self brought before the King, and proclaims her innocence by taking the fact upon himself.

Ah! hope no more thy pardon here to find, O glorious virgin! O exalted mind!

n vain, against the Tyrant's fury held, Love for defence opposes beauty's shield, Now doom'd to death, and sentenced to the flame,

With cruel hands they seize the beauteous dame
Her veil and mantle rent bestrew the ground,
With rugged cords her tender arms are bound.
Silent she stands, no marks of fear express'd,
Yet soft commotions gently heave her breast;
Her modest cheeks a transient blush disclose;
Where lillies soon succeed the fading rose.
Meanwhile the people throng (the rumour
spread)

Aud with the rest Olindo there was led :
The tale he knew, but not the victim's name,
Till near the tragic scene of fate he came ;
Soon as the youth the prisoner's face survey'd,
And saw, condemn'd to death, his lovely maid,
While the stern guards their cruel task pursue,
Through the thick press with headlong speed

he flew.

She's guiltless! (to the king aloud he cries)
She's guiltless of th' offence for which she dies;
She could not, durst not, such a work demands
Far other than a woman's feeble hands;
What arts to lull the keeper could she prove?
And how the sacred image thence remove?
She fondly boasts the deed, unthinking maid !
'Twas I the statue from the mosque convey'd

there were those who pretended to read in their dejected looks and faltering speech a tale of disaster and disappointment. The count himself observed that there was much mystery about the actions of Petroni, and even hinted his apprehensions that the hopes of Vincentio pointed to the same fatal source in which the ruin of lapse of a few monthis, however, brighter his father had originated. After the prospects seemed to open. It was ascertained that Vincentio had remitted considerable sums to his steward, and had even directed certain repairs to be commenced in his palace, which seemed to indicate an intention of restoring it to its former grandeur. Thus time rolled on till one mouth only of the stipulated period remained to be accomplished, when Petronisuddenly presented himself at the villa Gheranzi. His pursuits, whatever they had been, had much changed him. His looks were wild, his features haggard-and there was a dereign to the mild and urbane dignity of gree of ferocity in his manner utterly fohis former character.

"I come, count, a suppliant, but to your justice rather than to your mercy. The task you have imposed on me is im

I found a passage, favour'd by the night;
The glory mine, the death for me remains,
Nor let her thus usurp my rightful pains;
The punishment be mine, her chains I claim;

Mine is the pile prepared, and mine the kin

dled flame.

Book II.

AGATHA GHERANZI.

(Continued from page 73.)

Agatha, informed by her father of the result of their conference, grew more composed, and by degrees regained much of that elasticity of mind which had shed its fairy beams over her earlier years. Naturally sanguine, and unversed in worldly affairs, she looked forward with hope, almost with confidence, to the result of those efforts which she understood from time to time employed the unceasing attention of Vincentio. Of the nature of those efforts little was known. His absences from Mantua were frequent, and often protracted; but the few domestics whom he yet retained, and who were ancient servants of the family, preserved a religious silence on all that respected their master; yet

reduce the demand. I have toiled when. even the herdsman slept; I have dared that, which but for Agatha- and he struck his forehead with his clenched hand as he spoke I had trembled even to look upon-Nay, hear me out-I have amassed a treasure which ought, which must be accepted as a release from further toil."

"Name it," replied the count-" It is a good earnest," continued he; returning the papers to Vincentio, "and requires but a little more exertion to secure the object of your desires. Nay, nay, no entreaties; I am firm, Petroni."

"Say rather hardened," exclaimed Vincentio, with bitterness; " but I have done; I bow to no man. On your head be the consequences of this fatal hour!"

Infuriated by conflicting passions, he rushed into the garden, where, at the foot. of a temple which had been erected to the memory of the late countess, he beheld Agatha, seated and looking on the declining sun with a countenance in which peace, innocence, and love, were sweetly depicted. He paused-he trembled, the big drops of emotion chased each other across his pale forehead, as he gazed on her who, still unconscious of his presence, seemed lost in happy musing.

"With thee-with thee, Vincentio-" she slowly murmured. He was at her

"If you love me, Agatha--"

"Of the festival of St. Michael," replied Agatha reproachfully.

