and beautiful as alone to give an idea of her rank, even if that had not been already visible in every attitude and feature. Her dress hung in rags about her, wet, soiled, and defaced, but enough of its former character remained to show that it had been rich and dainty ; and over her shoulders hung a coarse black cloak, like those worn by the Sisters of Mercy in Belgium; her right hand was busily searching among the folds of her dress. "Come," I repeated, approaching still nearer, and laying my hand on her shoulder. A wild cry burst from her lips, and with a bound she eluded my grasp and made for the door; but the landlord placed himself in her way, and, suddenly turning back, she sprang upon me, clasping me close with her left hand, while her right still sought something in the folds of her dress. "It is gone!" she screamed, suddenly relaxing her hold of me and sinking down on the floor, "it is gone! I remember I threw it away, it is gone!" -- Now that she had spoken, I felt that it was safe to proceed to action; and, with the help of the landlord and Boots, I lifted and carried her, still struggling and screaming, to a room which had been hastily prepared for her. It was a small room with a fireplace, a mantel-piece, over which hung a small oval looking-glass, a window, and a low flock-bed. Plain and simple as it was, and so small as to be fully lit by the fire, and the lamp which burned on the mantel-piece, it seemed to inspire the poor, delirious creature with new terror. We laid her upon the bed, where presently she had to be held by two strong men; and I took my position beside her to wait and watch. As her ravings and delirious strength increased, her terror of us visibly diminished. Soon she was blind to everything but the dark shadows of her own tortured fancy, and deaf to any voice from the outer world; but she struggled with fearful strength, and her restless, disjointed talk, made up of French and English, and with a continual, agonized, terrified reference to the something she had lost, — what it was she never mentioned, — went on unceasingly through the long winter night. I soon saw plainly enough that she was no maniac. Hers was as clear a case of brain-fever as I ever saw in my life; brought on, doubtless, in the first instance, by some shock, and aggravated by subsequent privation, exposure, and an habitual dread, which was plainly evident in all she dropped in her delirium. I have said that it was a clear case of brain-fever; it was also the most acute that I have ever seen in my life. Since then I have seen some terrible cases, though then it was the first I had ever come in contact with, of any severity at least, and I was proportionably interested in it. I doubted my power to save this poor wanderer, but she was an interesting study to me, and I was not quite free from a desire to know something of her history; so that when the cold gray dawn of the winter morning drew on, and showed no abatement of the storm, I was rather relieved than otherwise by the landlord's prophecy that the coach would not be able to come through that day. His prophecy proved correct; and, before the day drew to its close, I was far too much interested to relinquish my patient. I resolved, therefore, to abandon my visit to Laceham, and to remain at Tewkesbury until forced to fulfil my engagements in London. Henceforth, for several days and nights, my interests were bounded by the narrow pallet where the poor stricken wanderer tossed and raved. The fever burned fiercely for ten days, and before they had passed I had abandoned all hope of saving her; but I knew that when the fire had burned out, when the delirium was spent, when the storm was lulled, some calm moments would follow before the final silence, and for those I resolved to wait. For this woman, coming out of the darkness on that dreary December night, must have had a history, and a tragical one. Some terrible grief had driven her forth upon the wide world, pursued by-WHAT? That I could not yet discover. At last, after the tenth day, when the fever had spent itself, and she lay still and silent, the nurse came to me as I sat dozing from sheer fatigue in my chair by the fire. been so ill that I have not been disposed to leave you." Her brows contracted, and her dark eyes dilated, as I said this. "Did he send you?" she asked, raising herself on her elbow, and looking "She's awake, sir, now, and sensi- me full in the face with a sudden return ble, I think." of the terror I had witnessed on the night of her arrival. I went to the bed; the patient lay quite still, her dark eyes wide open, and calm save for the hovering fear which always dwelt there. "Where am I?" said she, as I approached her. "Where are the Sisters?" "They are not here," said I, gently. "I am your physician, and I am glad to see you looking so well." The dread already visible in her face increased; she made an ineffectual effort to raise her head from the pillow, but, finding herself too weak, let it fall back with an impatient sigh, still looking at me with parted lips, as if longing, yet fearing, to speak. "You may go now," I said, turning to the nurse, "and I will send for you if I want you." No," said I, "certainly not; I do not know whom you mean. You forget that I neither know your name, nor anything about you." She had lain down again as I spoke. "Ah! but he has been here," she murmured half to herself. "He is never long away. I can never, never, never escape!" Her voice rose to a hoarse shriek as she said this. "You only do yourself harm by such excitement," said I, authoritatively. "Lie down again, and I promise that he shall not hurt you. You are quite safe here." "Safe!" she repeated with the strangest laugh,"safe! Charlotte Carteret will never be safe or quiet even in the grave. Have