange manifestation of Antonio's character, which broke forth, from time to time, mocking the grave tenor of his ordinary behaviour. According to his reverend tutor's statement, he had been a very diligent scholar; and he testified it thus far, that he talked English with great force and propriety. With the boys of his own age he had consorted little, and seemed to take no delight in conversing with any one, though now and then he would talk a few minutes to the old men of the village, and sometimes to the children. He was now equally taciturn at Mr Mather's; but occasionally he broke forth, expressing himself in rapid and earnest eloquence, and showing a wonderful power of illustrating any point. From his manner altogether towards Miss Romelli, his devoted attentions at one time, and at another his proud shyness; and from his dignified refusal, often, to play on the harp when Hume wished to dance with that lady, Frederick could not but guess that he was a rival candidate for Julia's love. But the most striking and unaccountable demonstration of the boy's character, was the visible paleness which came over his face, the current-the restless flow-of his small features, and the impatience of his attitudes, now shrinking, now swelling into bold and almost threatening pantomime, whenever Signor Romelli came near him. Visibly, too, he was often seen to start when he heard his countryman's deep voice: He spoke to Romelli always with an eloquent