"True, true; the time draws neartwo days only, I believe: the greater need, therefore, for haste, that we may reach home in time for Petroni, who will certainly not grudge to tarry for us a short time; to-morrow, therefore, we start for Naples."

They quitted Rome at sun-rise, to be in advance of the prince of Casti, who the count feared, would travel with greater expedition than they could command. On reaching the house, in the Pontine Marshes where they were to dine, nothing, however, appeared of the prince or his suite; and after having waited some hours for his arrival, the count had the mortification to learn from a courier who then passed, that his highness, from some unexplained cause, had deferred his journey till the following day. They had no choice, therefore, but to remain at a wretched inn of very questionable safety, or pursue their route to. Terracina. In this exigency, the count, whose chief fears were for his wealth, of which he carried as little as possible, decided on the latter course; and speed was too consonant to the feelings of Agatha to meet with opposition from her, even had her apprehensions been greater than they were. As night fall approached, however, the timidity of the count increased

"We shall be late in Terracina, Agatha; and, to say truth, I like not this mountainous pass; it savours of danger. -Nay, nay, don't be alarmed :-look, girl, to the end of the vista, and see how gloriously the sun is setting-on Terracina, as I live, and the sparkling sea behind it !"

It was indeed a scene of brilliant beauty, suggesting only ideas of peace and innocerce. Alas! that the loveliest haunts of nature should be profaned by the lawless rapacity of man! They were already emerging from the pass, calmed and reassured, when a band of brigands, fully armed and masked, rushed from a cavern in the rock and demanded booty. The count, in tottering haste, yet not without an inward struggle, handed the contents of his purse, which to his astonishment, was furiously repulsed by the robber, while Agatha, terrified and trembling at his violence, sunk half-fainting to the back of the carriage.

This is but mockery," cried one of the party, in a dissonant voice: "we know you for the prince of Casti ;-your treasure, or you die!"

"No! on my life! on my soul !"
"Perjure not yourself, old man; it

will not save you here, and may damn you hereafter, if priests speak truth." "No impiety," cried a hollow voice behind.

"You are deceived, on my soul!" exclaimed the count, in great trepidation; "I am no prince, I am a poor traveller; whom you but vainly impede-Drive on, postillions!"

"At your peril!" cried the brigand who had last spoken, and who seemed the leader of the band, approaching the carriage window:-"we are not deceived, sir prince, and you escape us not. Your reasure, or you die! "Do I dream?" said the count"that voice--"

66

Delay is death!" exclaimed the brigand, in a voice of thunder: "will you yield?"

The count, seemingly paralyzed by some inward emotion, auswered not.

"Heaven forgive me, then!" cried the brigand, as he levelled his carbine: "it is my last stake!"

"Hold! hold!" exclaimed the count, as the ball entered his heart.

Agatha reviving from her trance, looked up, as the body of her dead father sunk on her knees, and at that moment the mask fell from the face of his murderer. It was Vincentio!-Astonishment, horror and despair were depicted on his countenance. She sunk insensible at his feet.

On recovering her senses, she found herself in bed, with her only female attendant weeping at her side. "It was then but a dream!" she exclaimed, "yet thy tears, Marina, and oh! that murdered form!" fixing her gaze on the dead body of her father, which, from want of room, had been deposited in the same apartment." Nay, hinder me not!" she cried, as she sunk back exhausted on the bed: "I must go to him he is my only parent! -Alas! have I a parent ?" The sense of her bereavement was too horrible for endurance. Convulsions succeeded each other with frightful rapidity; and in a few hours she was reduced to the brink of the grave.