you not seen him? he She went, closed the door, and left has been here, he is gone now, but us alone together. he will come again. O, he will, he will, or is he dead?" "You wanted to ask me some question?" said I, turning back to the bed. "Yes; sit down, if you please"; and she motioned to the chair beside her. "Where am I?" she repeated. "At the Angel, in Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire," said I, surprised, in spite of myself, at her evident ignorance of the locality. "Who brought me here?" she continued. "No one," said I. "You were found wandering in the streets on the night of the 4th of December, nearly two weeks ago." Again she opened her lips to speak, and again closed them; finally she said, "Who are you?" "Your physician, Dr. Ayres," said I, reassuringly; for I saw that she still felt a certain dread of me. "I happened to be staying here when you were brought in, and you have since --- "He shall not see you, he shall not hurt you," I answered; "I promise to protect you.” "Protect me!" she repeated, with a sigh as dreary as her laugh had been strange. "None living can do that." I was about to reply, but she stopped me by a slight wave of the hand, and, fixing her dark eyes on the opposite wall, seemed to make an effort to recall something. She lay a long time thus. At length she murmured, "I see now; I remember all,-all. I know-" Then suddenly interrupting herself, and bending a calm, intelligent glance upon me, "I have been very ill, have I not?" "Very ill." "Am I better now? I feel quite calm and free from pain." I paused; there was no hope of recovery for her, no prospect even of lingering on the journey on which she was bound; a few hours, a day or two at most, was all left to her of life, but I shrank from saying so. My patient aided me. Am I dying now?" hand may not be strong enough by and by." I held the paper for her, but her "Must I die? hand, already weak and trembling, refused to perform its office. "Lift me She answered my silence, "I must." higher," she said, impatiently; “give "How soon, Doctor?" "You may live several days yet." "Then I have something to do. Get pen and paper, Doctor." me some cordial, Doctor. I must write my name there, — I must, I tell you." I brought more pillows, lifted her up, and, after administering a strengthening I went to my portfolio, which lay draught, again held the paper for her, in the window-seat, selected some writing-materials, and sat down beside her. "What time is it?" said she. "It is late in the afternoon." "And how long can I live?— until midnight?” "Yes." "Proceed then, Doctor; write as I tell you; put the date." I wrote it. "Now write, This is my true confession. Now, Doctor, give me the paper, - no, not this sheet, but all. I will write my name here at the end; my while she slowly and painfully wrote her name. Bending over her shoulder I read : : "Charlotte Alixe La Baume Huntingdon, née De Lascours Carteret." "Now," she said, when she had relinquished the pen and lain down again, "now write, — write quickly; it is a long story and the time is short, — very short; make haste, Doctor." I began to write at once; and every word of that story, and the tones of her voice as she told it, are fresh in my memory still. THE ISLAND OF MADDALENA. WITH A DISTANT VIEW OF CAPRERA. EFORE leaving Florence for a BEFO trip to Corsica, in which I intended to include, if possible, the island of Sardinia, I noticed that the Rubattino steamers touched at Maddalena, on their way from Bastia to Porto Torres. The island of Maddalena, I knew, lay directly over against Caprera, separated by a strait not more than two or three miles in breadth, and thus a convenient opportunity was offered of visiting the owner and resident of the latter island, the illustrious General Giuseppe Garibaldi. I have no special passion for making the personal acquaintance of distinguished men, unless it happens that there is some point of mutual inter est concerning which intelligence may be given or received. In this case, I imagined there was such a point of contact. Having followed the fortunes of Italy for the past twenty years, with the keen sympathy which springs from a love for the land, and having been so near the events of the last unfortunate expedition against Rome as to feel from day to day the reflection of those events in the temper of the Italian people, I had learned, during a subsequent residence in Rome, certain facts which added to the interest of the question, while they seemed still more to complicate its solution. There were some things I felt an explanation of which (so far as he would be able to give it) might be asked of Garibaldi without impropriety, and which he could communicate without any necessity of reserve. Another and natural sentiment was mingled with my desire to meet the hero of Italian unity. I knew how shamefully he had been deceived in certain respects, before undertaking the expedition which terminated so fruitlessly at Mentana, and could, therefore, guess the mortification which accompanied him in his imprisonment (for such it virtually is) at Caprera. While, therefore, I should not have sought an interview after the glorious Sicilian and Calabrian campaign, or when the still excited world was reading Nélaton's bulletins from Spezzia, - so confounding myself with the multitude who always admire the hero of the day, and risk their necks to shake hands with him, I felt a strong desire to testify such respect as the visit of a stranger implies, in Garibaldi's day of defeat and neglect. "I did not praise thee, when the crowd, Witched with the moment's inspiration, Vexed thy still ether with hosammas loud, And stamped their dusty adoration." generous aims to which he has devoted his life, could not be otherwise than welcome; and, while