dimentary deposits? My response again is, That as the two schools of geologists now named differ widely in their translation into geologic time of all phenomena of the kind here described, this question, like the preceding, does not admit, in the present state of the science, of a specific or quantitative answer.

In conclusion, then, of the whole inquiry, condensing into one expres

sion my answer to the general question, Whether a remote prehistoric antiquity for the human race has been established from the recent discovery of specimens of man's handiwork in the so-called Diluvium, I maintain it is not proven, by no means asserting that it can be disproved, but insisting simply that it remains --Not Proven.

H. D. R.

FRANCISCO came in with a singular expression in his face and looks. The wonderful disclosure he had heard so lately affected him mightily, as might be imagined, and he was conscious that it had affected him. The result was that he looked round him with a watchful and jealous observation, as a man might do who felt himself slightly intoxicated, and defied anybody else to notice it. With this instinctive desire to conceal the thoughts which kept up a continual turmoil within him, he eyed the two women severely, and addressed them with an austerity and seriousness quite unnatural to the young man. He was afraid they should see how his veins swelled and throbbed-how his figure dilated in spite of himself-and how a perfect fairyland of hopes crowded upon him. So, as he was too proud to discover the extent of his emotion to his humble companions, he had no refuge but in an artificial reserve, which was much more remarkable, and by no means so pleasant, as the warm excitement and agitation which it was meant to conceal. He made his salutations to Teta very briefly, and then, instead of asking any questions, made a step out upon the balcony, and, leaning over the railing, looked down upon the deep little court below, with its little fountain tinkling and shining in the cool shade. An hour before, a pretty little figure, in a flutter of light muslin flounces--for it was a true St Martin's summer that November

had been pensively flitting up and down with a book in its hand upon the loggia on the first floor; but it is to be doubted whether Francisco at that moment would have perceived even the Signorina Inglese. He stood leaning over Teta's balcony, turning round and round upon his finger a ring of somewhat questionable metal, set with a cameo-flora of small value, sometimes glancing up across the roofs at the green side of Pincio, with its carriages gleaming past in the sunshine, but oftener watching mechanically the flow of the pure bright water of the little fountain into its homely basin. The tinkle of that dropping satisfied his restlessness-it was a relief to him to string upon its monotonous cadence the broken beadroll of his own over-exciting thoughts.

The two women exchanged looks and telegraphic communications behind him. They managed a hurried consultation all in silence, while Teta continued busy with her tablelinen. "Shall you speak to him?" asked Mariuccia with her eyes. "What do you think of him?—is it not strange he says nothing?"— "Patienza!" answered Teta, under her breath, casting watchful looks at him over the head of her companion. She went bustling about now, putting up her table-cloths and napkins-calling his attention without any words-saying nothing even to Mariuccia-only making demonstration of her presence by the sound of her firm lively footstep, and the

rustle of her dress. This unspoken call upon him recalled Francisco presently to himself. He came in from the balcony with an impatient step, hovered into the room, looking curiously, but without seeing, what Teta was about, and for a moment waiting in uneasy silence for some one else to begin the conversation. Teta, however, bustled about imperturbably putting up her linen. She gave him no assistance; and Mariuccia dealt only in wistful, pitiful, reverential glances, and did not speak.

66

So, Sora Teta," said Francisco at last, in a little burst, "there is a story, it appears; and you have all known it, you good people, and only now, when it's dangerous, you tell it to me !"

This natural expression of petulance burst from him almost unawares, for by moments the young man did feel that to tell him this secret of his birth now, was in reality to do him an injury. What chance had he of overcoming all the difficulties before him, and establishing his position as Duke Agostini? and as Francisco the painter, what could he ever be again, but a discontented and repining man?

66 Excellency," said Teta, suddenly facing round upon him with her armful of linen, "should Mariuccia have given you the news for a sweetmeat at Rocca, or put it in your Befana stocking at St Michael's, instead of your little gun and sword? Was it not better for you a great deal to wait till you were a man, and could do something? For to be sure there will be much to do, Don Francisco; your Excellency's enemies are not to be despised."

