shallow and transparent by contrast with the unfathomable profundities of artifice exhibited by the lady abbess!

Of course, the petitions that the abbess now poured on me in torrents were all directed towards the one object of getting me to hold my tongue for ever on the subject of Signor Polycarp's assumed blindness. Of course, her defence of the miracle-exhibition going on in her church was, that she and the whole nunnery (officiating priests included) had been imposed on by the vagabond stranger who had come to them from Rome. Whether this was true or not I really cannot say. I had a faint consciousness all the time the abbess was speaking that she was making a fool of me; and yet, for the life of me, I could not help believing some of the things she said; I could not refrain from helplessly granting her all that she asked. In return for this docility on my part, she gratefully promised that Polycarp should be ignominiously turned out of the church, without receiving a single farthing of the sums collected for him; which happened to be still remaining in the convent cash-box. Thus avenged on my pickpocket model, I felt perfectly satisfied, and politely assured the abbess (who undertook to account satisfactorily to the public for the disappearance of the miracle-man) that whatever her story was, I would not contradict it. This done, the pious old lady gave me her blessing; the priest "followed on the same side;" and I left them writing down my name, to be prayed for among the convent list of personages of high rank, who were all to be benefited by the abbess's interest with Heaven! Rather different this from being removed as a heretic in the custody of a soldier!

2nd. A quiet day at home, after yesterday's excitement. The behaviour of the Marchesina begins to give me serious uneasiness. Gracious powers!-does she mean to fall in love with me? It seems awfully like it. On returning to the palace yesterday she actually embraced me! I was half suffocated by her congratulatory hug. The hug over, she playfully pinned me into a corner, till she made me tell her the whole of my adventure in the church. And, worse than all! not half an hour since, she coolly desired me to pull the foot-warming pipkin from under her robes-(I was right about her having one there), to poke the embers, and then to put it back again; speaking just as composedly as if she were only asking me to help her on with her shawl! This looks very bad. What had I better do ?-run away?

3rd. Another adventure! A fearful, life-and-death adventure this time. This evening somebody gave the Marchesina a box at the opera. She took me with her. Confound the woman, she will take me with her everywhere! Being a beautiful moonlight night, we walked home. As we were crossing the "Piazza" I became aware that a man was following us, and proposed to the Marchesina that we should mend our pace. "Never!" exclaimed that redoubtable woman. "None of my family have ever known what fear was. I am a worthy daughter of the house, and I don't know! Courage, Signor Potts, and keep step with me!"

The

This was all very well, but my house was the house of Potts, and every member of it had, at one time or other, known fear quite intimately. My position was dreadful. The resolute Marchesina kept tight hold of my arm, and positively slackened her pace rather than otherwise! man still followed us, always at the same distance, evidently bent on robbery or assassination, or perhaps both. I would gladly have given the Marchesina five pounds to forget her family dignity and run.

On looking over my shoulder for about the five hundredth time, just as we entered the back street where the palace stood, I missed the mysterious stranger, to my infinite relief. The next moment, to my unutterable horror, I beheld him before us, evidently waiting to intercept our progress. We came up with him in the moonshine. Death and destruction Polycarp the Second again!

"You

"I know you !" growled the ruffian, grinding his teeth at me. got me turned out of the church! Body of Bacchus! I'll be revenged on you for that!"

He thrust his hand into his waistcoat. Before I could utter even the faintest cry for help, the heroic Marchesina had caught him fast by the beard and wrist, and had pinned him helpless against the wall. "Pass on, Signor Potts !" said this lioness of a woman, quite complacently. "Pass on; there's plenty of room now." Just as I passed on I heard the sound of a kick behind me, and, turning round, saw Polycarp the Second prostrate in the kennel. "La, la, la-la-la-la-la-la!" sang the Marchesina from "Suoni la Tromba" (which we had just heard at the Opera), as she took my arm once more, and led me safely up the palace stairs —“La, la, la-la-la! We'll have a salad for supper to-night, Signor Potts!" Majestic, Roman matron-minded woman! She could kick an assassin and talk of a salad both at the same moment !

4th.-A very bad night's rest: dreams of gleaming stilettos and midnight assassination. The fact is, my life is no longer safe in Florence. I can't take the Marchesina about with me everywhere as a body-guard (she is a great deal too affectionate already); and yet, without my Amazonian protectress what potent interposition is to preserve my life from the blood-thirsty Polycarp, when he next attempts it? I begin to be afraid that I am not quite so brave a man as I have been accustomed to think myself. Why have I not the courage to give the Marchesina and her mother warning, and so leave Florence? Oh, Lord! here comes the tall woman to sit for the Sibyl picture! She will embrace me again, I know she will! She's got into a habit of doing it; she takes an unfair advantage of her size and strength. Why can't she practise fair play, and embrace a man of her own weight and inches?

