mingled pride and resolution lighted up his dark eye. With firm step and stately bearing he trod the mossgrown walk; but the assumed dignity gave way to an expression of pensive melancholy when his little daughter came bounding up the slope to meet him.

"Papa, dear papa, I have been seeking you everywhere; Mary told me I should find you in the park. It is such a beautiful evening for a walk.”

"It is a lovely evening, and the old place is beautiful exceedingly," said Mr. Dudley, in a dreamy tone.

There was a long pause; Mr. Dudley revolved his altered prospects, in moody silence. Florence, intimidated by her father's unwonted manner, watched him, in mute surprise. At length he spoke,

"You love your home, Florence?"

The spell was broken; she answered with childish glee,—"Oh, yes, papa, I love the Wilderness dearly, and I will never leave it." She sprang from his side, tripped lightly down the flight of steps which led from the terrace to the gardens, and flitted hither and thither among the flowers, like a butterfly uncertain where to alight. Presently she returned, her little hands filled with flowers. "Look, papa, I have brought you roses, lilies,

and heartsease

"Stop, my child!" said Mr. Dudley, drawing her towards him with inexpressible tenderness of look and tone; "I have something to tell you. My Florence is old enough to understand that the path of duty is not always that of pleasure."

"Oh, yes, papa!" cried the little girl eagerly. "When Carlos sprained his shoulder, poor fellow! you told me that I must sacrifice my selfish pleasure, and must not ride for a long time. And I did not ride for a whole month. I understand you perfectly, papa."

Mr. Dudley smiled faintly at the simplicity which suggested this not very apt illustration, and resumed"My Florence is old enough to comfort her father in sorrow."

The child made no reply in words, but nestled still

closer to her father's side and raised her confiding eyes to his. Mr. Dudley continued,

"Look around you, Florence. This venerable mansion, these beautiful gardens and magnificent woods, were mine-yours. They are our property no longer. My child, you can love your father in a humbler

home?"

The touching accent of appeal in which these words were uttered went to the little girl's heart. She flung her arms around her father's neck, and pillowed her bright head on his bosom. Mr. Dudley laid his hand fondly on his daughter's head, and murmured in a broken voice, "God bless you, my child! I lose fortune and station, but neither my honour nor my daughter!"

He disengaged himself from her embrace, turned away abruptly, and entered the house.

Florence stood transfixed like one in a dream. She endeavoured to grasp the full meaning of her father's words she could not. With a dim perception of impending misery, she threw herself upon the ground and wept long and bitterly.

Leaving our little heroine to the indulgence of her grief, we will give a brief sketch of the circumstances which had brought the wealthy proprietor of the Wilderness to the verge of ruin.

Herbert Dudley was the only son of a gentleman of good family, but small fortune. He distinguished himself at college in early life, and great expectations were formed as to his future career; but his peculiarly sensitive temperament unfitted him for public life. Bury him in retirement, place a pen in his hand, and his powers were all his own. The astuteness of his reason, the depth of his learning, the elegance of his diction, surprised the philosopher, charmed the scholar, and delighted the man of letters. But summon him to the arena of public life, where "men do congregate," and the burning words which surged up in the brain died away in inarticulate murmurs upon the lips. Assuredly

Herbert Dudley was not born to make a name among "the great men which are upon the earth."

From time to time he would send a sparkling or a learned article to a review; it was invariably accepted with thanks, but he shrank from pledging himself as a regular contributor; above all, he shrank from notoriety.

There was nothing practical about the existence of the man; he was indifferent to wealth, power, or fame; he might have degenerated into a dreamy enthusiast, had not circumstances forced him into action. We have said that Herbert's father was a gentleman of good family but fallen fortunes. Had his patrimony been commensurate with his birth, his pride might have been less exacting; unquestionably, it would have been less bitter. As it was, he shrank with scornful indignation from the idea of his only son embracing a profession, and quarrelled with his only brother for presuming to sully the family name by entering a mercantile house. The breach between the brothers was widened by the marriage of the merchant with the beautiful and accomplished daughter of a-linendraper.

