he said, and stepped aside.

"We've taken a mermaid aboard, sir," said the sailing-master. "Nothing else, they say, sings after that fashion, and the men are on the lookout for foul weather."

"Never mind what the men say," said Reyburn, "while your barometer says nothing."

When Mr. Reyburn went on deck at sunrise he found Helen standing there with Lilian—with Lilian, who, after her day's illness, looked strangely wan and worn, looked like the feeble shadow of the other with her rich carnations, her glowing eyes, her picturesque outlines. Reyburn went aft and took Lilian's hand. "You have been so ill!" he said; and then he looked up and saw again this splendid creature, loosely clad in white, her black hair, unbraided and unbound, flowing in wave and ripple far down her back, her sleeve falling from the uplifted arm and perfect hand, that held a fan of the rose-colored spoonbill's feathers above her head, so beautiful and brilliant that she seemed only a projection of that beautiful and brilliant hour, with all its radiant dyes, before the sun was up; and he forgot that Lilian had been ill, forgot for a moment that Lilian existed. "I will find out what she is made of," thought Reyburn. "Are you made of clay?" he said boldly.

"He shall find that there is fire in my clay," said Helen to herself as she appeared not to heed his look or his words.

And there it began. And swift and sudden it went on to the end. She had come on board the yacht that first night to startle it with her beauty and her voice; last night, silent and stately, she had slipped through the evening like a dream; now she stood before him a dazzling creature of the morning: yesterday she was Penseroso; to-day she was Allegro; what would she be to-morrow? How sparkling, as one day followed another, her gayety was! and yet with no shallow sparkle: there was always the shadow of still depths just beyond—seasons of silence, moments of half sadness, times when he had to wonder whither her thoughts had led her. She sang a little song of the muleteers on the mountains, that he admired; then she must teach it to him, she said; they sang the song together, their voices lingering on the same note, rising in the same breath, falling in the same cadence. He had a sonorous tenor of his own: more than once she caught herself pausing in her part to hear it. How soft, and yet how strong, was the language of the song! he said; he must learn Spanish, she replied; and they hung together over the same book, and he repeated the phrase that fell from her lips—an apt pupil, it may be, for more than once the phrase, as he uttered it, deepened the color on her cheek. More than once she was conscious of gazing at him to find the charm that Lilian had found; more than once he caught her glance and held it there suspended; more than once you might have thought, by the quick, impatient manner in which she tore her eyes away, that she had found the charm herself. Perhaps he made some ostentation of his attraction before the others; perhaps the simulation of warmth was close enough to melt a colder heart than hers; perhaps it was not wholly simulation. It may be that her hand lay in his a moment longer than need was, her glance fell before his a moment sooner: it may be that as she fled all her manner beckoned him to follow. She was confiding to him her thoughts, her aspirations, her emotions, as if she wished that he, and he alone, should know them: he was listening as though there were no other knowledge in the world. If presently he thought of her as a creature of romance, if presently she felt the need of that keen interest, what wonder? They were playing with fire, and those that play with fire must needs be burned. And meantime, whether he looked at her languid in the burning noon, gay with the reviving freshness of the dusk, leaning over the bulwarks in the night and gazing up into the great spaces of the stars, he was always fascinated to look again. There was the profile exquisite as sculpture, there was the color as velvet soft as rose-petals, there was the droop of the long silken lashes half belying with its melancholy the rapture of the smile. Whether she spoke or whether she sang, her voice was music's self, and he was longing for the next tone; and presently—presently Lilian had faded like a phantom before this aurora who was fresh and rosy and dewy, with song and color and light—a sad pale phantom wan in a mist of tears.

