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The betrothed pair about to be married that morning gazed upon the unwonted scene with the liveliest emotions, Giulietta Orsini and Ludovico Reggio vied with each other in promising rewards to any of the fishermen who would save this couple, who had gone away with the express purpose of being disunited by law, but to whom a Higher Power seemed to have accorded the often coveted blessing of union in death!

The repeated efforts of the brave men of the village were at last successful, partly owing to the moderation of the wind, and Luigi was dragged on shore nearly insensible, grasping his wife by a part of her dress. Long was it before all the careful attention lavished npon her could revive Teresa, but she opened her eyes at last and fixed them upon her husband, who uttered an exclamation of joy. Folded in each other's arms, they lay after so much exhaustion and danger, once more united in heart and soul, while the sun, breaking out again, spread gladness all along the wave-washed shore. While the happy intelligence was announced that by the goodness of Santa Nicola not one of the passengers had been lost-while the re-assured peasantry flocked to the chapel and the fête, and made amends by fresh songs and flowers for their fears and troubles-more than all, while the marriage of Giulietta Orsini and Ludovico Reggio was being celebrated not far off, our hero and heroine, recovering more rapidly than could have been hoped or expected, reclined upon their cushions vowing an eternal oblivion of their

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differences, and a determination to live in harmony together.

And this my honourable friends is the veritable little history of the Fête at Maggiore!

CHAPTER IX.

A GLEAM OF SUNSHINE.

"Per varios casos, per tot discrimina rerum

Tendimus in Latium."

VIRGIL.

THE information which I succeded in drawing from the soi-disant Antonio Roselli proved abundantly useful. It was evident that he valued his friendly position more on account of the advantages to be derived from it, than from any sentiment of attachment to his strange companion. It was certain that he was entirely oblivious of the circumstance which had led to my acquaintance with his Paris haunts-perhaps he remembered only successful schemes of rascality, and dismissed failures from his memory! "Horas non numero nisi serenas!" However the hints which from time to time I was able to throw out, and my quiet parade of the French Agent de Police, M. Edouard Cornelisson, gave me a mysterious power and ascendancy over him which well served my purpose for the time

the more so as though evidently a skill sebemer. he was a most egregions and arrant ecward

It appeared that Monsieur Alphonse Leroux was differit to manage, even physaly, mod pre mentally. He had always been headstrong, always obstinate, and generally insisted upon his own way with entire carelessness as to the ecnvenience of others; the advantage of a large fortune smoothed this way which would otherwise have partaken of the character of a steeple chase. Even as it was, frequent had been the scrapes, quarrels and dangers of his career. Perhaps he had agreed better with Melanie's father, Gaston de Ruisseau, than with any other friend; but it was for the all sufficient reason that Gaston had usually deferred to him, joining in many of the more harmless freaks and speculations of his younger friend. Monsieur de Ruisseau had uniformly been unfortunate the wild excitement of the former carried him through where the latter sank; the excessive hardiesse and utter carelessness as to consequences of Alphonse brought him immunity from danger, and luck at the gaming table, where Gaston succumbed to the one, and ruined himself at the other.

Melanie lost her mother early; she saw but little of her father, and when she did enjoy his coupany its advantages were increasingly neutralized by the presence of his inseparable friend Monsieur Leroux, to whom she was taught to consider herself affianced. To do justice to the latter, he strove after his own fashion to render himself agreeable, and admired the young girl with that wild kind of

passion which intensely craves the possession of everything that is beautiful, or that happens at the moment to please, without understanding the nobler, gentler, and more generous emotions. Her quiet apathy, and then her ill-repressed dislike to a lover so opposed in feeling and sentiment had roused some of the dangerous portions of this man's nature; opposition, especially where he was strongly interested or fully determined, was utterly and entirely insupportable to Leroux, and unfortunately he had too often gained his point by the two extremes of explosions of almost insane violence and selfish cunning.

Gaston, at the period of his death, was very much under the influence of Alphonse, and it was suspected considerably indebted to him. Melanie was left to a great extent in the power of the latter, who was constituted one of her guardians and to whom she was formally betrothed. Her other guardian, quite unable to endure the insolence of his coadjutor, soon signified his intention to abstain from acting in any way, and thus the poor girl was placed in a most unsatisfactory position, and one which her father certainly never contemplated. But on the one hand he had received many benefits from his friend Alphonse, and remained always strongly prejudiced in his favour, and on the other the cunning Leroux had seized every opportunity to misrepresent the harmless flirtations and innocent gaieties of Melanie.

The cause for the absurd and peremptory letter which had been addressed to the young girl by her guardian, and the appointment of so strange a

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