trifling sum would remove, and were he but possessed of riches, he thought he should be secure of happiness.

"Thank heaven, signor, (cried Pietro about a week after Montalva's arrival), the physician has just told me, that if the favourable symptoms continue, his excellenza will in a few days be out of danger; how many hearts will his recovery cheer, but I must hasten with the good news to the convent of St. Francis, the fathers have offered up masses for his health every day since his. illness first took place."

It was well that Pietro was neither penetrating nor suspicious, or else the alteration in Montalva's countenance must have struck him. "Confusion!

(said he mentally, as he paced the room, when Pietro quitted him), he will recover; and what then becomes of me? But why must he recover, is there no way tohe paused Dark and malignant as his soul was, murder had not. yet occurred to him; and slowly did his

mind receive the horrid idea, that D'Rosonio must die, if he would exist in peace: mistaken Montalva! when did peace dwell with the assassin? For some days his mind was a perfect chaos; unsteady in his dreadful purpose, he saw with terror that every hour the count gathered strength. Fool, madman that I am, (thought he), shall I wait his perfect recovery, and so run the hazard of detection? or shall I give up my purpose, own my distress, and meanly. cringe to him for the means of removing it? No, I will perish first! Why should I hesitate to destroy him, has he not blighted all my hopes of happiness? stepped between me and a noble fortune, and rendered me miserable for years past? and have I now a chance of peace but from his death? away then with this childish weakness, he shall die!”

When Montalva had formed this dreadful resolution, he sought for means to accomplish his purpose without, suspicion; he was skilled in chemistry, and

he procured a poison of the subtlest nature; he always administered the count's medicines, and with a trembling hand did he present to the unhappy D'Rosonio the last draught he ever swallowed; the operation of the poison, though certain, would not he well knew be attended by any of those signs that usually accompany it; and the cause of the count's death, he flattered himself, would for ever remain a secret; with well dissembled grief, Montalva gave orders for a most magnificent funeral, and the remains of the murdered count, were consigned to the grave with a splendour befitting his illustrious rank. Many were the hearts that mourned for D'Ro. sonio, and the tears that flowed in abun-. dance from his dependants, as they knelt to beseech the mercy of heaven. for the soul of their departed lord, was a-more certain testimony of his virtues, than the pompous inseription, which his assassin caused to be engraved on his

monument.

When the funeral obsequies were performed, Montalva took upon himself, as the late count had willed, the guardianship of the little Isabel; but the sight of the child was hateful to him. Too young to be sensible of her irreparable loss, she lavished, unconsciously, on the destroyer of her father all the fond caresses of infancy. To remove her from the possession of her inheritance, without taking her life, occupied all his thoughts. When once that was done, he flattered himself he should be happy; he affected an uncommon attachment to the child, and pretending business at Naples, took her with him to a magnificent palazzo which he purchased there.

To the murder of the count no one was privy, but to remove Isabel without a confidant would be impossible; but in whom could he confide? No servant of the late count would, he was conscious, assist in wronging his orphan, and there was no domestic about his

own person whom he thought it would be prudent to trust. While he was in this perplexed and anxious state, as he was one day rambling in a wood at some distance from his palazzo, a stranger, meanly habited, approached him, and solicited his charity: Montalva, whose thoughts were busily employed on Isabel, repulsed him with harshness; again he supplicated, and was again denied. "Nay then (cried he), there is but one means," and he drew a stiletto from his bosom; the eye of Montalva followed, with the quickness of lightning, the motion of his arm; and at the moment when he was about to plunge the stiletto into his heart, Montalva arrested the blow.

"Miscreant! (exclaimed he), what could tempt thee to this atrocious act?"

"What tempts many to similar deeds (replied the assassin, sullenly)-poverty: brought up to the prospect of a splendid inheritance, of which one rash act has deprived me, I perish for want; but no