length Antonio, in spite of his agitation, fell asleep, resting on his sword, before the crucifix; and, when he awakened in the cold morning wind, he found himself lying on the top of a small rock, surrounded by thick woods, while he thought he heard a sound as if of scornful laughter dying away in

the distance. Not knowing what road to take, he wandered about at random during the greater part of that day; but, towards evening, reached the door of a collier's cottage, and on the following morning proceeded on his journey towards Florence.

Antonio's object in going to Florence was to visit his family and relations. He was undecided what course of life to pursue, so much did he appear to be the sport of fortune, while the reality of existence, he thought, was no better than a miserable dream. He set his affairs in order; and, in his ancestral palace, gave himself up to grief, representing to himself in lively colours, in these well-known halls, his own misery and that of his parents. He often thought of that hateful witch, and of her who bore so close a resemblance to his affianced bride-that other Crescentia whom he had so strangely found and lost. This indolent prostration of mind, however, at length gave way to the desire of visiting Rome and its curiosities. He wished again to enjoy the society of his friend Alphonso and the father of Crescentia, who were living there; and accordingly he left Florence, and proceeded towards that city.

The tumult of Rome, so different from any thing he had been accustomed to in Florence or Padua, greatly surprised him as he entered that city. He thought he should never be able to find any of his friends amid the mighty throng. His satisfaction was therefore the greater, when, on going up to the capitol, he met Podesta coming down from the same. The old man took him home with him, where he had the gratification of paying his respects to the mother of his Crescentia. The news of the singular death of Pietro, of Crescentia's strange restoration to life and subsequent disenchantment, had reached Rome upon every wind that blew. But of course many perverted and false versions of the story were abroad, and therefore the parents were both glad and grieved to hear the true account of it from Antonio's lips. The abhorrence expressed for the magician, by Crescentia's mother especially, was unbounded. In the bitterness of her soul, she

believed that he had been bribed by the Marconi family to poison her daughter; and that he had an additional motive thereto in the feeling, that he could again restore her to life for the gratification of his own diabolical purposes.

"Let us leave every thing to Providence," said the old man. "The circumstances as they stand are dreadful enough without our seeking to exaggerate them, by involving others in crimes of such unheard-of magnitude. However, be they guilty or innocent, I am resolved to disinherit the Marconi family, and shall leave all my possessions to the monasteries and other religious establishments here, in one of which I myself shall probably spend the remainder of my days."

"But," said the mother, with tears in her eyes, "what if it were possible to recover that other Crescentia-our lost daughter's twin sister - whom Antonio has told us about? During your absence she was stolen away from me in her infancy; and the ex. pressions made use of before Antonio by that old witch, who was in the pay of the Marconi family, appear to me so remarkable, that I think we ought not even yet to despair of getting back our lost child."

"My good Eudoxia," replied the father, "lay aside your dreams and vain imaginations. We bave nothing to hope for on this earth but death; and that it may be soft and holy, is the only boon we ought now to pray for at the hands of Heaven."

"And if afterwards, when too late, we were to find that our poor lost child might have been recovered, what would be our remorse for not having relied with greater confidence on the merciful dispensations of the Most High!"

Podesta threw a gloomy look on Antonio, as he rejoined." Nothing was wanting to complete our misery

but those idle imaginations of yours, which, by inspiring the mother of Crescentia with hopes that are never to be realized, have deprived her for ever of repose."

"May I ask you to explain yourself?" said Antonio.

"Young man," said the father, "since that night on which you pretended to have met "

"Pretended!" cried Antonio, laying his hand on his sword.

"Nay!" continued the old man, "let that pass. Far be it from me to accuse you of falsehood. I know well the truth and nobleness of your nature. But do you think I can have failed to observe that your senses have been to a certain extent disordered ever since that unhappy night on which you met the funeral of my daughter of her who, on the following day, was to have been your bride? Then, during the night of agony you passed in the forest, is it wonderful that, in the excess of your passionate grief, you should have imagined that you again beheld the image of Crescentia and that you should have mixed up the vision with the remembrance of your own unhappy parents? Consider, were we able to discover

the smallest trace of the hut you said you had spent the night in, or of the robber you had slain? Not a vestigeand not a soul in the neighbourhood had ever heard either of the one or the other. No, my dear young friend, your meeting with my real dead daughter had turned your brain and overthrown your reason; and the same disordered fantasy will account for your vision of the hermit's cell, in which the image of the dead Pietro presented itself to your imagination. Believe me, all these phantoms were brought before your senses merely by the jugglery of pain and sorrow."

