these speeches, but childhood is not the season of dissimulation, and my affectionate boy dared to resent the calumnies with which he heard his father loaded.

"What!' cried my brother, do you presume to insult the man to whom you are indebted for bread? base, ungrateful wretch! leave my house, and seek protection from the beggar whom you so insolently defend.'

"My son waited not to hear this cruel mandate a second time repeated; with a heart bursting with grief and indignation, he quitted the house of his uncle and came to me.

"I saw by his countenance that something had happened, and I dreaded to enquire what it was.

"Father (cried he, bursting into tears), I am come to you; I am old enough now to work for you, and I will ; yes, father (continued he), you shall have bread, if the labour of your son can procure it for you.'

t

"I pressed my poor boy in my arms, and I mingled my tears with his; I could not avoid grieving, to think that he should share my unhappy lot, and I would have made him return to his uncle, but this he positively refused.

""No (cried he), if I had offended him, I would ask his pardon on my knees; but never will I solicit it for having taken the part of my father.'

"From that time, signor, which is two years since, to the present, I have been uniformly unfortunate; and, to crown all my miseries, a long fit of illness has reduced me to the state of abject misery in which you now see me. Fearful that my daughter would incur the fate of her brother, I have wholly deprived myself of the sight of her, and charged her, on pain of my severe displeasure, never to come near me; with tears and supplications, my poor child besought me to recall my words, but prudence compelled me to steel my heart against her intreaties, and I have not seen her for some time,

Despair induced me to hazard an application to my brother; you, signor, were a witness of its ill success, and to your generosity I owe that relief which he has so unfeelingly denied me: may repay your kindness a thousand.

Heaven

fold!"

He ceased, and the young count again repeated his promise of further assistance, and returned to his father's palace.

CHAP. VI.

THE story of Camillo was most feelingly told by Fernando, and the count highly approved of his son's generosity: the fortunes of the poor old man were soon re established on a more secure footing, and his young benefactor enjoyed the greatest delight in having restored a whole family from misery and want to competence and happiness. Camillo had taken his daughter home, and frequently did he bless the noble youth whose generosity had restored her to him, to be the comfort of his age: she was at this time little more than a child, but her opening

loveliness

gave a rich promise of beauty

in her maturer years.

The life of D'Rosonio had from his union with Clementina been one continued scene of happiness; but the time approached that was to deprive him of the most exquisite felicity, and to con vince him that happiness is a fugitive upon earth. The health of Clementina had for some time been upon the decline, but the physicians who attended her had not thought her symptoms alarming, and the natural mildness and gentleness of her temper made her suffer with the most uncomplaining sweet

ness.

She was not however destined to suffer long; her angelic spirit was suddenly called from this world to one for which it was indeed a fit inhabitant, and where her virtues would meet with a bright and unfading reward.

'Her death was indeed a severe blow to her doating husband, for it was one for which he was wholly unprepared;