offering me cordial letters of introduction, declared that this formality was really unnecessary. It was pleasant to hear him spoken of as a man whose refined amiability of manner was equal to his unselfish patriotism, and who was as simple, unpretending, and accessible personally, as he was rigorously democratic in his political utterances. I purposely shortened my tour in Corsica, in order to take the Italian steamer which touches at Bastia, on its way to Maddalena. Half smothered in the sultry heat, we watched the distant smoke rounding the rocks of Capraja, and the steamer had no sooner anchored outside the mole, than we made haste to embark. The cloth was already spread over the skylight on the quarterdeck, and seven plates denoted six fellow-passengers. Two of these were ladies, two Italians, with an old gentleman, who proved to be English, although he looked the least like it, and an unmistakable Garibaldian, in a red shirt. The latter was my vis-à-vis at table, and it was not long before he startled the company by exclaiming : "In fifty years we shall have the Universal Republic!" After looking around the table, he fixed his eyes on me, as if challenging assent. "In five hundred years, perhaps," I said. Of all the people who crowded to see him at Spezzia in such throngs that a false Garibaldi, with bandaged foot, was arranged to receive the most of them, there is no trace now. The same Americans who come from Paris chanting pæans to Napoleon III., go to Rome and are instantly stricken with sympathy for Pius IX., and a certain respect for the Papacy, temporal power included. "But the priests will go down soon!" They give Caprera a wide berth. Two he shouted; "and as for that brute," or three steadfast English friends do (pointing with his fork towards Corsica.) what they can to make the hero's soli-"who rules there, his time is soon up." tude pleasant, and he has still, as always, the small troop of Italian followers, who never forsake him, because they live from his substance. Before deciding to visit Caprera, I asked the candid advice of some of the General's most intimate friends in Flor ence. They assured me that scarcely any one had gone to see him for months past; that a visit from an American, who sympathized with the great and Lowell, Ode to Lamartine.. As nobody seemed inclined to reply, he continued: "Since the coming of the second Jesus Christ, Garibaldi, the work goes on like lightning. As soon as the priests are down, the Republic will come." This man, so one of the passengers informed me, had come on board en bourgeois, but, as the steamer approached Corsica, he suddenly appeared on deck in his red shirt. After we left Bastia, he resumed his former costume. In At sunrise the steward called me. "We are passing the bocca, the Straits of Bonifacio, — said he, "and will soon be at Maddalena." It was an archipelago of rocks in which the steamer was entangled. All around us, huge gray masses, with scarcely a trace of vegetation, rose from the wave; in front, the lofty, darkblue, serrated mountains of Sardinia pierced the sky, and far to the right faded the southern shores of Corsica. But, bleak and forsaken as was the scene, it had a curious historical interest. As an opening between the islands disclosed the white rocks, citadel, and town of Bonifacio, some fifteen miles distant, I remembered the first important episode in the life of Napoleon. It was in the year 1792, while Pascal Paoli was still President of Corsica. An expedition against Sardinia having been determined upon by the Republic, Napoleon, after, perhaps, the severest struggle of his life, was elected second in command of the battalion of Ajaccio. A work written by M. Nasica, of the latter place, gives a singular picture of the fierce family feuds which preceded the election. It was the commence Mémoires sur l'enfance et la jeunesse de Napoleon. Ajaccio, 1853. ment of that truly Corsican vendetta between Pozzo di Borgo and the future emperor, which only terminated when the latter was able to say, after Waterloo: "I have not killed Napoleon, but I have thrown the last shovelful of earth upon him." The first attempt of the expedition was to be directed against the island of Maddalena. A battery was planted on the uninhabited rock of Santa Teresa (beside which we passed), and Maddalena was bombarded, but without effect. Napoleon prepared a plan for its capture, but Colonna, the first in command, refused to allow him to make the attempt. A heated discussion took place in the presence of the other officers, and Napoleon, becoming at last indignant and impatient, turned to the latter, and said: "He does n't know what I mean." "You are an insolent fellow," retorted Colonna. Napoleon muttered, as he turned away: "We have only a cheval de pa rade for commander." At Bonifacio, afterwards, his career came near being suddenly terminated. Some Marseilles marines who landed there provoked a quarrel with the soldiers of the Corsican battalion. Napoleon interfered to restore order, whereupon he was seized by the fierce Marseillaise, who would have hung him to a lamp-post, but for the timely aid of the civil authorities. The disfavor of Paoli, who was at that time under the control of Pozzo di Borgo, finally drove Napoleon from Corsica; so that the machinations of his bitterest enemy really forced him into the field where he was so suddenly and splendidly successful. While we were recalling this fateful fragment of history, the steamer entered the narrow strait between Maddalena and the main-land of Sardinia, and at the same moment two stately French vessels made their appearance, crossing tracks on the route between Marseilles and the Orient. The rocky island of San Stefano, lying opposite Maddalena, forms a sheltered harbor, which Caprera, |