a side-table whereon stood refreshments; which De Voisin perceiving, handed the stranger a goblet of Burgundy, and a huge slice of cake, which vanished speedily before the ravenous, wolf-like appetite of the unknown. The Duchess, amused, glanced again at Alphonse, and the poor wretch was a second time supplied from the side-table; and the viands were as quickly despatched as before.

"Ventre St. Gris!" exclaimed Gaston, starting up; "this is holding out a premium for the canaille to commit robbery.-Hark ye! sirrah! your quittance is like to prove too easy; ere we render your cloak, we must know your history. What induced you to seize my mantle ?"

The man replied in language made up of Italian and broken French, that he could not account for the impulse which led to retaliation on so mighty a seigneur; he was no robber, although he had fled with the prize. The fancy was irresistible,—it came into his head, perhaps, as he had practised like feats on the stage.

"Ah! a comedian," remarked the Duchess; "he has better excuse for sudden fancies than one whom I need not name!" and the lady glanced at her liege-lord, who bore the reproof bravely, though his associates rather slunk from the gaze. Then addressing the stranger in Italian, she bade him continue his narration in that language, which they understood. The soft tones of the lingua Toscana, uttered by a sweet voice, fell soothingly on his ear; tears came to his eyes, as he thanked her for the permission, for he was bewildered and sick-he had fasted since morning.

Corpo di Bacco!" shouted Gaston; "fasted since morn, say you? and take such leaps! I must try the system on the staghounds. But it grows late, and we have had a hard run; the signor shall go free, with a few crowns to boot, when he has told us his name, birthplace, and what led him into France."

My name," said the Italian, "is Giacomo, and I was born at-" "Stay! stay! Signor," cried De Rochefort, "thy history, like thy feet, travels somewhat of the quickest. Hast no other name, Signor

Giacomo?"

My master called me Il Gnocco Giacomo," replied the stranger, "my fellow-servants, Lo Scioperoni Giacomo, and the villagers, Il ballerino Giacomo,-that was when people were in good humour; but when things went wrong, it was everywhere scoundrel Giacomo!"

"And so, scoundrel Giacomo," cried Gaston yawning, "took in bad part being called blockhead and lazybones, showed his master a light pair of heels, and fled to the stage. Well! here are the crowns, and the porter will hand you a cloak, any one of the ten you prefer. And now begone! You have tired me to death, and your history grows sleepy.' And the Duke again yawned, threw himself back in his chair, and made sign to Alphonse to place wine within reach. De Rochefort and the others, seeing that Giacomo was to escape the ordeal of forced confession in the court-yard, the ceremonies of pinking with the point of the rapier, drenching with water, and other inquisitorial means of quickening a captive's memory, which might have afforded sport, participated in the Duke's ennui, and were on the point of leading off the Italian, when the Duchess interfered. Her curiosity had been excited without being satiated, and she detained the man a moment to inquire how long he had been in Paris. He replied, only since yesterday. And the cause of his coming? To

this question, he answered not, but betrayed a confusion which piqued the Duchess to know more. She shifted the ground, inquiring the name of the master he had formerly served. It was, he said, the Marchese di Bassano.

"Bassano !" exclaimed her Royal Highness in astonishment. "Bassano!" echoed Gaston starting to his feet.

"Bassano!" murmured Ippolita of that name-a name which was echoed in surprise by all. The Italian, who had seen himself like a showman, buffoon, or dancing-monkey, one hour the delight of a highborn audience, the next, almost the disgust of tired auditors, and to whom was gladly given la clef des champs-permission to abscond, was surprised beyond measure to find himself an object of intense interest to the volatile beings who now crowded so closely around him.

"Let him have air-he will be suffocated," said Condé, expostulating with his friends.