And as for Lilian in this approaching trouble—in this trouble that was already here—was it to her mother that she turned as the good lady dozed and knitted there? Ah no, but to John himself; and perhaps John comprehended it, and, if he loved her all the more tenderly, suffered the more sharply. Possibly, as she saw Reyburn follow Helen as an entranced man follows a vision, as she saw Helen lead, Lilian knew that she deserved her punishment—knew that she had had her warning. Possibly she realized that the passion which had usurped the place of the love of years with her was but a selfish idealism—possibly saw at last, and with an agony, of what thin stuff the hero of her dream was made—possibly knew that it must be, and knew that it was best; but none the less she must have felt for a little while that there was no place left for her in the world, and she seemed to fade nearer and nearer the verge of it. Her old languor overcame her, her old pallor returned, her eyes were dull with their silent weeping: not yet twenty, she looked twice her years. Reyburn himself saw the change in her with trouble. "The voyage is doing you no good," he said.

"It is killing me!" she cried.

But he did not perceive the meaning of her unguarded cry: he did not know how it was with her, for he had not yet dreamed how it was with himself. But he was soon to discover.

Three weeks they had been wafted about from key to key, from bay to bay; they landed and explored the quaint old towns; they made trips into the tropical forests; great boatloads of juicy mangoes and guavas and bananas came off to them; they scattered coins on the clear bottom for the brown babies tumbling about the shores to dive after. Now at noon they lay anchored in still lagoons under the shadow of an overhanging orange-grove; now at night they were flying across the broad seas. But Lilian felt she could endure no more of it: her life was exhausted; she longed for the yacht's head to be turned northward, that she might die in peace on shore. John also was impatient to be gone. If he could have Lilian once more at home, he thought, he would marry her in spite of her protest, and take her where forgetfulness must needs soothe her, and strange faces make her cling to him in the old way. The way in which she clung to him now was too bitter to be borne. Her mother also began to think of home, and Mr. Sterling had wearied long ago; and at length, further pretences failing, they had been freshly provisioned and had started on their homeward way.

Reyburn had, indeed, been loath to make any change in their luxurious summering, but he was one of those who slide along with the days.

was a couplet that he was fond of humming, and he always waited for some unnatural wrench to make the effort he should have made himself. But he had consented at last to the return, because while he was still floating in Southern waters, under Southern skies, with this delicious voice in his ears, this delicious beauty by his side, he could not think that a week's sailing must bring him under other conditions.

Perhaps, though, it would be more than a week's sailing, some one said, for the fair wind that had taken them hither and yon so long, and had waited on their fancies, was apparently on the point of deserting them at last, and the yacht was merely drifting before a fitful breeze that lightly moved a scud of low clouds which the sunset had kindled into a blaze of glory hanging just above them, and whose ragged shreds only now and then displayed a star.

"We are going to have nasty weather," the sailing-master said to his mate. "The barometer is going down with a rush."

"Yes, sir," had come the answer: "we shall catch it in the mid-watch."

"Then stow the light sails, Mr. Mason," the captain said, "and get everything secure for a heavy blow. Keep a sharp lookout, and call me as soon as the weather changes."

"All right, sir."

"I am going down for forty winks," said the captain. Then as he passed Mr. Reyburn: "I don't much like the appearance of things, sir."

"Appearance?" said Reyburn. "Why the sea is as smooth as glass!"

"Too smooth by half, sir, with the barometer falling. I've sailed with that glass a long time, and she's never told me a lie yet. We've already shortened sail."

"So I see. But why in the world did you do it, when you want every stitch of it out to catch what wind there is? However, I am in no hurry," said Reyburn laughing. "Do as you please, skipper: you're sailing the ship."

"I am sailing her, sir," said the captain, a little nettled, "and sailing her on the edge of a hurricane. You had better take the lady below, sir: when it comes it will come with a crack." But Reyburn laughed at him again, and passed over to Helen's side.

