rosy face, simple and honest, though her frank, fearless manners, and capacity for conversation, indicated a young lady who had seen something of the world. Her brother, the consul, many years her elder, represented English diplomacy in a pleasant, cheery, if not very deep or astute fashion to the benighted foreigners by whom he was surrounded.

“And who is Violante?” asked James.

“Violante,” said Mr Tollemache, “is the rising star of Civita Bella.”

“Violante,” said Emily, “is the dearest, sweetest, most beautiful creature in the world!”

“Violante,” said Mrs Tollemache, “is a very sweet young person, whose mother I knew something of formerly, and whose sister gives Emily music and Italian lessons.”

“She is Signor Mattei’s daughter?” said Hugh.

“I will tell you all about her, Mr Crichton,” said Emily. “Signorina Rosa—that’s her sister—brings her to talk Italian with me. But some time ago they found out that she had a wonderful voice, and so she is to go on the stage. She is to make her first appearance next Tuesday, as Zerlina in ‘Don Giovanni;’ but the odd thing is that she hates it, she is so shy. Fancy hating it, I wish I had the chance!”

“Emily, my dear!” ejaculated her mother. “A couple of nights will rub off all that,” said Mr Tollemache, “even if it is genuine.”

“Genuine!” cried Emily. “For shame, Charles. She cannot help it, and even singing in the class has not cured her. It is quite true, isn’t it, Mr Crichton?” turning to Hugh.

Hugh paused for a moment, and—Jem could hardly believe his eyes—blushed, as he answered decidedly, “Yes, but she is more afraid of her father than of the public.”

“Dear me,” said James, “this sounds very interesting. And she is a beauty, too, Hugh?”

“I don’t know if you would consider her so. I do, undoubtedly!” said Hugh, with a sort of desperate gravity.

“Very unlikely acquaintance for old Hugh,” thought James. “See if I submit to any more criticisms about my mixed society. Is she very young?” he said aloud.

“Oh, yes,” said Mrs Tollemache. “You see, the circumstances are altogether peculiar. These two sisters are most excellent girls, and knowing their antecedents, and having them here as occasional companions for Emily, I could not, I cannot suppose that anything would ever accrue to cause me to repent the arrangement.”

There was a peculiar emphasis in Mrs Tollemache’s manner of making this remark, and it was accompanied by a little blush and nervous movement of her knitting needles.

“It must be a very pleasant kind of place,” said James, wondering if Charles Tollemache found this young songstress too bewitching.

“Yes, but perhaps it is not altogether inopportune that our leaving Civita Bella should coincide with Violante’s début. Things will be altered now, and I shall wish Emily to have more regular instruction.”

“Mamma, I shall love Violante as long as ever I live,” said Emily, “and I should not care if she sang at fifty operas.”

“You must go to school, Emmy,” said her brother, “and attend to the three R’s with twopence extra for manners.”

“I shall not mind if you will send me to that nice school Mr Crichton was talking about, where the governess is nearly as young as I am,” said Emily.

“Not quite,” said Hugh, laughing. “I only told you Miss Venning had a young sister.”

“I shall ask Mr Spencer Crichton about it,” said Mrs Tollemache.

“Have you been telling them about Oxley Manor?” said James. “I am sure Flossy Venning is the governess, whatever she may be called. You would make friends with our girls, Miss Tollemache?”

“Yes, I should like that. But now I want to show you my friend, and if we don’t make haste we shall be late,” said Emily, as she ran out of the room.

The little party of English took their way through the quaint and richly coloured streets of the Italian city to Signor Mattei’s apartments, and James could not repress his exclamations of delight at every patch of colour, every deep full shadow, and every graceful outline that met his eye. Emily pointed out the various lions, and asked questions in her turn about the England which was but a dim memory of her childhood, her bright English face gaining perhaps something of an added charm from its fair foreign setting, and itself giving just the last touch of piquante contrast to her companion’s sense of delightful novelty.

Young ladies never came amiss to James, and in the intervals of his raptures he amused himself by drawing out Emily’s ideas of English society derived from much and earnest study of such novels and tales as Mrs Tollemache allowed her to peruse, and which had evidently rendered Sunday-school teachings, parsonages, riding in the park, picnics, sportsmen, smoke, and rain, as great a jumble of picturesque confusion as Italian palaces and prima donnas might be to James. Such a state of mind entertained him, and while Hugh walked silently beside Mr Tollemache, he persuaded her to express her admiration of “The Daisy Chain” and “Dr Thorne,” her fervent wish to resemble the heroines of the former book; her rather more faintly expressed supposition that English country squires were like Frank Gresham; her desire to be kind to little girls in straw hats, and old women in red cloaks—though Mr Crichton says he never saw an old woman in a red cloak—and her evident belief that benevolent rectors, honest cottagers, and useful young ladies, were plenty as blackberries in the England that was a land of romance for her. “How delightful it would be to know such!”

“I am afraid you will be disappointed, Miss Tollemache,” said James. “Our lives in England are very commonplace, and the real Frank Greshams are rather stupid fellows, who wear muddy boots, care for little but riding and shooting, and are out of doors all day.”

“But that seems so manly,” said Emily, with a romantic vision of heather and mists, mountains and dashing streams, floating before her imagination.

“Well,” said James, “I suppose the romance is in people’s hearts, and anything may be picturesque if you can get the right point of view, and see it in the right light, and the truest artists are those who have the quickest insight, and the widest sympathies. But your dazzling beauty in this Palace of Art that we are approaching seems more like romance to me.”

“Violante?” said Emily, to whom the first part of his speech had been an enigma. “Oh, there is nothing romantic about her. She’s just a cantatrice, you know, but she is a clear little thing, and I love her.”

As Emily spoke they were mounting the great marble staircase that led to Signor Mattei’s apartments, and presently entered the long room, now arranged for the convenience of the musical performance that was about to take place. James looked round at the painted walls and delicate carvings, faded and injured, yet still soft and harmonious. This was a wonderful enchanted palace; where was the fairy princess? He was presented to Signor Mattei, who, in very good English, expressed his pleasure at seeing him there, and found him a place. Rosa came and offered him a copy of the music that they were going to sing, and as his companions took their seats, and the performance began, he had leisure to study, not his score, but the motley