made the noiseless creature's toilet; and the velvet curtains might have been looped aside at the Duchessa's pleasure, for any sound which that tiny atom of unwelcome flesh and blood ever made. Madame Margherita sat by the fireplace looking over the baby's head at the vexed and indifferent mother. The little woman had a woman's heart in her, and was touched with a special compassion for the child which could not draw its mother's attention from her pet spaniel, and curiously, with the instinct of a close unconscious observer, watched the lady on the bed. What kind of creature was she? A woman, one of those called the gentler portion of humanity, many a time named an angel by admiring lips-a mother, nay, almost a grandmother, young though she still was. There she lay, vexed at her seclusion, troubled at her burden, anxious to get out of her sight and hands the harmless helpless thing she had given birth to. Madame Margherita watched her narrowly over the baby's dozing sleep. She was a great lady; but the little Irishwoman resented deeply the secret birth at which she had been called to assist, and, thinking of what her innocent English ladies would think of her if they knew it, had no softening in her eyes to her patient. She watched her with a woman's contempt and indignation, not untinctured by professional disgust. To play with that ugly little cur, and never so much as to look at the child!

"Poverino!" said Cenci, coming up softly to the bundle of white muslin; "but will it live, think you? It is too good for a little child."

“It will live,” said Madame Margherita, indignantly; "to be sure. If it were an heir and a darling, and the light of its mother's eyes, I might doubt of it, Cenci; but look you here, when death is wished for, it does not come."

"It is true," said Cenci, gravely; "but nobody wishes thee dead, thou little unhappy one! only safe, bello mio-safe, and out of the way."

"Ah, Cenci, San Lorenzo would be the safest nursery of all; and so my lady thinks," said the English nurse; "but I tell you the babe's

well and likely. I must see this Mariuccia, however. Of course, she'll swaddle up the poor innocent and scorn to take a lesson from me; that I should have anything to do with a baby in swaddling-clothes! I am sorry to say it, Cenci, for I've a respect for you and your aunt Teta; but the most ignorant, prejudiced, bigoted people I ever set eyes on! Well, well, it does not matter; but you'll see this child will live."

"I daresay Mariuccia will do what you tell her," said Cenci; "she is only a villana-she knows nothing. We brought up Donna Anna in the modo Inglese, Madame Margherita ; and my Teta, who is two years older, went to her grandmother, and was fastened up like a proper child till she was of due age. You are fantastic, you Forestieri; when you say a thing without knowing, then you will never be convinced. Has not my Teta straighter limbs and a better grace than Donna Anna herself, though she is married to a prince? But silence-not a word-the Duchessa will hear."

"If the Duchessa did hear, or the Holy Father himself, it was a scandalous business to entice me here," said Madame Margherita, "to assist at such a birth-I who am known to have nothing to do only with English ladies! I shall have nothing to say to your aunt Teta, Cenci, another time. The old hypocrite! to come to me with her tale of Jesu Nazzarino, till I thought it was a work of mercy, and not of sin !"

"What is that you say, Margherita?" asked the Duchessa's fretful voice from the bed.

"Only concerning Cenci's aunt Teta, my lady," said Madame Margherita, changing her tone with professional ease. I was engaged with a lady when she came for me, and old Teta did not know where to go; so instead of seeking out my husband, she went home to the Jesu Nazzarino and said her prayers; then she took him down and set him on the table, and abused him well. 'Are you deaf because you're old?' says she. 'Ah, Jesu Nazzarino, can't ye hear me? or is it shamming ye are? Madame Margherita must

come to my lady-Madame Margherita must come to La Duchessa. Ah, shame on you, Jesu Nazzarino! If you do not bring me Madame Margherita, I will never pray to you any more.' Then she hung him up again, and went out to seek me; but Jesu Nazzarino was as deaf as ever. So Teta went back and took him down again, and set him on the table. Ah, Jesu Nazzarino,' says she, 'Madame Margherita must come to my lady. If you will send me Madame Margherita, I will offer you a candle as thick as my arm; and if you will not, I will take you down, you old deaf useless thing, and burn you in the fire.' So she went out again and found me; for you see, iny lady, it is good to offer a candle to Jesu Nazzarino when you are in

great need of him; then he does all you say."

