melancholy and retired than ever, but is most undoubtedly anxious that I should care for Oolie, and perhaps this acting on her sensitive nature makes an involuntary revolt. I hear a troubled remonstrance now and then, and afterward my darling child is pale and sorrowful for days. If I dared I would ask her to try to like an old bachelor ever so little, and give him the right to take the little owlet to a cozy nest of his own planning.

But all the while I have been lying here she has come and gone unheeded, and more than once I have heard the heavy tones of Arthur Lee's voice as he said good-night by the gate. I must not write more, for I am feverish, and Dr. Mills forbids excitement.

August 19.

Am I dreaming, or is it truly so? It seems like a dream that, away off by Cress-kill, on the very spot where I fell not long ago, I found my pupil, with pale face and eyes dim with tearsthat, kneeling by her side, I asked for the right to woo and win, and, unrebuked, held Oolie to my heart. It is even so, and the great solemn eyes just glancing up to mine have spoken our betrothal. Pray God I may make her happy.

August 30.

Strange, dear, bewildering Oolie! Can I ever understand you, with your saddened moods and troubled brow? I fear-nay, sometimes I really think that her mother has urged her to accept my addresses, knowing that I would be what the world calls a good match. I know that Oolie is happiest and brightest when her old father looks so well pleased to see us together. But still I cling to the memory of that kiss, so lightly and tenderly bestowed. I am sure I know her too well to think that, even for their sakes, she would give her hand without her heart.

weary vow that makes this "living death" to her; a straightforward letter to John Austin explaining as well as I may the unfortunate position in which I find myself; a few business arrangements; a check sufficient to cover all expenses connected with my stay and forwarding my effects; a hasty tossing of garments into my trunks, and with the midnight moon low toward the west I bid adieu to Greyrock forever. "Oolie, dear, false angel, good-by!"

IV.

"Dr. Mills, by all that is skillful! I thought I knew that Saxon head as I saw it by the dim light of the swinging lamp last night.”

"Ay, ay, Dr. Mills at your service," and a hearty grasp of the hand told how unforgotten had been the incident of two years since when a broken arm was righted by his skill. Tonight we meet again on board the transport that brings our poor boys home from Andersonville. I need say no more than that to tell of the long lines of wan and haggard faces, of the gleaming, hungry eyes, the shrunken limbs, and broken spirits.

Small skill had I except such help as strong hands and a willing heart could give; but such as it was this had been my work for the past eighteen months. It was good for me to be busy, and so put out of mind the troubled past. I had left all business matters with my lawyer, and had heard nothing whatever from Grey rock since that shining August night when I walked to the station, and was miles away before the dawning. I suppose she is Mrs. Lee by this time. Ah, well!

"Guy Owen! here, if you please. Hold this man still until I can prepare the broth properly. He is raving with fever, and will kill himself if he is left alone." So I came at Dr. Mills's bidding, and clasped the poor thin arms in my grasp, speaking steadily all the while to the

To-night she pleaded a headache, and left me to seek my room and tell my patient journal all my thoughts. And so, with a shaded schol-wretched creature I held. The soup was gulped ar's lamp throwing its circle of light around my pen and page, while the rest of the room is flooded with moonlight, I dream and write alternately.

down at a swallow, and it was hard to deny him more, but Dr. Mills was imperative. At last, muttering, he dropped to sleep, and an hour after I walked with the Doctor on the narrow space upon the upper deck. He stopped midway, and knocking the ashes off his cigar, said he,

walk.

But what is that figure doing there by the garden gate? A man stands waiting just within the shadow. But see! a girl's light figure moves out from the side doorway and joins him. "That fellow's face is familiar to me in spite A strange calmness comes over me, although I of his fearful emaciation. I have seen it somesee in the clear moonlight that it is Oolie. They where-strange-strange;" and we resumed our walk off down the old garden path, and I can not turn my eyes or ears away if I would. Now she speaks brokenly, and I even hear her say, "It is a living death," and they pass on. I do not hear Arthur Lee's words, deep and fulltoned as they are. I only hear those sweet, false lips, that

They are parting. "Tis the very last time." I hear it distinctly in those musical accents that have come to be so dear. And this then is the end of the bright midsummer dream. False and fair, she is lost to me forever.

All at once he grasped my arm-"Guy Owen, as sure as you are a living man that is Launt Austin !"

"Launt Austin? Why, I thought he was dead!" said I, breathlessly.

"No; he ran away and enlisted, and that made all the trouble. I suppose you know”— he continued, hesitatingly-"you know about Mrs. Austin ?"

"No, I know nothing, except that they were a most incomprehensible family altogether,"

A few written words to release her from the said I, somewhat bitterly.

Bible, and how Oolie and I used to say our | bars separated us effectually from our pitiful prayers together. Yes, I thought about all these things, but I was so awful hungry most of the time that I couldn't think."

