have never worshipped aught save the semblance of the pure gold of the shrine, adulterated by human passion and unholy ambition!

A body of guards were soon on the ground, with burnished arms and floating plumes, and martial accoutrements; but, alas for their untried valour! alas for their chivalry! they towered with a giant's strength in peace, and shrank to their cowardly bosoms before the glances of a ruffian mob.

The friendless horseman saw his danger. He knew that his life hung upon a brittle thread, which might in the next second be severed. Yet he was undaunted. His form seemed to increase; and his face, generally so calm and passionless, assumed a deeper flush than its wont, as the danger became more imminent. He looked abroad upon that vast crowd, who had not as yet committed any violence, but rocked to and fro like the waves of an ocean yawning for the fragile barque that was to be engulphed there; and his glance breathed of defiance, and the smile that lingered for a moment about his lip was one of derision.

At this juncture a voice whispered in his ear, "Despair not!" Turning in surprise, he beheld in the speaker a young man of singular appearance, whom he had never seen before. He had scarce whispered the words ere he disappeared. He could have been seen threading his way through the dense crowd towards a chapel near at hand, of ancient but blackened architecture. Near its door, from which (attracted by the noise without) he had just emerged, stood a venerable priest.

"Mother of God! what a spectacle !" cried the reverend father, as his attention was directed to the populace who surrounded the horseman. Well did he know the voice of that mob-it had frozen his own blood by its appalling tones before. "People of Paris, what would ye? What inhumanity is this, and to a stranger? Beware of your actions, lest ye bring down the anathemas of the holy faith and the denunciations of the church?"

The people moved towards him-as they did so, he heard not, or did not notice, their murmurs. Elated with the prospect of awing them, he turned towards the chapel, in appropriate parts of which could be seen many statues of the great illustrious ones of the church. Surmounted in a niche, at the centre of the chapel, towered the colossal shape of its patron saint. It was of the purest marble and the nicest sculpture. It had stood there for years and years, the silent witness of changes and crimes. Wave had chased wave upon the ocean

tide of despotism-armies had swept by it, and beneath it had been heard the shock of battles-yet there had it stood, dark and solemn, upon its silent and unmoved throne, a relic from the abyss of past ages.

Even as the priest gazed upon it, lo! the statue came topling down, and fell at his feet crushed into a thousand atoms. The cause was never known; but, from what followed, it is presumed that it was the work of an unseen hand. A loud laugh drew his attention to a very young man, the same who had cheered the horseman, and who now scorned the priest. He rushed towards the one whom he supposed the offender. His eyes flashed, his cheek scorched, and his whole face was lit up with a holy enthusiasm. The secret cloister and the silent cell had failed to cool, and had but smothered his passions--they leaped forth now with a new life and vigour. He approached the young man-was near him-stood before him: in one moment more, and lo! the torch was lit that flashed upon his funeral pyre!

Down with priestcraft!" shouted a single voice, so thrilling that it touched every heart and was echoed by every lip. The young revolutionist had by one cry nerved a hundred arms. The priest was hurled to the earth--the uplifted dagger was sheathed in his heart-and in a few moments, as the crowd swept over it, that form had been trodden to the clay from whence it sprang. This was but the beginning of the end; for his death was the signal for an attack on the neighbouring chapels by the blood-thirsty mob.

As the moon rose above the distant mountains on that evening, the chaunt of priests had ceased-the consecrated lights were out-the solemn chime of holy bells was no longer heard. The sacred temples had been plundered of their statues and divinities-the loud laugh echoed in the holy of holies, and the blood-stained flag of infidelity floated in triumph from their turrets and spires. The eternal faith had been hurled from its throne of ages!

A moment after the assassination, the mad shout of the revolutionists still ringing in his ears, our traveller turned and found himself alone. In another moment the young stranger was at his side. "Fly, fly, or I know not who may be the next victim," exclaimed he. The mob, the cheering words, the stranger, the murder, all rushed before him. The veil was torn from the mystery. The truth flashed upon him. To save him, the unknown young man had drawn the attention of the populace to another point.

To whom do I owe my safety?" asked he-but on turning to where the stranger stood, he could not see him. He moved not, he spoke not, he breathed not. Was it not all a dream, a vision? Suddenly he recovered. The cry of the mob scarcely heard, the street cleared, despair nerved him. His mission to Paris was not attained. The shout of the mob neared him; but he was far distant when they returned.

66

Thus entered Francis Armine into Paris. When the mantle of night was cast upon the earth, he was sitting in a small room in the suburbs of that city. His mind was unusually gloomy and abstracted. He moved to the window-all without was still. The blue heavens were sparkling with the light of many stars, and the young moon, regent of the night," reflected its beams upon the quiet Parisian city. As he retired, he opened a delicate locket, which contained some rich and jetty hair, and as he gazed upon it a strain of music from a distant band of serenaders swept along. And sad and melancholy were his musings as he listened; for they were of the past. Before him appeared his youthful sister, the beautiful and lost-his distant home-the green earth and sparkling streams of that home-and, glowing above all, was the violet sky of his own beautiful Italy!