Ah, Teta is a charming old woman," cried the Duchessa ; "why can't you have Teta here to amuse me, Cenci? You never think of anything. Send for her directly, do you hear? Ah, by the by, it is as well; we will have done with the child first. Has Mariuccia come?-go and see if she is come, and let her come up immediately to fetch the child. Why don't you go? Margherita, why will my servants never do what I tell them? Do you speak, for I must not be agitated, you know."

Saying which, the Duchessa controlled herself instantaneously, and nestled back among the pillowsshe would not retard her own recovery for half an hour.

That evening the wished-for Mariuccia made her appearance at the Agostini palace. She was in her gala dress, as became a woman called to the presence of so great a lady as the Duchessa; and it was difficult to believe that the brown middle-aged peasant woman, with her broad figure made still broader by the projecting boddice of her local costume, and the great white handkerchief folded over it, was the fostersister and identical in age with the delicate and languid beauty secluded with so much precaution behind all these closed curtains and shut doors. Mariuccia was received by Cenci at the door of the anteroom, and mysteriously led into the next apart ment, in ordinary times the Duchessa's dressing-room. Here the waiting-woman paused, making impressive Italian signs of silence; for it was necessary to inform the stranger of the business required of her, before admitting her to the great lady's room. "Hush - there is a baby to be nursed and cared for. Thou must take it to thy house, and get a nurse for it, and bring it up," said Cenci. "Thou canst say it is thy Maria's child."

"A baby!" cried Mariuccia, with lively gestures of astonishment. "Where?-how? Santa Maria

VOL. LXXXVIIL-NO. DXXXIX.

what luck has dropped such a windfall here ?"

"Eh! what can one say?-there it is, the unhappy one," said Cenci, shrugging her shoulders. "La Duchessa will give thee her own instructions; and there is Madame Margherita, the English nurse, will have it dressed in the modo Inglese. These Forestieri are pleased with nothing that is not done in their own way."

Nay, I will take the child if the Duchessa says so," said Mariuccia ; "but I know nothing of your English fashion. The baby shall be like my own babies, if it comes with me. Do you think there is a woman in Rocca who would vex her spirit with your modo Inglese? And I am too old to learn. My mother, I will answer for her, put La Duchessa herself into swaddling-bands; and if it sufficed for her, it must suffice for her child. Why did she have the English nurse, Cenci? Is there not the Sora Caterina still living, who came to Genzaro when Donna Anna was born?"

"Ah, stupid," said Cenci; "Sora Caterina goes to all the great ladies in Rome-Madame Margherita is only with the English who come travelling when they ought to be at home; and she is not pleased to be here, I can tell you. But come, the

Duchessa will have no ease till the child is gone. Poverino! it is so good, the unhappy one; I think it will die."

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"But, Cenci, a moment-it is a boy? then it is the heir? and why send it away?" asked Mariuccia : why so secret? have they not wished for an heir? If it is great love for Donna Anna, it is the first time of showing it-for, to be sure, thou canst not mean any shame."

"Nay, to be sure," said Cenci, with grave satire; "only the sooner it is gone, the better the Duchessa will be pleased; and the better will it be for thee."

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Ah, Il Duca does not know," said Mariuccia.

"Bah, the Duke knows as well as you or I-come; it is the Duchessa's will," said Cenci, moving towards the invalid's guarded apartment. Mariuccia followed in a vague state of perplexity. The good woman was not so sharp-witted as Cenci, nor as Cenci's daughter, brought up among all the knowledges and scandals of a great house. Mariuccia was by no means so deeply shocked by her own suspicions as an English country woman in her position might have been, but still went doubtfully after the waiting-woman, quite unable to make out whether there was any real reason for all this secresy, or whether it was a mere caprice of the great lady, who had amused the world with a due share of caprices in her time.