An explanation ensued, by which it appeared that the Italian had been valet to Ippolita's father; and although suffering much ridicule on every side from being unable to lay claim to any parentage or even patronymic appellation, was much beloved by the old Marquis, and on his death-bed, entrusted with a will in favour of Ippolita,-no other depository being deemed safe from the grasp of the nephew, then under the same roof. The faithful domestic was enjoined to convey the document to the hands of the Lady Ippolita, when a fitting opportunity presented itself; but the persecution and violence to which he was subjected by the awakened suspicions of the new Marquis, rendered the matter difficult. The notary disappeared no one knew whither, and the valet judged from that event, and from the continued searches throughout the castle, that the nephew had discovered the fact of a will having been executed, and he was obliged for awhile to bury the deed, and, finally, to save life and preserve his secret, to fly from the castle. More effectually to ensure disguise, he joined a band of strolling pantomimics, became an expert vaulter and harlequin; but even in the haunt and profession he had chosen, was tracked by the insatiate noble, -forced to flee from place to place, from company to company, to avoid the impending stiletto. After awhile, he thought he had obtained the wished-for obscurity and oblivion; but no,-repose was not of long duration. In Palermo, he was again, as he believed, tracked to his lair-he escaped thence by sea-was carried into Barbary by a piratical rover-exchanged for a captured Moslemite, and landed in Marseilles destitute and ragged. From that port he begged his way to Paris, with the intention of discovering the lady Ippolita, whom he knew to be under protection of the court, but was ignorant of her abode, or even the name of the Princess with whom she found a home. "I cannot be blamed even by Madame," said Gaston to the Prince of Condé, "if our mantle-hunting leads to such results as this!" And he pointed to where the faithful valet, in tears, and at the feet of Ippolita, drew from his bosom the precious, long-stored document, and handed it to his young mistress, from whom he was to expect, as her father said, a reward for his fidelity.

"The face of De Voisin is two inches shorter since morning," remarked De Rochefort to his friends, as he beheld the equerry hovering around Ippolita, catching her smiles, and sharing the congratulations of the Duchess and her ladies.

We need scarcely add, that with the will in hand, a living witness to prove its execution, and attest his own and the defunct's signature, backed by the powerful influence of the French court, Ippolita recovered the wealth to which she was entitled, and made happy the poor equerry by bestowing her hand where her heart was already pledged. Giacomo, now the fortunate, was well provided for, and by no means regretted the wild pursuit at his heels, and the termination of the chase. His threadbare cloak, Mantle Number Ten, was preserved by Alphonse as a heir-loom, a trophy of fortune, and an omen of prosperity.

A WRIT OF ERROR.

BY GEORGE RAYMOND.

THE greater part of twelve months which had elapsed since the return of Reginald Lister from India, he had occupied in visiting the chief cities of Europe. He had quitted home at an early age to enter on the most eventful of all professions, in the most remarkable of all countries. But his return from Benares to the borders of Somersetshire was not an unmingled joy. He had lost in the meantime his father, a man of great erudition and unaffected benevolence; yet the increased sentiments of affection with which he was received by his surviving parent, seemed to assert she had taken in trust all the father's love, which was now added to the sum of her own maternal tenderness. Reginald Lister, a graceful and accomplished young man, was at this time captain of dragoons, in the vigour of health, with a rent-roll_of six thousand a-year. It will be scarcely a matter of surprise that, under the above circumstances, he should have resolved on revisiting no more the distant scenes of his military career, looking rather to the interesting obligations of that station which time and destiny had now allotted him.

About two miles distant from Lister Priory resided a Mr. Harlington, a retired placeman. He was a gentleman neither of mean family, abilities, nor fortune; but he had lately come into the county, having purchased a small estate contiguous to that of Captain Lister, the venerable house on which had acquired no inconsiderable interest in the eyes of its new possessor, by a tradition of its having been the scene of the deliberations of the romantic and unfortunate Duke of Monmouth.