What vow went up from his mother's heart I know not, but I can guess. Whatever it was remained unbroken for the short life left her. Launt rallied a while, but help had come too late, and one October day we laid him in the little church-yard. Before the snow of December fell his mother lay at rest beside him. And then in the glad New-Year I took my little owlet to my heart.

The clouds had passed and left the shining sky. I make my home at Greyrock now; but would you believe that Oolie still denies that she kissed me when I lay helpless? She says she wouldn't take advantage of any one. Dr. Mills is going on his old round of duty, and Arthur Lee is married to his sister Mary. John Austin grows bent and old. Already the snow is on the mountain lighted from beyond, but the peace that passeth understanding abides upon him for

evermore.

"SE

SEEING NAPLES.

EE Naples and die" had like to have been transformed, on the occasion of our first entrance of the city, from a gratefully complimentary proverb into an awful prophecy of our own demise. No sooner had we (consisting of three divines and the dragon) emerged from the evening train from Rome, and shown our unfortunate heads outside the station, than we were set upon by innumerable ruffians of the baser sort, in the garb of coachmen, each aspiring to the privilege of doing the honors of the city by being first to fleece us. However, having been fore-armed against this sea of troubles, we sprang into the first vetturo which presented itself, and were whirled away, leaving the waves thereof roaring cajoleries at us, and abuse at each other, alternately. But our sorrows were only begun. After a seemingly interminable ride we were set down in the court-yard of an unpretending inn, among whose guests we expected to find the fellow-countryman to whose guardianship we were consigned. Fortunately we encountered our consignee upon the third landing, and having delivered our vouchers, were hurried by him into a place of safety, whither he speedily followed us, after having dismissed the coachman with the payment of the regular tariff.

petitioner and his backers, while we listened with bated breath and bristling hair to a tirade upon the Neapolitan character, the truthfulness of which (the tirade, and not the character) not only the gathering tumult outside, but every subsequent hour of our stay, confirmed. Suddenly there was a hush in the corridor, and a gentle knock at our door, which being opened by one of the newly-arrived, a moving spectacle was presented in the person of our pertinacious driver, posed in a heart-subduing attitude, and ejaculating, "a buono mono for the love of Heaven and of my famishing babes!"

This was too much for the tender-hearted bachelor to resist; but as he was drawing out his purse in response our guardian, whose prolonged residence in Naples, superadded to a distinguished career before the New York bar, had rendered invulnerable against pathos, especially of a monetary type, again interposed, dismissing the appellant with his blessing, and resuming his oration with severer eloquence and pointed application to the transgressor, who received the lesson with meekness, abashed, but only half-repentant. But our instruction was at once violently ended and enforced by a fearful commotion in the corridor, followed by an appalling jar, reminding us that we were abiding under the shadow of Vesuvius. Our protector went forth to reconnoitre, shutting us in lest our newly-fledged hardness of heart should give way and betray us into folly.

It was explained, on his return, that our beggar had waxed so stormy that the wrath of the entire household had been kindled. The coachman howled, the servants jeered, the landlord swore. Finally, the burly cook had discharged his electric indignation from the tip of his avenging foot, and sent our coachman down an entire flight of stone stairs. Upon this the wailing of the sufferer and of his diminishing friends, together with the violent objurgation of the household, had produced such an uproar that, contrasting it with the homelike quiet of our Roman life, it seemed as if we were come into the abode of lost spirits.

However, after an interval there came a peremptory knock at our door, which being opened revealed a grand tableau vivant, representing embodied scorn and insulted dignity-the new rôle which our coachman assumed after his fall. Throwing down upon the table before us the fare he had received from our consignee, and drawThis summary proceeding somewhat amazed ing the stately folds of his toga-like cloak about us, particularly as our unsophisticated hearts him, he strode from the room, leaving us tyros had been touched by the pathetic pleadings of overwhelmed with shame for our shabbiness. the driver, who had followed us closely, inquir-But our guardian sneered at his melodramaning in unintelligible Neapolitan, but unmistak- tics, and laughed our self-reproach to scorn, able pantomime, "How can a poor man live?" prophesying that we should see him return This appeal was rendered all the more effective speedily in still another character; which he by the fact that our ascent had been accompa- did, after allowing our sensibilities a few monied by a sympathetic crowd of idlers from the ments to work. A single glance at our circle, street, who had chosen to set us down prema- as we sat in cowed silence around our instructor, turely as villains and oppressors. convinced the actor that his last trick had failed; However, the ponderous door with its iron and, assuming a meek expression, he inquired

if by any chance he had left in the Signori's care a portion of money belonging to him!