The room and its inhabitants remained much as they had been in the earlier part of the day. The forlorn baby, who had no little dainty nest provided for its slumbers, and whose mother did not admit it to share her couch, lay sleeping still on Madame Margherita's knee, and the little spaniel still lurked among the white coverlids of the Duchessa's bed. The sun was now on the other side of the house, and the Persianis of the middle window had been thrown open. Monte Cavo, with a streak of snow upon his summit, and a faint cloud-cap all fringed and feathered with rosy touches of reflection from the setting sun, thrust his great shoulder across the breadth of sky, which calmly surveyed the seclusion of this room; and from the window

you could look down upon the deep blue basin of the lake, with its metallic depth of colour, and across to the sweet grey of the olive woods, all tinged and brightened with livelier shades of green. The Duchessa, however, neither looked at the sky nor at Monte Cavo; her white hand darted now and then, in half-playful, half-angry onslaught at the spaniel, provoking the mimic rage of the spoilt creature; then she yawned and turned and appealed to Madame Margherita for some prevalent gossip about the English strangers who were wondered and laughed at, with a shade of bitterness and painful sense of the importance of these wandering strangers, among the noble folk of Rome. Madame Margherita was nothing loth; but, speaking of her country women and their babies, delivered many a thrust at her patient, which that languid lady was wholly unconscious of. They were thus engaged when Cenci and Mariuccia entered the room.

"You will take the child, Mariuccia," said the Duchessa, when she had received and snubbed the dutiful salutations and inquiries of the wondering woman, and had suffered her hand to be kissed with impatient grace, "and get a nurse-you will easily get a nurse in Rocca-and take care of the poor little creature ; and you can let Cenci know now and then how it goes on. I will give you twelve scudi a-month, which is a great deal more than it will cost you; and now make haste-take it away."

"But, Eccellenza," said Mariuccia, "what shall I say? how shall I call the little Don?"

"You shall not call it Don at all," said the Duchessa, fretfully, with a momentary flush on her face; "say it is Maria's son, or what you will. It will never be the Duke Agostini, assure yourself of that. You can call it Francisco. Oh yes, it is baptised; and now, for the love of heaven, take it away!"

"But pardon, Eccellenza," said Madame Margherita, "while I instruct the good woman how to dress the dear little fellow. See here, Mariuccia, these are all his clothes-this goes on first, you perceive; and then the flannel, and then

"Take it away, for heaven's sake," cried the Duchessa ; "I tell you it is no Don, and shall not be called so. Take the child away; do you know I must not be agitated, Margherita, inhuman? Do you know I must be well for the Princess Coromila's ball? Ah, cruel! do you mean to kill me? dress it as you will, Mariuccia mia; but for the love of heaven take it away!"

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At least, Madame, you will kiss the child," said Madame Margherita, holding up the voiceless infant with a stern solemnity which on her broad face and broader figure looked half ludicrous. The Duchessa laughed, but, conscious of the disapproval, frowned also; and, leaning carelessly forward, just touched her baby's cheek with her lips: it was the first and last mother's kiss which ever fell to the lot of the little Francisco. A few minutes after he was bundled up in a shawl, and concealed under another shawl belonging to Cenci, which she professed to lend to the country woman, because it was after the Ave Maria, and the sun had set. Thus burdened, Mariuccia went stealthily forth from the muffled anteroom. The quick twilight was already falling into darkness, and her son waited below with the donkey which was to carry his mother home; but the much-desired visitor was not to escape so easily. As she proceeded with caution along the gallery, Teta, with her fluttering muslin apron, her long earrings, and glossy braids of black hair, came suddenly out upon her from a neighbouring apartment. Mariuccia swerved aside in unconscious alarm, and a faint cry burst from the child-almost the first cry it had uttered in its stealthy little life. The new nurse was in dismay; unconsciously she betrayed the nature of her bundle by rocking it softly in her arms and whispering the " hush, hush," of an incipient lullaby_over its little half-smothered head. Teta's

quick eyes saw and understood. There could be very little doubt about the Duchessa's secret now.

"It is so late to go all the road to Rocca," she said, with affected sympathy: "are you not afraid of robbers, Mariuccia mia? and then the donkey is obstinate and pokes his nose among the hedges, and you have so great a bundle to carry; but you will give that to Gigi when you get below. Is that my mother's shawl she has lent you? What great luck you are in for she would not lend it to

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Ah, but I know you are in great favour," said Teta. To think of being sent for, all the way to Rocca, to speak with the Duchessa! Is she fond of hearing how all the old women are in your village, Mariuccia mia? I will go up and visit you some day, and then perhaps the Duchessa will send for me."