5th. Another mess! I shall be dead soon; killed by getting into perpetual scrapes, if I am not killed by a stiletto! I've been stabbing an innocent man now; and have had to pay something like three pounds of compensation-money. This was how the thing happened :-Yesterday I got away from the Marchesina (she hugged me, just as I foretold she would) about dusk, and immediately went and bought a sword-stick, as a defence against Polycarp. I don't mind confessing that I was afraid to return to the palace at night without a weapon of some sort. They never shut the court-yard door till everybody is ready to go to bed; the great staircase is perfectly dark all the way up, and affords some capital positions for assassination on every landing-place. Knowing this, I drew my new sword (a murderous-looking steel skewer, about three feet long) out of the stick, as I advanced towards home, and began to poke for Polycarp in the darkness, the moment I mounted the first stair. Up I went, stabbing every inch of my way before me, in the most scientific and complete manner; spitting invisible assassins like larks for supper. I was just exploring the corners of the second landing-place on this peculiar defensive system of my own, when my sword-point encountered a soft substance, and my ears were instantly greeted by a yell of human agony.

In the fright of the moment, I echoed the yell, and fell down flat on my back. The Marchesina rushed out on the stairs at the noise, with a lamp in her hand. I sat up and looked round in desperation. There was the miserable old porter of the palace, bleeding and blubbering in a corner, and there was my deadly skewer of a sword stuck in a piece of tough Italian beef by his side! The meat must have attracted the skewer, like a magnet; and it saved the porter's life. He was not much hurt; the beef (stolen property with which he was escaping to his lodge, when my avenging sword-point met him) acted like a shield, and was much the worse wounded of the two. The Marchesina found this out directly; and began to upbraid the porter for thieving. The porter upbraided me for stabbing, and I, having nobody else to upbraid, upbraided Destiny for leading me into a fresh scrape. The uproar we made was something quite indescribable; we three outscreamed all Billingsgatemarket in the olden time. At last I calmed the storm by giving the porter every farthing I had about me, and asking the Marchesina to accept the sword part of my sword stick as a new spit to adorn the kitchen department of the palace. She called me "an angel;" and hugged me furiously on the spot. If this hugging is not stopped by to-morrow I shall put myself under the protection of the British ambassador-I will, or my name isn't Potts !

6th. No protection is henceforth available! No British ambassador can now defend my rights! No threats of assassination from Polycarp the Second can terrify me more!-All my other calamities are now merged in one enormous misfortune that will last for the rest of my life;-the Marchesina has declared her intention of marrying me!

It was done at supper last night, after I had pinked the porter. We sat round the inevitable, invariable salad, on which we are condemned to graze the Nebuchadnezzars of modern life-in this accursed gazebo of a palace. My stomach began to ache beforehand as I saw the Marchesina pouring in the vinegar, and heard her, at the same time, dropping certain hints in my direction-frightfully broad hints, with which she has terrified and bewildered me for the last three or four days. I sat silent. England I should have rushed to the window and screamed for the police; but I was in Florence, defenceless and a stranger, before an Amazon who was fast ogling me into terrified submission to my fate. She soon got beyond even the ogling. When we were all three helped to salad, just at the pause before eating, the Marchesina looked round at her fleshless, yellow old parent.

In

you are of age, I leave your

"Mother," says she, "shall I have him?" "Beloved angel," was the answer, choice to yourself; pick where you like?" "Very well then," pursued the Amazonian daughter, "very well! Potts here is my hand." She held out her mighty fist towards me, with a diabolical grin. I felt I must either take it or have my head broken. I now sincerely wish I had preferred the latter alternative; but an unlucky emotion of terror misled me into accepting the former. I received an amorous squeeze that made the bones of my fingers crack again.

"You are a little man, and not noble," observed the Marchesina, critically looking me over, as if I had been a piece of meat that she was purchasing in the market, "but you get both size and rank in getting Let us therefore be perfectly happy, and proceed with our salad."

me.

"I beg your pardon," said I, faintly shivering all over in a sort of cold horror, "I beg your pardon; but really-"

"Come, come!" interrupted the Marchesina, crushing my hand with another squeeze; "too much diffidence is a fault; you have genius and wealth to offer in exchange for all I confer on you, you have, you modest little cherub of a man! As for the day, my venerated mother!" she continued, turning towards the old woman; "shall we say this day week?"

"Certainly, this day week," said mamma, looking yellower than ever, as she mopped up all the oil and vinegar in her plate with a large spoon. The next minute I received the old woman's blessing; I was ordered to kiss the Marchesina's hand; I was wished good night,—and then found myself alone with three empty salad plates; "left for execution" that very day week; left without the slightest chance of a reprieve !

