from my travels: my scholars insisted on celebrating my arrival by an outburst of rejoicing. I yielded to their entreaties and preparations; and now, amid our festivity, I find-alas, what do I find?-your Crescentia deadthat pattern of all grace and virtue dead, and lying before you here in her coffin. Around me I behold but the ghastly paraphernalia of the grave, and you mourning forms who are about to accompany her with tears and breaking hearts to her place of rest." Here he made a sign to his attendants, and addressed a few words to them. They had already all become silent, but now most of them withdrew, in order to allow the funeral to proceed without any interruption. Then came forward the bereaved and trembling mother, and sank down at the feet of the old man, and embraced his knees in a paroxysm of grief. "Alas! wherefore were you not present when my daughter died," cried she, in despair; "your art-your skill-would have saved her. Oh, Pietro! Pietro! you the friend of our family! How can you permit your darling-the apple of your eye, as you used to call herto be torn from us for ever? Awaken her yet out of her sleep of death. Administer to her some of those miraculous essences which you know how to prepare. Oh, make her but once more to move among us, and to speak to us, and take, as thanks, every thing that we possess !"

"Do not thus give way to despair," answered Pietro d' Abano; "the Lord gave her, and the Lord hath taken her away: let us not be desirous of thwart. ing his wise determinations.

What

are we that we should murmur against him? Shall the son of dust, who flutters in the wind, lift up his weak voice

to challenge the eternal decrees? No! my friends, bear your affliction as pious parents ought to bear it. Sorrow ought to be the domesticated guest of our souls, as much as joy and pleasure: it also is sent down upon us from above: and He who counts all tears, who tries our hearts and our reins, He knows well what we weak mortals are fitted to endure." More to the same effect was uttered by the wise man of Abano, and he concluded thus :"Carry her," my friends; "carry her whom you have lost to her place of rest, and follow her thither in resigned and God-given humility, so that no impious repinings on your part may disturb her spirit in its mansion of eternal peace.

All present were moved by these words. The father stretched forth his hand to the speaker, with a mute expression that he had given comfort to his soul. The funeral now proceeded on its way; and guided by the masks and other attendants, whose business it was to accompany the corpse, the procession had almost reached the church, when it was suddenly met by a young horseman, who came galloping forwards on a steed covered with foam. "What is the matter?" cried the young man. He threw a glance upon the coffin; and then, with a cry of despair, wheeling round his horse, darted off from the crowd; while his cap, falling from his head in the hurry of the movement, left his long locks floating behind him in the evening breeze. This was the bridegroom who had come to wed the fair Crescentia.

The shades of night now settled down on the mourners, and ended the ceremony: and the maiden's corpse was left to repose in the vault of her

ancestors.

As soon as the crowd had dispersed, Alphonso (for that was the name of the young foreigner who had followed the procession and taken part in the mourning) turned to an old priest who tarried alone in prayer over the grave. He longed to know who that majestic old man was, who appeared to him as if endowed with godlike power and supernatural wisdom. Accordingly, he respectfully interrogated the priest concerning him; upon which the latter, standing still, keenly scrutinized

his countenance by the light of a lamp which shone upon them from a window hard by. The old priest was a little emaciated figure, whose small pale visage enhanced the fire that burned in his penetrating eyes. His tightdrawn lips trembled as he replied, in a tone of displeasure,

"What! know you not our worldrenowned Pietro d'Abano, a name which is in the mouths of all Paris, London, the Germanic empire, and the whole of Italy? Know you not the

"I thought that figure had had a mask on."

"Not a bit of him," said the priest; there is no occasion for him to mask himself. Take him as nature has made him, and he is already a mask and a monster. If ever there was a spirit of hell upon earth, this Berecynth, as they call him, is that spirit. But it is drawing late; will you put up with the

accommodations of our cloister until you have provided yourself with a lodging elsewhere?"

The young foreigner declined this invitation, chiefly on account of the very different opinions which each of them entertained respecting the subject of their late discussion; and they parted mutually dissatisfied.

The young Florentine, who had met in a miserable hour the funeral of her who was to have been his bride, rushed like a madman through the city gates, and took his course in reckless haste through wood and wold. When he found himself in the open country, many were the bitter curses he poured forth against the world and his own fate; and, tearing his hair, he again dashed onwards, unconscious whether he was going. He spurred against the wind, which blew upon him with the freshness of night, as if to cool the burning fever of his cheeks. At length his horse, stumbling and overdriven, fairly sank under him, and he was compelled to continue his career on foot. He knew not where he was, or what he would be at: only, encompassed by the black infinitude, he prayed despairing. ly for death. "Oh, death, take me to thyself, and still the beatings of this stormy heart! Would that I might this moment expire in mortal pangs, so that my place might know me no more in the light of to-morrow's sun, and that no beam of his might ever again awaken me to the consciousness of my woe. Am I not the most miserable of all living creatures ?-and all the more so, because a few hours ago I was the happiest of men. Alas for youthful love, which ends by bringing such bitter disappointment to all the rapturous feelings of the heart!"