This was adding fuel to fire; the haughty representative of the long-descended but impoverished house of Dudley solemnly vowed that his degenerate brother should never more darken his doors. The proud man was gathered to his fathers before his son accidentally encountered, and fell desperately in love with, his fair cousin, the merchant's daughter.

What romantic episodes mark the lives of men of imaginative temperament! What singular coincidences ! what extraordinary freaks of fortune! unless we assume that their vivid fancy weaves a golden web out of the most common incidents of life.

The cousins met for the first time upon the classic hill of Fiesole.

It is evening; the matchless Vale of Arno, bathed in the glorious hues of an Italian sunset, gleams with heavenly lustre.

"The sun is setting; earth and sky

One blaze of glory. What we saw but now,
As though it were not, though it had not been!
He lingers yet; and, lessening to a point,

Shines like the eye of heaven-then withdraws;
And from the zenith to the utmost skirts

All is celestial red!"

Herbert lay upon the terrace beneath the Franciscan convent which crowns the apex of Fiesole, now gazing on the distant city-Firenze la bella-now studying the "Divina Commedia ;" nay, he had barely muttered that memorable passage in the Inferno :—

"Godi, Firenze! poi che se sì grande,
Che per mare e per terra batti l'ali,

E per lo inferno il tuo nome si spande."*

when a silvery voice exclaimed, as if in answer to the denunciation of the poet,

"Of all the fairest cities of the earth

None is so fair as Florence!"

Herbert started up, but before he could discover from whom the voice proceeded, he overheard a rejoinder, which jarred not a little upon his sensitive nerves.

"Fair is foul, and foul is fair! Stifled with heat, choked with dust, poisoned-faugh! Cologne is odoriferous in comparison" (referring probably to Coleridge's famous satire) "you bid me admire Florence the fair!" The speaker darted a fierce glance at the troop of mendicants and straw-girls, who hung around his skirts, intoning the ceaseless cry:-"La carità, signore, la carità!" and added, wrathfully: "These wretched ragamuffins drive an honest man daft; would that I had never left old England!"

"Oh, hush, papa," exclaimed the first speaker, who had

* Florence, exult! for thou so mightily
Hast thriven, that o'er land and sea thy wings
Thou beatest, and thy name spreads over hell.

Inferno, canto 26.

gained the terrace, and stood pointing to the scene below, while with kindling eye and flushing cheek she repeated the lines,

"Look round below

On Arno's vale, where the dove-coloured steer
Is ploughing up and down among the vines,
While many a careless note is sung aloud,
Filling the air with sweetness-and on thee,
Beautiful Florence! all within thy walls,

Thy groves and gardens, pinnacles and towers,
Drawn to our feet."

The Englishman seated himself upon the edge of the terrace, his momentary irritation forgotten in admiration of the glorious landscape spread beneath his feet. Herbert, unwilling to intrude upon the father and daughter, moved gently from the tree which partially shaded him. The rustling of the boughs attracted the quick ear of the Englishman, who was by no means lost to all sublunary affairs. He turned quickly-the light fell full on Herbert's face. The English gentleman started to his feet, with an exclamation of astonishment; he advanced eagerly towards the young man, exclaiming, "Good Heavens, sir, may I ask your name?"

"Herbert Dudley," was the prompt reply, and in another moment the young man found his hands warmly grasped by the unknown.

"Mary, my love," he cried, "this is your cousin Herbert.

66

'Sdeath," he exclaimed, suddenly drawing back, "I ought to remember the injured dignity of the Dudleys. I forget that I am a forsworn, lopped-off branch of that noble house. My brother"

"My dear sir, my dear uncle, spare him, spare the dead. Do not visit upon the son the errors of the father."

"You say well, young man. His faults lie lightly on him. Mary, shake hands with your cousin."

The young girl frankly extended her hand, which Herbert gallantly raised to his lips.