Francisco's face reddened in spite of himself-something of reality grew into the marvellous tale when another voice repeated that astonishing title. A thrill of renewed but pleasant excitement ran through his frame; his good-humour came back to him. He no longer reminded himself of the dread possibility of falling back again into the rank and place with which he had been so very well content when the sun rose on this miraeulous morning. He was twenty, and might be one of the most notable nobles of Rome. Teta's address

threw a veil over the Piazza Trajano and Francisco the painter. For the moment it was the Duke Agostini, grand in his newly-acquired glories, who threw himself, splendid yet blushing, into that very grand, very shabby old rococo chair, which was one of the special features of Teta's

room.

"My enemies! I had not an enemy in the world this morning," said Francisco, his excitement running over in a little tremulous laughter. Who are they? I have not considered that side of the question."

"Ah, Madonna Santissima! that thou shouldst have enemies, my innocent child!" said Mariuccia, in a fervent whisper, "and they such as should be thy dearest friends!"

"Eccellenza," said Teta, solemnly, standing with one arm thrust out from her side, and the other burdened with the last bundle of her linen; "first of all, there is the Duchessa."

Francisco's brow darkened; he did not say anything; he merely acknowledged her name with a slight, almost haughty gesture, half of shame, half of defiance.

"And after the Duchessa," continued Teta, with great unction and emphasis, "Donna Anna; and after Donna Anna, Don Angelo Lontoria, her husband, and all the friends they can make. You were well to be a man, Signore mio you have enough of battles to fight."

As she stood there fronting him with her full figure, her bold head, her stately Roman bearing, Teta looked a buxom war-goddess, ready at least for any amount of battles which could be fought by word and gesture. Whatever the young hero's sentiments might be, Teta's spirit rose with the warmest impulse of pugnacity at thought of this contest. Donna Anna was somewhere near her own age, and had left reminisconces in the mind of Cenci's daughter, which did not dispose Teta to grieve over the heiress's possible downfall; and the Duchessa was the natural enemy of the highspirited girl, who had been all but born in her service. On Francisco's behalf Teta would have exulted to confront both the ladies, and utter her

"E Romano," said Teta, with careless pride; "he is a Roman." Then she closed her great cupboard, and locked it with an emphasis. "If it will amuse you, Mariuccia mia, you can look to the sugo while I seek Madame Margherita ; for, believe

me, I would not trust the supper for our young Don to the woman yonder in the kitchen. Ah," added Teta, with another long breath, "bella Duchessa, it will be hard work for thee to deny thine own face!"

It was drawing towards evening, and the Corso was thronged as usual, when Francisco descended the long stairs, and came out into the gay crowd. November-but the sky shining overhead with that deep steadfast imperturbable blue, which, further north, is the glory of summer days alone-and the passing carriages all brilliant with bright colours, the toilette of summer warmed with autumnal ribbons, and loose glories of unnecessary shawl and mantle. That idle current of life had left the sunny eminence of Pincio as the great arch of blue sky reddened over in magnificent circles of colour towards the west, for this final delight of Roman promenaders. Few scenes could have been supposed more unlike the solemn associations which unaccustomed travellers connect with the very name of the Eternal City. There is nothing eternal in the Rome of the Corso-in that narrow line of street full of bright shops, and houses let to the Forestieri, interrupted here and there by the stuccoed façade of a seventeenth-century church, or the blank front of a big palace: nothing solemn in the gay line of carriages, the pretty toilettes, nor in the preposterous children and red-jacketed nurses, who form an admiring chorus, and keep Roman flirtations in countenance. Neither is the crowd on foot of a seriously impressive character: these are not the graceful Italians of romance, with dark visionary countenance, lithe frame, and mysterious deportment; on the contrary, an unslender, unvisionary race, strong in nothing more than in gross flesh and blood, go gaily thronging along the pavement; peasant women among them with white handkerchiefs on their ample shoulders, carrying their heads like so many duchesses; Roman girls of full-developed form, with