The rain, which for some time had been drizzling through the cold air, now began to descend in heavier drops. The youth was already deep in the forest, and no shelter, as far as he knew, was at hand. He began to collect his scattered senses; his anguish grew milder, and tears at length forced themselves from his eyes. His hatred of life became less and less intense, and he felt as if comfort were poured into his troubled soul by the soft voice of the dark sobbing night,

While he stood in suspense, considering whether he should search for his lost horse, or shelter himself from the storm in any hole or cranny he could find, his eye was suddenly caught by a distant light, which, dancing behind bush and dale, appeared to greet him with a friendly glance through the thick darkness. He hastened after the fickle fire, which now vanished and now re-appeared. All his faculties and feelings were bound up as if in slumber- his whole being felt as if wrapt in a dream.

The storm was now raging with fearful violence; and after struggling on for some time, almost blinded by the lightning and deafened by the thunder, he found himself close to the light by which he had been attracted. He knocked at the window of a small cottage which stood behind some trees, and begged for admittance and shelter from the inclemency of the elements. A loud hoarse voice answered from within, but the youth could not distinguish the words, for the tempest and the rain and the tossing trees raved so frightfully around him, that no other sound could be distinctly heard.

The door of the cottage entered from the garden, through which, having passed, he was conducted by a female hand along a dark passage into a small chamber, in which there was a lighted lamp and a fire burning on the hearth. In a corner beside the lamp sate a hideous old woman spinning. The young maid who had introduced him busied herself about the fireplace, and kept so moving about that he was unable to obtain a near or correct view of her countenance; while the deafening peals of thunder for a long time rendered any thing like conversation impossible.

"This is a dreadful storm!" said the old woman in a croaking voice,

during a lull in the tempest. "From whence come you, young man?"

"From Padua this evening." "That is a long way," cried the old woman; "twenty good miles from hence. What business have you here, in a place to which no high-road leads?"

"I know not," replied the youth. "The miserable are incapable of forming plans, or of taking thought for the future. Well would it be if there were no futurity at all in reserve for me."

"Badly said, badly said, young man; you must not speak so. What!" exclaimed she, rising up and scrutinizing him by the light of the lamp "A Florentine! by all that's wonderful. It is long since I have cast eyes on the garb of fair Florence. This visit must betoken me some good-luck. Truly this storm has sent me a welcome guest; for know, my young sir, that I myself come from that blessed country-from Florence. Ah! what would I give to tread thy soil once more, and to behold thy beloved mountains and gardens! But your name, my dear young master?"

"Antonio Cavalcanti," answered the youth, who felt his heart somewhat warmed towards the old hag, because she was his country woman.

66

Oh, glorious name!" exclaimed she, enthusiastically, "Cavalcanti! years ago I knew a man of that name, Guido Cavalcanti."

"He was my father," said Antonio.

"And he is dead?"

"He is dead," said the young man; "and my mother, too, has long since been taken from me."

"I know it, my beautiful youth," cried the old woman. "It is now fifteen years since she died. Alas! she yielded up her spirit in an unhappy time. And your dear good father, I have to thank him that I was not condemned some years afterwards to the fagot. The judges had taken it into their heads that I was a witch, and would not be convinced to the contrary. But, by his threats and entreaties, my Lord Guido bore me through, and they at length consented merely to banish me from my native land. And now the storm has driven the son of my benefactor into my poor little hut! Give me your hand, my young master."

Antonio gave her his hand, and, al

though inwardly repelled by her forbidding appearance, he constrained himself to appear gay, and listened attentively to the tattling of the old dame, who, on account of her former ac quaintance with his family, seemed inclined to exert a sort of authority over him. But what was his astonish ment and consternation when she suddenly cried out—“ Crescentia ?"

"For Godsake!" cried the youth, trembling all over, "do you know her? do you behold her? Do you know any thing at all about her?"

"What ails you?" shrieked the old woman. "I think I ought to know something about her, seeing that she is my own daughter. Look yourself, how the lazy wench sits yonder fast asleep, allowing the fire to go out, and our supper to grow cold."

She took the lamp, and approached the hearth. And now the youth's bewilderment may be conceived, when he beheld Crescentia before him, just as he had seen her that very evening lying in her coffin, in Padua. The pale countenance, the closed eyes, the heavy tresses, and all the features, were those of his bride-elect; her small hands, also, were folded, and between them lay an image of our Saviour on the cross. Her white robe heightened the illusion.