But Mr. Harlington was a cold, unapproachable being. A proud, tortuous apprehension of morals constituted him severe and uncharitable to his neighbour, arbitrary and unparental in his family; but he had a ready pliancy to men in power, recollecting, without doubt, the counsel of Butler, that he who would climb the hill must bend his body. To those on his own level he was austere almost to offence; and in transactions with the world, held himself fully acquitted so long as he kept just clear of the demarcation of dishonesty. As to the word indulgence, it was a term utterly unknown in his vocabulary.

To wayward youth, or early indication of folly, this was a school perhaps not ill-fitted; but for two daughters, who constituted the family of Mr. Harlington, a system of prejudicial and unnatural discipline but their generous spirit shot cheerfully up from this ungenial soil, and ripened and expanded into moral loveliness.

Catherine and Matilda were as nearly of an age as they could be without being the offspring of the same birth-a year only their difference; but their minds and passions, their hopes and beliefs, their joys and sorrows were positively one. In person, however, they contrasted, but with equal claim to beauty. Matilda was fair and meditative; Catherine dark and animated. Taste might falter which to choose; or the poet suspend his lay between the orient morning and the golden sun. Nature was glorified in both.

Hitherto there had been but little intercourse between the families of the Priory and the Harlington property. Mrs. Lister had not been

long a widow. Her placid disposition, not unmingled, perhaps, with a slight tincture of pride, evinced no inclination to make advances to her neighbours; while Mr. Harlington, as he did not see any immediate advantage in forming the acquaintance, was equally chary of placing himself in a position, which might have been attended with the chance of additional expenditure in his mode of living, for he was one who entertained opinions more freely than he entertained his friends. As to any gratification in which his daughters might participate, this was a question which never troubled him.

But the sudden return of the heir quite altered the case. Reginald naturally enough was a little curious respecting this new family, and it is not to be surmised that the reported beauty and accomplishments of the young ladies brought much repentance with this solicitude. Mr. Harlington now, for the first time, seemed to understand what was meant by the term blessing of children, in the quick apprehension which seized him that one of his daughters might become the means of augmenting his own aggrandizement.

All this, as the world goes, is no very new discovery; and Mrs. Lister, who had too much penetration not to see that three visits from her son to Harlington within five days, could only arise from one cause, had too much sense to hazard a parental battle on the old, worn-out plea of a belle alliance.

The first interchange of civilities between these families being past, Mr. Harlington felt he was by no means called upon for any further extension of bienséance,-nor, indeed, was the state of things likely to be improved by any charm which his presence might afford; besides, he also knew that whatever object he might personally have in this new intimacy, would be far better accelerated by leaving the elements to their natural effects. After three days, therefore, from the date of the acquaintance he was seen no more; but, safe in his solitude — a territory which no one cared to invade, he resumed his usual occupations; where, to do him justice, his time had never been abused, which some able pamphlets on the currency and colonial dependencies fully testified.

Reginald having now the privilege of visiting Harlington when he pleased, it does not appear the ladies threw many impediments in his way, as without doubt he was one of the most pleasing as well as most amiable of young men ; nor can we quarrel with the Captain himself, that he was suffering the prime of a London season to be fast vanishing without seeking the metropolis, when, in fact, St. James's itself could not match Harlington in human loveliness.

The character of Catherine it would be difficult precisely to express, because so rarely is it met with certainly not by the term, "good spirits," a temperament as wearisome as vulgar, but by an intelligence which threw a nimbus around her words and actions. It might have been "energy," but that it was less physical: animation, to the letter; but for excitement, there was none.

A noble sensibility, which the word "sentimentality" does but degrade, was the constitutional quality of her sister Matilda. For the wrongs of others she felt worthily, not sicklily. Her forbearance was positively angelic; it was the sanctity of the woman, not the weakness of the sex; and beautiful she was as the rose of Sharon.

Reginald became devoted, but not infatuated. He felt an influence which the mind might feel without abandonment, and his conduct at