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A sound proceeded from the corner of the room which appeared to resemble a stray adjective prefixed to the word "humbug!"

I turned quickly round, but discovered nothing more than the rosy individual, with the emptied tumbler of whiskey punch just descending from his lips.

"Sir!-did you-?"

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"Well, then," said my placid friend, "will confounded liar,' meet the case better ?"

"I really fail to catch your meaning!"

The stout man jerked his fingers in the direction of the door, intimating that his unexpected remarks applied to the person that had lately taken his departure.

"Do you mean that he is not a Lombardian ?" enquired I.

"He's a toady—a kind of hanger on to a Frenchman staying here; that's what he is," remarked my companion, buttoning his coat and reaching his hat. "His companion's a fool, and he is a knave! As for never having been in Paris, it's the most barefaced lie I ever heard. If you take my advice, have nothing to say to the fellow; he tried to cheat me the other night."

"And the Frenchman ?"

“I have nothing to say against him, except that he is a fool, ha, ha, ha! good night, sir."

As I reached the door of the hôtel, the Italian, looking out into the street, presented his profile The gas shone full upon it, as it had done before in another and a gayer capital.

strongly in relief.

The truth flashed across me at once, and I advanced. "Signor Antonio Roselli."

"Do I see you again, my friend ?" expression-the same contemptuous sneer. Roselli then must be an alias!

The same

Antonio

"Do you remember the Passage des Voleurs, in the Rue Etroit, Monsieur ?"

He visibly started as I tapped him on the shoulder; his complexion changed; recovering himself, he assured me that he had not the most remote conception of my meaning.

"I think your name was quite a different one, mon cher, at the Cabaret du Loup?"

This shock completely knocked him over, I saw that he was suddenly cowed, and that I had him for the moment in my power. What atrocities he might have been privy to in the Passage des Voleurs were unknown to me; but, at all events, he had been my guide on that memorable evening when, new to Paris, I had suffered him to watch me from the bankers along the Boulevards, and to conduct me to the horrible den of thieves already described in an earlier chapter, and he now reappeared as travelling companion to Melanie's guardian, strange coincidence; possibly a favourable chance for me.

We made an appointment for the next evening. The appointment was faithfully kept, as my calculations led me to expect. As an experiment, I had made a pretext to take in with me the only French detective of my acquaintance, a M. Edouard Cornelisson, who remained a short time, chatting gaily, sipping a liqueur, and then left to go about

his business.

He had taken little notice of Signor Roselli; but Signor Roselli was certainly not displeased, if my observation served me, at the Frenchman's departure.

The room, however, was too much occupied by a number of demonstrative foreigners to allow of much private conversation at first. The Italian drank freely-rattled on with myself and others, evidently desirous to keep me in good humour, and, in strange contradiction to his character, and doubtless in order to impress me with the innocence and beautiful simplicity of his whole nature, improvised the following almost pastoral story, which I listened to carefully, for fear of missing any revelation which the narrator might drop at an unguarded moment. With what success my attention to the tale was rewarded, the reader must judge after perusal. I have thought well to divest it of its plentiful garnishing of broken English and expressive expletives.

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THE FETE AT MAGGIORE,

Something, light as air—a look,

A word unkind or wrongly taken—
Oh! Love, that tempests never shook,
A breath, a touch like this has shaken,

And ruder words will soon rush in

To spread the breach that words begin:
And eyes forget the gentle ray
They wore in courtship's smiling day;
And voices lose the tone that shed
A tenderness round all they said;
Till fast declining, one by one,
The sweetnesses of love are gone,
And hearts, so lately mingled, seem
Like broken clouds, or like the stream,
That smiling left the mountain's brow,
As tho' its waters ne'er could sever,
Yet, 'ere it reach the plain below,
Breaks into floods that part for ever."

MOORE.

As for Luigi Mazza, he cared little about it, spoke not at all of the Santissima Nicola, and very little even on the subject of the fête. In proportion to

the number of heads turned by this celebrated addition to the calendar, grew the carelessness and reserve of the heretical Luigi.

I am obliged to confess that such unbecoming conduct much annoyed his handsome wife Teresa, who was undoubtedly une bonne catholique, and observed saints' days with an extremely praiseworthy zeal, especially so long as she had an elegant dress and a few pretty ribbons remaining.

But on this occasion her daintiest costume was in fact, a little passé, even amongst the simple and mirth-loving peasantry of the lake, and no amount of management could render her ribbons presentable -the damage which had occurred to them at a rainy fête to some unpropitious worthy, being irremediable.

Then Luigi, instead of coming forward like a gracious Italian husband ought to have done, complained of the state of the country, political uncertainties, stagnation of his trade, and with these and other unmeaning phrases audaciously tried to persuade the poor Teresa that this was hardly the time for the purchase of expensive adornments.

Just as if the beautiful little Italienne had no common sense too! The time! why if one did not do honour to a new saint in the calendar, what was to become of our religious principles? The good Padres inculcate obedience, and self-sacrifice; but then, husbands are so selfish, and so inconceivably disobedient; and to be sure there would be no other fête again for an incalulable time-not for weeks.

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