their glossy uncovered locks gleaming to the light, and little inferior in point of bearing to the Contadini; Roman men with heads that might do for a Hadrian or an Antoninebull-necked, bullet-headed, substantial figures, neither poetical nor imaginative, but strong, gross, and forcible, like the coarse forcible Romans of an elder age. Francisco strayed along the pavement through the midst of that vociferous throng. Last night he had entered into all the humours of the crowd with the fervour of true local feeling, knowing himself one of them. To-day everything was changed; he set his hat over his eyes, and answered very briefly the passing salutations of his acquaintance. His looks wandered rather to the stream of carriages than to the flood of passengers on foot. He was looking, not with the universal admiration of youth for pretty faces passing, but with a scrutiny, haughty and earnest, for one or two faces which were not pretty,-for the old Duchessa, who drove every day through that ancient scene of her triumphs, with an old dame de compagnie as unlovely as herself, and a couple of tiny spaniels lost in the heap of wrappings which encumbered the front seat of the carriage ; and for the pale countenance of Donna Anna, dissatisfied and complaining, with her nurses and children, grudg ing always, in the midst of wealth, the postponement of her own personal hopes and inheritance. His mother and his sister! Francisco found little solace in these names of tenderness. He looked eagerly to see them, with a strange unexplainable curiosity, wondering whether the change which had passed upon himself would perhaps change the aspect of these faces, and whether that weird old Duchess appeared to a stranger's passing

glance with a different look from that which she would bear to the more penetrating gaze of her son. But he did not see either of the ladies as he pushed onward through the busy Corso. Then he went rapidly with the same purpose up the winding ascent of the Pincian Hill, and loitered about there, looking into all the carriages, like many another idle young Roman. Far in the distance, the sun, just at setting, was burning upon a line of sea, visible over the head of that old solemn city, which from this height, heaving up darkly on its foundation of hills against that broad hemisphere of colour in the west, looked more worthy of its name. There sat Rome, with her dark crowd of modern houses, hiding somewhere among them the tawny line of the Tiber, and dominated by the big dome of St Peter's. Modern Rome-not that dumb heathen mother sitting voiceless on her Palatine-Rome astir with the tongues of strangers, the jests and din of her own holidaymaking children. There lay that dark human problem, troublous puzzle of priests and men, in a doubtful precarious repose, like the old Albanian lake, with no Emissarium for its choke of rising waters, but with the tender country and quiet heights of hills beguiling the eye, beyond dark St Peter yonder, into a gentle idyll of attendant nature, sweet Monte Mario and his brethren rising wistful against those celestial blushes of warm reflection which glow over all that region of sky. Against that same flush of sunset the pines upon Pincio itself stand forth, all lined and traced in every delicate twig; and figures glide about with a noiseless motion, not because they are all impressed and quiet, but because the magic atmosphere has charmed the sound. Among these loiterers Francisco loitered in the new tumult of his fancies. The last carriage had lingered away out of

this suddenly darkening, momentary, miraculous twilight. The Ave Maria had rung out from all the bells of Rome. Work was over everywhere, and the stir of amusement and relaxation quickened yonder in the hidden streets, though it was the quiet of night and rest that fell over that hill of Pleasure. The young painter lingered on the terraced road, playing with his own agitation and hopes, and slow to descend once more into discussion of that wonderful episode in his history that happened twenty years ago, when he was carried out of his princely birthplace under cover of Mariuccia's shawl. It suited him better to wander up and down, with the air blowing fresh in his face, mounting in imagination to the high topgallant of his sudden fortune. To do that by a leap; to glance into the ineffable future, gleaming grand with wealth and honours; to take imaginary possession of the Genzaro palace; to return, no longer a poor portrait-painter, but a Roman noble, to the Signorina Inglese, who had beguiled Francisco the painter out of his heart. It was more congenial to the young man's mind to walk about in the soft night-air, and see one by one these stars come gleaming over him, than to descend to the lighted Corso, with all its cafés open, and to climb Teta's long stair, and over the sugo and salad listen to the women and their recollections, and ascertain how far he could depend upon the testimony of Madame Margherita. Francisco roused himself, however, as the first hour of night rang from the Roman churches. He took his way slowly to the needful consultation, in spite of himself, somewhat contemptuous of Teta's upper room, and the society of the faithful peasant and the English nurse. And it was only twelve hours old, this wonderful grandeur and elevation!-but such hours as these are years.

When Francisco entered at Teta's great door and began dreamily to ascend the stair, an accident befell

him which warmed the half disguse he felt at the consultation before him into warm and angry eagerness.