Long did she remain in this wretched abode, hovering between life and death; and indebted, under Heaven, for her recovery to the unremitting care of the gentle and affectionate Marina. Of the past she seemed for a time to have but a feeble and confused recollection. The sudden alarm, the fatal catastrophe, passed at intervals over her memory like an imperfect image, pale and indistinct; and once she saw, or dreamed she saw, the figure of the murderer, through the scanty curtains of her bed. It was no dream; the shade of her former lover-alas! he

was now only a shade-hovered around her, unseen by her domestics, and ministered to her safety; he was, in fact, uncontrolled lord of the district, and his fiat was fate. Horror-struck at his crime, he had instantly fled the spot, leaving even Agatha, whose glance he dared not again meet, to the care of her attendants; but lost as she was to him now and for ever, her fate was still his; and his first aftercourse was to track her steps to the inn whither they had conveyed her, and the occupants of which were the mere creatures of his will. Strange that the crime by which he had hoped to secure the possession of her should be the means of wresting her from his arms! Retributive justice, though often slow, is not the less sure. Once, indeed, a demoniac impulse, which her utter helplessness alone could have suggested, flashed across his excited imagination; yet, fallen as he now was, his better feelings recoiled with horror even from the thought of injuring such angelic purity. He but lingered round the spot, like an unearthly being over the grave of his hopes, till the reviving senses of Agatha warned him to begone; when he departed, thanks to the inefficiency or weakness of the Roman government, none knew or inquired whither.

Youth, and an excellent constitution, at length prevailed; and Agatha, now Countess Gheranzi, revived to the misery and desolation that awaited her. With a celerity, which seemed to spring from a dread of encouraging the cause of that misery, she fled the scene of her deprivation, and sought that lonely home from which happiness was for ever banished. Here a fixed but serene melancholy succeeded to those paroxysms of grief which had shaken her frame almost to dissolution. Yet, severe as was the task of again mingling with the world, she declined not such consolation as friendship might yield; wholly disregarding, however, on the one hand, the splendid alliances which were urged on her acceptance, and, on the other, the counsels of those who would have persuaded her to retire to a convent, and dedicate her vast fortune to religious uses. Her sorrow was not of an ascetic character: to console the aged and miserable, to heal the wounds of sick ness or misfortune, to feed the hungry, and to clothe the naked--these were the only alleviations to a grief which grew more calm but not less intense, as the strong lights of her sufferings yielded to the soft shading of time. The perseverance of the prince of Castel-Monti, who only of her suitors continued to persecute her with unavail ing addresses, disturbed for a space that serenity of woe which the virtuous alone

can feel.

Even he, however, wearied and somewhat incensed at the firmness of her rejection, seemed at last also to have abandoned a fruitless pursuit.

To the catastrophe of that fatal evening she had never adverted; nor did the public voice reproach her with a supineness, which was variously attributed to timidity or hopelessness of discovering the perpetrators of the deed. The crime was too frequent, and the atonement too uncertain, to excite more than a temporary interest. Vincentio, ever in her thoughts, but never named by her, where was he?

Did he still live?-Could he yet pursue that guilty course, which had led him to the commission of a crime, involuntary indeed, as to the person, but not the less to be abhorred? Alas! had he but made his peace with offended Heaven, his death were now the most welcome tidings that could have reached her; but his fate was wholly unknown; he had never returned to Mantua, and his faithful steward, heart-broken at his absence, had sought from the countess intelligence which he believed, she only could give. It was a heart-rending scene; the tears of the old man fell fast and unrestrained, while Agatha, torn by the conflict of warring passions, with difficulty struggled through an interview which recalled the past in all its vivid horrors.

The prince of Castel-Monti, though seemingly acquiescent in the rejection of Agatha, had kept a strict but unobserved watch on her actions. He had marked, with surprise, the long estrangement of Vincentio, who, it was generally expected would have appeared to claim the hand of the countess, now that every obstacle to their union was apparently removed. Long pondering on the strangeness of his continued absence, he had been led to suspect, that it was in some shape connected with the death of the count; and the shrinking, the alarm, of Agatha, at some slight insinuations which he had purposely dropped, had tended to strengthen his suspicions. If he loved her less than when he had first addressed her, he was not the less desirous of possessing her. His avarice was excited by her great accession of wealth, and his pride, which had been deeply wounded by her disdain of his suit, could only now be appeased by his final triumph. Could he but penetrate that secret, of the existence of which he was every day more firmly convinced, success was certain :-once master of that, the rest followed of course. In this mood he had watched the departure of Vincentio's steward from the villa Gheranzi; and determined, at all hazards, to profit by the occasion, he had, by the