She is dead!" cried he, gazing upon her, and rooted to the spot.

"She is lazy, the idle huzzy!" croaked the hag, shaking the fair sleeper. "The useless baggage can do nothing but pray and sleep."

Crescentia aroused herself, and her confusion heightened her charms. Antonio was wellnigh distracted when he saw before him her whom he thought he had lost for ever.

"Old sorceress!" cried he with vehemence "Where am I? And what image is that which you have placed before my wandering senses? Speak!-who is that blessed being? Crescentia, is it really thou? Dost thou still know thine own Antonio? Tell me how comest thou to be here?"

"Hollo! my young gallant," cried the old woman, "really you rave, as if you had lost your judgment. Is the storm still raging in your brain?has the lightning blasted your reason? This girl is my daughter, and has ever been so as far as I know."

"I know you not," said Crescentia, blushing deeply and addressing Antonio.I have never been in Padua."

"Come," said the old woman, interrupting them, "let us go to sup. per.'

The meal was set, and consisted of vegetables and a flask of rich Florentine wine, which the old dame produced out of a small cupboard. Antonio could eat but little. He kept his eyes riveted on Crescentia, and his disturbed fancy was ever whispering him that she was his dead bride. Then, again, be believed that he lay bound up in a heavy dream-the vic tim of a delirium which changed all the objects around him that, perhaps, at that moment he was in the city, in his own home, suffering under the pressure of his own wild imaginations, and incapable of perceiving or recog. nising any of his friends, who yet might be weeping around him, and striving to comfort his afflicted spirit.

The storm was now past, and the stars were shining in the dark quiet sky. The old woman ate well, and drank better of the sweet wine. "Come, Master Antonio," said she, after a pause, "tell us what it was that took you to Padua, and brought you hither." Antonio started from his reverie. "You are certainly entitled," replied he, "to interrogate your guest; besides, you appear to have known my father, and, perhaps, my mother also.' "Well, indeed, did I know her," , said the old woman. "No one knew her better. Ay, ay, she died just six months before your father made out his second marriage with the Marchioness of Manfredi."

"So you are acquainted with that circumstance, too, are you?"

"Yes, truly," continued she; "it appears as if I had that fair puppet for ever before mine eyes. Tell me, is your beautiful stepmother still alive? When she came up from the country to be married, she was just in the heyday of her charms."

"I cannot tell you," said Antonio, with a sigh, "all that I endured at the hands of this stepmother. She had thrown the spells of enchantment, as it were, around my father, who would rather have acted with the greatest injustice towards his oldest friends, and his own son, than have subjected her to the smallest inconvenience. But matters between him and her were at length very much changed. Yet, I believe, my heart now suffered more from witnessing their mutual hatred, than it had for

merly done under its own multiplied vexations."

"It appears, then, that matters went on bitter bad in your household ?" enquired the old woman with a discordant chuckle.

Antonio darted a keen glance at the hag as he replied, in a tone of confusion, "I know not how I have been led to speak, in this place, of my own misery and that of my parents."

The old woman drained the red wine which stood mantling in her glass like blood, and with loud laughter replied-"I know no such glorious sport -no such perfect heaven upon earthas is to be witnessed when we see a husband and wife, once a most loving couple, now living together like cat and dog-tearing, scolding, and banning one another like two tigers, and both ready to devote themselves to Satan, provided by doing so cach can annoy the other, or break the band that unites them. That, my boy, is the divinest spectacle that human life affords, and greatly is the sport enhanced if we know that the pair, in the early delirium of their passion, broke through every law of God and man in order to come together, and to tie the bands which they now abominate so heartily. That, believe me, is a high festival for Satan and all his powers, and is celebrated as a jubilee throughout hell with tiukling cymbals. And now, touching these family affairs of yours- But I must hold my tongue

perhaps I might say too much." Crescentia looked sorrowfully towards the astonished Antonio. "Never mind her," whispered she. "She is drunk, miserable woman."

But the old woman's words had powerfully recalled to the mind of Antonio the past, with all its dismal scenes. The gloomy day came back upon his soul in which he had seen his stepmother on her deathbed, and his father, in despair, cursing the hour of his birth, and entreating forgiveness of the spirit of his first wife.

"Have you nothing more to tell us?" asked the old woman, arousing him with these words out of his deep reverie.

"What more can I have?" said Antonio, bitterly. "You appear to know all about me, or to have learnt it by means of some sort of second sight. Need I tell you that it was our old servant Roberto who poisoned my stepmother, stirred up to revenge by