Antonio was perplexed, and knew not what to reply. Dreadfully as his faculties had been shaken by the loss of his beloved Crescentia, he yet felt convinced that the events of that awful night in the forest, were not the mere offspring of his imagination. At the same time, he became doubly desirous of restoring that second Crescentia to her disconsolate parents-if it were only for the purpose of convincing the sceptical Podesta of the truth of his story. With these feelings he bade them farewell, and went forth into the crowded streets of the city.

As he was proceeding along the thronged thoroughfares, he caught an indistinct glimpse of what appeared to him to be the figure of the hideous old woman of the forest. In the utmost anxiety he pressed forward to overtake her, and had almost done so, when a long procession of pilgrims, streaming forth out of a side street, cut him off from the object of his pursuit, and, when the pageant had passed, the old woman was nowhere to be seen. In great perplexity, he ascended the steps of the Temple of St John, in order to obtain a more extensive view, and, while standing there, he felt a friendly tap upon the shoulder, and heard his name pronounced by a wellknown voice. On turning round, he recognised his Spanish friend Alphonso.

"Here you are," said the latter in a tone of cordiality, " on the very spot where I expected to find you."

"What do you mean by that?" asked Antonio.

"Let us leave these crowded streets,"

said Alphonso, "where we can hardly hear ourselves speaking for the worse than Babylonian confusion of tongues that prevails."

Accordingly, they walked into the country, and here Alphonso informed his friend, that since he came to Rome he had addicted himself to the study of astrology, fortune-telling, and other similar pursuits - pursuits which he had formerly condemned, in the belief that they could be successfully practised only through the instrumentality of evil spirits. "But," continued he, " since I became acquainted with the incomparable Castalio, I have viewed these matters in a totally different light."

"Is it possible," cried Antonio, "that, after our terrible experience in Padua, you can again put your soul in peril by cultivating such studies? Are you, then, of opinion that the sciences which stand within the limits of nature and reason are not worth the pains bestowed upon them; and that all our labours ought to be de

voted to those which are based in deception, and in which, at any rate, no success is to be obtained except through fellowship with the powers of darkness?"

"Warmth, my good friend," rejoined the Spaniard, "is not argument. We are much too young to under stand ourselves thoroughly, or to have fathomed all the mysteries of the universe. And if you but saw the man to whom I owe so much, I am sure all your scruples would vanish. So pious is he, so simple; and so pure is the faith that may be read in the depth of his serene eyes."

"And what say you to Pietro?" replied Antonio. "Were not our feelings towards him precisely of this description?"

"No," answered his friend. "Pietro was a man who laid claim to more than mortal endowments. He came among us like an ambassador from heaven, and strove to dazzle the eyes of ordinary men by the brightness of supernatural accomplishments. He gloried in ceremony and pomp; and even in his condescension he made you feel the prodigious distance that separated him from you. But my new friend, Castalio, is quite a different sort of person. He does not deal in the magnificent or the sublime; rather believing that there must be something spurious or defective in the nature of those who indulge in over lofty aspirations; and that even the greatest of men, in the genuine consciousness of his soul, must bear witness to the truth that he, no less than the most ignorant beggar in the streets, is but a child of clay."

"You excite my curiosity," said Antonio. "Can he read the past and the future, and foretell the destinies of men? Can he, think you, unriddle for me the mysteries of my own particular fate?"

"It is precisely in that sort of research that his wonderful capacity displays itself," answered Alphonso. "And he goes to work in an extremely simple and innocent manner. There are none of the customary adjurations, formulas, shrieks, and death-agonies, to be found in his practice. He has no magical apparatus, no crystals or imprisoned spirits-no mirror, or skeletons, or smoking incense vessels. He is in himself all-sufficient. I spoke to him of you, and he informed me that to-day, at this very hour, I should

find you standing on the steps of the Lateran church; and you see that it has so come to pass."