From this initial experience, until we were fairly ensconced in the return train for Rome, our waking hours were passed in warfare which knew no truce.

of the ear in response to a specially violent kick from the young hero, whereupon the mother (who therefore could have been no Neapolitan) pounced upon the father with a resonant blow upon his head, which the daughter resented by a similar attack upon her mother; and, as the fight waxed We seized the first sunshine after our arrival hot, and promised to become general, we fled for an excursion to Pompeii. Taking a bounti- into the street for safety. When we returned ful lunch in a haversack which had climbed the at night peace reigned. The young hero, shorn steeps of the Tyrol, and subsequently plunged but unsubdued, was engaged in experimental into the depths of the Chickahominy, doing good devices for extracting the tail of the afflicted service in both, we set forth for the railway sta- house-dog, the mollified father looking on aption, signaling the first double carriage which provingly at the exhibition of the precocious deappeared in sight. No sooner were we comfort-velopment of this distinctively Neapolitan trait; ably settled, with our eatables, drinkables, extra while the sister, aged seven, was with premature wrappings, guide-books, and field-glasses care- sagacity manufacturing a caudle for her mother, fully arranged, than our driver, gathering up his who had just brought into the world a new sinreins, remarked, with an insufferable smile," Trener or sufferer, according to the sex, which has franchi!" Being under the eye of our legal escaped my memory. friend, and remembering that we had the great Mr. Murray "evolves from the depths of his principle of resistance to imposition to maintain, moral consciousness" (whence the German conwe incontinently tumbled out of the carriage jured the camel) the fact that the inhabitants with all our traps, greatly to the astonishment of Naples are very fond of their domestic aniand chagrin of the driver, who cried beseech-mals. Whereas observation convinces the travingly after us, "Two francs, then! let us be agreed." Although this was only double the regular tariff, yet we were true to our instructions, declining all his overtures, and, taking possession of two single carriages, we were able to reach our goal with our principles intact, and the expenditure of only five cents each for a ride of two miles.

eler that nowhere else can be found such suffering among domestic animals (including wives and children), inflicted with such infernal ingenuity of torture. My most brilliant memories of this indescribably beautiful bay are smeared by the horrid blot of brute misery.

An hour's ride by rail carried us to the station at Pompeii, and a three minutes' walk from thence to the entrance of the ruined city.

During this brief walk our hardening sensibilities were assailed by multiform exhibitions of poverty and physical imperfection, together with various aspirants for the privilege of carrying our knapsacks and superfluous shawls, selling us wines, guiding us to Vesuvius or Pompeii. A brace of pretty, black-eyed boys ran along by our side, extemporizing a species of

Still another pleasing phase of Neapolitan life met us as we emerged from our hotel on the morning of this excursion to Pompeii. The porter and his family ostensibly made their abode in a little house in the wall which separated the court-yard from the street; but inasmuch as said house comprised only one room, and as this, again, corresponded in width precisely to the thickness of the wall, the whole domestic economy of his household was patent to every passer-rataplan upon their fat chins with their chubby by. Toilet, culinary, laundry, disciplinary, and other operations which popular prejudice ordinarily confines to the interior of one's domicile, were displayed upon the flag-stones of the innyard to the admiration of all beholders; and, as demned-"Forehead-harder, brow-bender, eyeevery sojourner among the Neapolitans will testify, this is by no means a peculiar case, but "'tis their nature to."

However, on the occasion in question, on reaching the door of the hotel, we found the origin of the alarming outcries which had been assaulting our ears for some moments.

The porter was seated in the midst of the court-yard, engaged in clipping the elf-locks of his young heir, whose rage (unassuaged by the oranges which were his father's peace-offering) expended itself in shrieks and energetic kicks, his head, meantime, being safely held between his father's knees, and his hands occupied in clutching the fruit. The mother supervised the operation, knitting-work in hand, and the older sister sniffed enviously at the oranges, and sympathetically at her brother.

Suddenly the father administered a smart box

brown fists, which they whirled rapidly round and round each other, and against their chattering teeth, after the manner of that pleasing entertainment to which babies are con

peeper, nose-dropper, mouth-eater, chin-chopper, chin-chopper, chin-chopper !" An old man and woman also dogged us, thrumming a guitar and wailing forth an ear-piercing and heartrending ditty.

At the guide-house we paid the regulation fee of two francs, and entered by the revolving wheel which forms the gate, leaving all these woes and entertainments behind us, and picking up a cicerone, who led us whithersoever he would whensoever he could.

No one can pass a fortnight in Italy, the land of storied ruins, without appreciating the necessity for the catechetical instruction relative to keeping one's hands from picking and stealing. Beginning with an innocent admiration of the magnificent mosaics of the Borghese or Pitti Palazzo, and going on speedily to a covetous survey of your neighbor's table and paper

Having unearthed his errant flock in their various retreats, and gathered them around him, he would strike an attitude before the Basilica, the Temple of Isis, the house of the Tragic Poet, or whatever edifice lay next in his course, and would invariably challenge attention by the ejaculation, "Look o' yere! Yis, On returning to the city we came upon the Sir!" and then develop his powers of descrip-new excavations, where a motley crowd of worktion.