CHAPTER II.

"Light after light the glorious visions fade."-HEMANS. FRANCIS Armine was an Italian, possessing all that birth and wealth could accumulate. He was born on the western shore of Lake Como, whose sparkling waters and picturesque landscapes are linked with the most beautiful scenery in the world. Europe has many a Maggiore and Leman, and but one

"Como, with its crystal face."

The unrivalled climate, the rainbow tinted skies, the transparent waters, the white walled villas that rise on its golden banks, combine to render its "peaceful hermitage" a most desirable retreat. And it was there that the poet touched his heaven-strung lyre, and awoke strains more immortal than the warrior's blood-bought name. It is there that amid the green groves played the glittering waters of Pliny's cooling fountain, and there stands the terrace where he gazed upon the sun as it peered above the blue and misty hills or sank beneath the distant horizon. It is there that the rich music and the graceful poetry of Italy come like hallowed dreams to the wandering pilgrim.

At an early age Armine's parents died, leaving himself and

his sister alone, though not friendless, upon the world. His boyhood had been a mixture of pleasure and study; not too much of the former to unfit his mind for the intense study of after years, nor too much of study to nauseate the taste and vitiate the youthful intellect, rendering the object unprepared and unwilling to prosecute the higher and more tedious branches of education. It was a nice blending of the two, such as is to be observed in that of the opposite colours of the rainbow, distinct in shade, but not so in the mingled and delicate pencilling of each rich hue.

When I said that he was an Italian, a description of the gradual development of his intellect might be deemed a superfluous waste of words. For there is a something in the air, and earth and sky of that lovely clime, that kindles, elevates and refines the mind. When the veil of twilight is cast over the earth, with its deep vallies, its fragrant groves and its luxuriant gardens, to wander forth and breathe the perfumed air, should it fail to draw from the recesses of the mind all that is beautiful or vivid there, they will remain dormant for ever. Whether this may be attributed to the sky, with its shifting and fleecy clouds that even melt into the deep azure as we gaze upon them to the air, pregnant with the perfume of flowers-or to the verdant earth-or to a transfusion of the whole, the mind is elevated to a brighter sphere than its wont-to a dream-like enchantment, where it can revel in all that is exquisite or passionate in that Elysium receptacle, the imagination.

Armine's education was simple, not complicated. He had studied well the writings of his own countrymen, before he sought those of other lands. He did not dive into the sea of classic learning ere he had skimmed over the calmer stream of a common education. He well knew the present, before he ventured into the dim regions of the past. What to the untutored mind are the lessons of the bygone? What Egypt's mystic and venerated learning? What the classic literature of Greece, or the untouched shelves of oriental Persia? The eagle, if he would soar to the clouds or bathe his plumage in the dews of heaven, must strengthen his wing upon the eyry ere he succeeds; and the mind, too, with all its gigantic powers, must slowly unfold them, at first the cradle, and then the unfettered tread, so closely does the mind resemble the body.

He travelled; for though Italy was once illustrious; once mistress of learning, she was then but the phantom of her former self. He travelled into other lands, and he penetrated

At last the

still farther into the inner temple of intelligence. lightning burst from its imprisoning cloud-chaos disappeared -he possessed the great gift,

"That ocean to the rivers of the mind."

His mind was peopled with the star-bright fancies, the seraph-winged thoughts, the " moving delicate" creations of the poet, with no obstacle to his wanderings, no pinion to his conceptions. The pure and holy fires of genius were kindled, and threw abroad their animating and inspiring rays.

And fame, though it is but the foam that glitters a moment upon the wave and then dissolves, clustered around his name and promised to it immortality. Little did he then imagine the impenetrable mystery that would cloud his life and moulder away the dreams and visions that youth and poetry had consecrated. What are the eagle-plumed hopes, the golden aspirations of the human heart, that, like the snow-flake, a single breath can melt?

His sister's love was as the first rosy star that beamed upon his path. She was very beautiful-a dowry which to some is accompanied with innocence and happiness, and to others the fatal companion of vice and shame. To which of these Genevieve Armine was destined, the after events of these pages will serve to delineate.

Her brother loved her. She was to him as a gentle spirit from another world sent to cheer him on his pathway-so pure, so chaste, so lovely, so like an angel-in form so symmetrical, in mind so rare and chaste. When pondering over the musty volume in his study, or delineating on his page the beautiful creations that thronged his brain, her light tap could be heard at the door, and her soft voice would ask to gain admittance there. And then she would bound in, and on his lap would he then breathe into her mind the divinity that hovered around his own, watching its dawn and development with a miser's care.

Her every action was as a spell to him. Her form seemed rather the animation of a dream, and her rich and musical voice sweeter than the first spring gale. Together they had often wandered along the level champaign and climbed the neighbouring hills. At morning's freshest hour, they could be seen in the shady grove above the tombs of their parents, perchance to drop a tear or breathe a prayer to the memory of the departed; and at evening they were sailing on the crystal bosom of Como,