Antonio now became extremely anxious to be introduced to the gifted seer, and to learn from him his destiny. They dined in a garden in the country, and towards evening returned to town.

It was twilight when they entered a small street which ran behind the monument to Augustus. Here they crossed a little grass plot, and, knocking at the entrance of a small house, the door was opened, and, arm in arm - (Antonio filled with the most in. tense expectations)-the two friends walked into the hall.

A young man, about thirty years of age, and with nothing remarkable in his appearance, came forward to meet them. He greeted them with great simplicity of manner. "You are welcome," said he to Antonio, " your Spanish friend has spoken so highly in your favour, that I have long been desirous of making your acquaintance. Only you must not imagine that you have come to an adept to whom all mysteries are known, or to a man before whom the foundations of hell tremble. No, my friend, a mere mortal man stands be. fore you-one like yourself, or at least one whom you or any man may resemble, if you fear not to renounce the vain pursuits and tumults of the world, and to devote yourself to a life of severe and earnest study.

"Look around you," continued he, "this is my unostentatious dwellingplace-and in yonder chamber stands my bed. There is no room here for the mighty instruments and treacherous preparations of magic. You see here no circles, or glasses, or globes, or signs of the zodiac-and, in truth, there is no occasion for them. The man who, in humility and profound earnestness of purpose, descends into the depths of his own soul, in order to know himself, has all those secrets laid bare before him, which he would in vain, by any other process, conjure heaven and hell to render up. come ye like little children!' These are the words which throw wide the gates of the whole world of mystery - Unsophisticate your nature; and then, though but for an hour or a moment, ye shall be lightened of the load laid upon you by the rash impiety of our first parents-then shall ye wander back into the bosom of para

Be

dise, and, with unscaled eyes, shall behold nature and all her powers as she appeared on the first day of creation in her bride-like attire."

While the meek student was thus speaking, Alphonso cast a triumphant glance upon his friend, and Antonio could not help confessing that he was more prepossessed by the discourse and humble demeanour of their new friend, than he had ever been by the ostentatious parade and grandiloquence of the mighty Abano. He now began to think that the wisdom usually deemed supernatural and unlawful, was perfectly compatible with true piety and lowliness of heart.

"Can you tell me what my destiny is to be?" asked Antonio.

"If I knew the year, the day, and the hour of your birth," replied Castalio, "I should then draw your horoscope, and, after comparing it with the lineaments of your countenance and the lines of your hand, I think I could reveal to you something of your future fate."

Antonio handed a pocket-book to the seer, in which his father had put down the precise hour of his birth. Castalio made the young men sit down, and placed wine before them, of which he himself also partook while he was making his calculations. He likewise, from time to time, joined gaily in the conversation; and, in short, went through his work in such an easy off-hand manner, as plainly showed that it by no means required his undivided attention. When about an hour had passed over in this way, Castalio rose, and beckoned Antonio to a window. "I have called you aside," said he, "because I do not know how far your friend is in your confidence." He then, after attentively examining his countenance and the lines upon his hands, related to him, step by step, the history of his parents' misery-his mother's violent

death - the guilty passion, and the murder of his father. He then passed on to the events of Antonio's own life -how, while pursuing his father's murderer, he had been detained in Padua by an attachment to the lovely Crescentia. "And it is with the utmost astonishment," he concluded, "that I discover you to be the man who brought to light the hellish practices of the accursed Abano, and delivered that miscreant over to the punishment he so richly deserved. Alas, my young friend, how deeply do I sympathize with your affliction, for twice over had you to sustain the terrible loss of your beloved one!"

Antonio opened his whole soul to his new friend, with as much confidence as if he had been merely speaking to himself, He related to him the adventures of that dreadful night in which he seemed to have discovered a second Crescentia in the cottage of the old witch, whom, he was convinced, he had seen that very day in the streets. "Can you inform me," asked he with eagerness, "whether what I then beheld was real, and whether there be another Crescentia alive, whom I shall yet have the happiness of restoring to her parents?"