I write these lines at the dead of night,-myself, more dead than alive. I am in my bed-room; the door is locked and barricadoed against the possible entrance of the Marchesina and her mamma. I am covered from head to foot with a cold perspiration, but am nevertheless firm in my resolution to run away to-morrow. I must leave all my luggage behind me, and resort to stratagem or I shall not get off. Tomorrow, the moment the palace gate is opened, I shall take to my heels, carrying with me nothing but my purse, my passport, and my nightcap. Hush! a stealthy breathing sounds outside the door-an eye is at the key-hole-it is the old woman watching me! Hark! a footstep in the street outside,-Polycarp the Second, with his stiletto lying in wait before the house! I shall be followed, I know I shall, however cunningly and secretly I get away to-morrow! Marriage and murder— murder and marriage, will alternately threaten me for the remainder of my life! Art, farewell! henceforth the rest of my existence is dedicated to perpetual flight!

[NOTE BY THE EDITOR OF THE FOREGOING FRAGMENTS.]

With the ominous word "flight," the journal of Mr. Potts abruptly ends. I became possessed of the manuscript in this manner:-The other day, while I was quietly sitting in my study in London, the door of the room was flung violently open, and the ill-fated Potts himself rushed in, his eyes glaring, his hair dishevelled.

"Print that!" cried my gifted, but unhappy friend; "enlist for me the sympathies, procure for me the protection, of the British public! The Marchesina is after me,—she has followed me to England-she is at the bottom of the street! Farewell, farewell, for ever!"

"Who is the Marchesina? Where are you going to ?" I exclaimed, aghast.

"To Scotland! To hide myself in the inaccessible caverns of the most desolate island I can find among the Hebrides!" cried Potts, dashing out of the room like a madman. I ran to my window, which opens on the street, just in time to see my friend fly past, at the top of his speed. The next passenger proceeding in the same direction was a woman of gigantic stature, striding over the pavement in a manner awful to behold. Could that be the Marchesina? For my friend's sake devoutly hope not.

T

A LITERARY GOSSIP WITH MISS MITFORD.*

DRAW the curtains, stir the fire, make a semicircle round the rug, and now for a causerie. Mary Russell Mitford shall talk to us out of the three volumes of reminiscences she has just given to the world; and whatever we have to say about the sundry things she discourseth upon therein shall be said in a cordial, and, at the same time, perfectly frank spirit, as becometh an honest fireside.

There she sits in the large chair, not quite so young as she was when she charmed all homesteads and hearth-stones with pictures of her own quiet Berkshire village, before railroads came to destroy the pretty wayside inns, where travellers used to be so snug and comfortable in tiny carpeted rooms with dimity curtains and glass cupboards full of antediluvian china when little Red-riding-hoods were as plenty as blackberries, and the gipsies were never at a loss for secluded nooks and dells, where they could camp and cook, and tell stories under the hedge-rows, with a feeling of solitude and security they can never enjoy again in merry England. That was a long, long time ago; yet Mary Russell Mitford looks as ready as she was in her brightest days to enter with a relishing zest into the garden delights and book pleasures that have formed the occupation and happiness of her life, and made her name known and welcome wherever natural description and unaffected feeling are truly appreciated.

There she sits, with as homely and good-humoured an air as if, instead of writing books and holding correspondence with half the celebrities of her time, she had no other vocation in this world than to attend to domestic affairs, prune shrubs on the lawn, dispense flannels at Christmas to the poor, and look after a neighbouring school. Beside her chair stands her constant companion, a remarkable stick, with an odd sort of a head to it; and to make her actual presence the more palpable she should be surrounded by her inseparable friends-Fanchon, her little dog, that might be crouched at her feet, with its sensitive ears lifting and falling at every sound; her neat maid Nancy, watching her on a low stool, and her boy Henry (we hope he is still a boy, and that he will contrive, for her sake, to continue so) standing behind her chair.

That stick has a biography all to itself, and a very curious one it is. Sixty years ago it was a stick of quality, and belonged to some Dowager Duchess of Athol, who has no more reality for us than one of the embroidered ladies in an old piece of tapestry. So far as its original owner is concerned, the stick, for aught we know to the contrary, may be a phantom-stick, or a witch-stick; but, be that as it may, Miss Mitford's father bought it at the sale of Berkshire House, where it was huddled by the auctioneer into a lot of old umbrellas, watering pots and flower stands. It was then light, straight and slender, nearly four feet high, polished, veined, and of a yellowish colour, and of the order called a crook, such, says Miss Mitford, who is evidently very particular about it, as may be seen upon a chimney-piece figuring in the hand of some trim shepherdess of Dresden china. First, the housekeeper carried this stick-then, when the housekeeper died, Miss Mitford's mother • Recollections of a Literary Life; or Books, Places, and People. By Mary Russell Mitford, Author of "Õur Village," &c. 3 vols.