"It is a troublesome road to our village," said Mariuccia," and a great lady like the Duchessa does not stay long in Genzaro, I warrant you. Come when my Maria comes home from Subiaco, amore mia. She is going to send me her little son."

"Has Maria then a little son?" asked Teta, pressing still closer to Mariuccia's burdened arm, as she marched along the gallery with her firm slow Roman step by the peasant's side. "Then I daresay this is a bundle of things for the baby which the Duchessa has given you. Did I not say you were in favour? Come, Mariuccia, show them to me."

"Old robes, Teta mia. There is nothing worth looking at," cried the unfortunate Mariuccia, making a sud den start from Teta's side as the little morsel of humanity in her arms, provoked thereto by the fresh air and unusual locomotion, gave another momentary cry.

"Then you all thought you could cheat Teta," cried that triumphant maiden, clapping her hands; as if

I did not know that all those curtains over the doors, and no one going in, and Madame Margherita from Rome, and Mariuccia from Rocca, must mean something! Show it to me this moment, Mariuccia, or I will go and tell my mother."

"Your mother will never forgive me-and oh, Madonna santissima! what will the Duchessa say?" cried the bewildered peasant in terror. "Show me the baby directly," cried the authoritative Teta, " and I will swear to you that they never shall know."

Thus commanded, Mariuccia timidly lifted the corner of the shawl, and in the darkness, where it was almost impossible to see anything, exhibited the little bundle under it, from which flickered once more that fitful little hand. They could not see much of the baby, it was true, but the two women bent their heads together with a common instinct and cooed over the bundle. "Quanti bello!" said one, and "Quanti carina!" sighed the other, dropping visionary kisses on the shawl, as such female creatures do. Then Mariuccia quickened her pace with a kind of desperation, and Teta, much subdued, disappeared down a back staircase. The Duchessa's secret was now in the keeping of another, and both the parties concerned were a little afraid. Mariuccia made haste to mount her donkey, called Gigi imperatively from the game into which he had plunged for "divertimento" while he waited, and rode off

in great haste. The good woman rode after a masculine fashion, it is to be confessed, and made rather a comical figure with the baby in her arm, the reins in her hand, her manful and steady seat, and the straightforward directness with which she looked before her, glancing neither to the right hand nor to the left, and suffering the wise animal which carried her to steer its own wary course. But though she rode en cavalier, her heart warmed womanfully to the forlorn baby in her arm. That very night it should be comfortably swaddled as an Italian bambino ought to be. That very night poor Antonia, who had lost her baby, should take the little outcast to her bosom. The quiet baby slept on through the darkness round the glimmering edge of the lake, and through the soft whirr and rustle of the olive woods, securely wrapped in its shawl, and knowing nothing of its transfer from the palace to the cottage, while Gigi rambled on, now in front, now in the rear, singing low to keep up his courage; and Mariuccia's donkey went steadily, now swinging down a slope, and now giving grave heed to an ascent. Save that they travelled so late, the boy, the woman, the donkey, and the baby, were a commonplace party enough on that country road; and nobody could have supposed that either mysterious secret or future romance was involved in that darkling progress up the steep side of Monte Cavo, to Mariuccia's village home.

The daylight world of Rocca discovered next morning with some amazement the new inmate in Mariuccia's house, of which poor Antonia, the young mother who had lost her baby, and who had been sadly making up her mind to go into Rome and try her fortune as a nurse, had already taken willing charge. Mariuccia announced the baby to be the child of her daughter Maria who was settled in Subiaco, a convenient distance off, but nobody believed this fabulous story: however, the incident did not excite so much curiosity in that rocky little perch upon the side of Monte

Cavo as it might have done in an English village. Somehow or other, through the investigations of Zia Marianna, who was of an inquiring mind, and devoted herself to the pursuit of knowledge, a vague connection between the Agostini palace and the little nursling in Mariuccia's house became an understood matter among the villagers; but even Zia Marianna could not make up her mind to determine whose child the infant was, and curiosity gradually calmed down into custom and acquaintance. Everybody learned to recognise the little Chichino as a child of the village, and