Castalio became more thoughtful than before" Provided the person you saw to-day," said he, " be not the fiend Berecynth disguised as a woman, I have little doubt but that we shall detect the old hag. However, wait patiently till the morning, and in the mean time let us part. Rest assured of this, that the events of that night were no mere fancies bred in your distempered brain; but were actual realities-you and your friends may be perfectly satisfied of that."

The young men bade adieu to Castalio; and Antonio thanked the Spaniard very heartily for having procured him such an agreeable acquaintance.

the very abode of despair. She seldom ventured abroad, but on this occasion had gone out into the town to look for her Crescentia, who was absent without leave. After her return, when sitting up at night, she was greatly surprised to hear a violent knocking at the door, and a confused noise of cries and lamentations. She took up her lamp and went to the door, where she found a mob collected, and busily engaged in persecuting a little hump-backed figure, who wore a red velvet cloak, fantastically decorated with gold.

"Does not the good woman Pancratia dwell here?" cried the little man, as soon as he saw the door opened.

"She does," said the old woman, admitting him, and slamming back the door in the faces of the mob, who were left to expend their taunts and threats on the empty air. "Who may you be, my noble sir?" continued she" and what brings you to the hovel of a poor forlorn old woman?" "Sit down," said the dwarf "and let us have a little more light, that we may see what we are doing. And since you say that you are poor, take this piece of gold, and let us consolidate our acquaintance over a glass of good wine.

The hag looked pleased, lighted a couple of tapers, and replied

You shall have a flask of Florentine wine, which is no poor drink, I promise you." She opened a small cupboard, and set a long-necked bottle on the table, pushing it across to her guest.

"Why did you call me noble?" asked the dwarf.

"Does not that gold piece speak volumes in favour of your nobility?" returned the old woman. "Besides, don't I see the fineness of your cloak, the feather in your hat, and so forth. Are you not a prince, or a duke at the least?"

"Neither the one nor the other," rejoined the little man. "What! my old aunt-donner and blitzen! don't you know me? Don't you know your own nephew, the little Berecynth of Milan? It is said we are very like one another."

"Gemini!" cried the old woman, quite delighted, " are you Berecynth of Milan, of whom I have heard so much? It does my old eyes good to see you here before me, face to face." "Ay," replied Berecynth, " say, rather, nose to nose; for that, I fancy, is the only feature either of us have worth mentioning. For the sake of curiosity, dear aunt, let us try if we cannot accomplish a kiss between us. No-it won't do we have already locked noses. If we would make it out, we must forcibly hold them to

one side with both hands. There that will do. Now, good aunt, take care you don't yet yours fly back suddenly. If you do, it will fetch me such a box on the ear that not a remaining tooth will be left in my head!"

The old woman laughed, and said, "I know not when I have been so happy. You are in a merry mood tonight, nephew. But what were the people tormenting you about in the streets?"

"What about?" answered he. "About my appearance to be sure: it affords them rare amusement. Now, is not man, my good nurse, an incomprehensibly stupid pid animal ? Here are upwards of a hundred thousand souls collected together in Rome, within the last few months, for the purpose of doing honour to their Saviour, and of atoning for their own sins. Well, the moment I happen to put my head out of my window-(I only arrived here yesterday)-be it with only my nightcap on; or to show my whole person in the market-place, in my best attire, you would take your oath that all this myriad of people had come together from every quarter of Europe on my sole and particular account:-such peeping, and ogling, and shouting, and roaring, and laughing, does the appearance of your humble servant excite. I could make a fortune, I am certain, if I were to show myself for payment. They pull out their purses to see an ape, an Indian, or a sea-cat; and yet the ungrateful blockheads, who can see me for nothing, raise a tumult, and overwhelm me with abuse whenever I appear."

"It is the same with me," sighed the old woman, "my case is just as bad. Why, the very brute beasts are not so irrational. Each of them may have any sort of nose or eyes he pleases, and is yet allowed to pass peaceably on his way."

Ay," continued Berecynth, "look at fishes, for example; what philosophie toleration is to be witnessed among them? And yet some of them are all nose together. Look down into the waters and you behold countenances cold and serious, and yet perfectly aware of their own and each other's originality. One, perhaps, has a mouth in his belly, and another eyes upon his back, and yet none of their fellow-fishes ever think of making sport of them on that account. Un