They sat together on the deck, Helen and Reyburn, long after all the others had gone to rest; for Mr. Sterling left the arrangement of etiquette and decorum to Lilian's mother; and whether she were a purblind soul, looking delightedly at a new love-match, or whether, with any surmise of the state of things, she felt pleased that Reyburn, led by whatever inducement, should step aside from Lilian's path, she gave no other sign than that when her early withdrawal from the scene left the deck clear for action. As each in turn they fell away into their dreams, those below could still hear Helen singing; and if one there lay sleepless in the pauses of the singing, no one guessed it. All the ship was in shadow save where a lantern shone, but Helen lingered, still irresolute. Now and then she touched the Spanish guitar in the measure of some tune that flitted across her thoughts, now and then she sang the tune, now and then was silent. She was half aware of what the approaching moments held—was half afraid. Was she to avenge herself upon the man who had destroyed her brother's peace? Faithful to Lilian should she go, or faithless stay? He took the guitar himself and fingered the strings, making fewer chords than discords; her own fingers wandered to correct him; their hands met; the guitar slipped down unheeded; the grasp grew closer, grew warmer—ah, Helen, was it Lilian of whom you thought, whom you would save?—and then an arm was around her; shining eyes, only half guessed in the glimmer that the phosphorescent swells sent through the darkness, hung over her rosy upturned beauty; she was drawn forward unresisting, her head was on his breast, she, heard the heavy throbbing of his heart, and his lips lay on hers and seemed to draw her soul away. And so they sat there in the deepening shadow, whispering in faint low whispers, thrilling with a great rapture, their lips meeting in long kisses. Why should he think of Lilian? Never once had he touched her mouth like this, had his arms closed round her so, had he felt the sighing of her breath. As a pale white rushlight burns in the sun, that love seemed now, compared with this great sweet flame. He bowed his face over Helen's as she sat trembling in his embrace, and neither of them remembered past or future in the passion of the present; neither of them felt the yacht swing idly up and down with scarcely a movement forward; neither of them heard the listless flapping of the sails against the masts, or noticed that no dew lay on the rail, or once looked up to see how black and close the air had gathered round them, how deadly hot and sulphurous—till suddenly, and as if by one accord, men were running and voices were crying all about them. They sprang to their feet to hear the sailing-master's shout as one beholds lightning fall out of a blue sky: "See your halyards all clear for running."

"Ay, ay, sir!" came the ringing answer.

"Stand by your halyards and down-hauls."

"Ay, ay, sir!"

"Haul down the flying jib: take the bonnet off the jib, and put a reef in her," came the strong swift sentences. "Brail up the foresail, and double reef the mainsail."

There was a sound far, far off, like a mighty rush of waters, coming nearer and swelling to a roar—an awful roar of winds and waves. And Helen was wildly clasping Reyburn, who was plunging with her down the companion-way.

"Here she comes!" cried the captain. "Hold on all!" And then there was a shock that threw them prostrate, a writhing and twisting of every plank beneath them, and the tornado had struck the yacht and knocked her on her beam-ends.

"Cut away the weather rigging!" they heard the captain thunder through all the rout before they had once tried to regain themselves. The quick, sharp blows resounded across the beating of the billow and the shrieking of the wind and cloud. "Stand clear, all!" and with a crash as if the heavens were coming together the masts had gone by the board, and what there was left of the Beachbird had righted and now rolled a wreck in the trough of the sea.

A half hour's work, but it had done more than wreck a ship: it had wrecked a passion. For as Helen still clung round Reyburn, sobbing and screaming, he had seen the opposite door open, and Lilian landing there, white-robed, white-shawled, with her bright hair about her face as white as a spirit's. "John," she said, "we are in a hurricane."

"Yes, Lilian," he had answered from where he was stationed close beside her door. "But the worst must be over. The wind already abates, and as soon as the sea goes down—"

As he spoke there came the terrible cry, loud above all other clamor, "A leak! a leak!" and then followed the renewed trampling of feet overhead, and the hoarse wheeze of the pumps.

"We are going down," Lilian said, and turned that white face away. "Oh, John!, before we go forgive me," she cried; and John held his outstretched arms toward her and folded her within them.

Reyburn saw it, and even in that supreme moment, when life and death swung in the balance, an awful revulsion seized him. He beheld now with a sickening shudder the woman cowering at his feet whose beauty an hour ago had melted his soul: she was flesh to him only—her beauty was of the earth, and flesh and the earth were passing, and it was other things on which such moments as these were opening—things such as shone in the transfigured face of Lilian—of Lilian whom, if this marsh-light had not dazzled him from his way, he might now be holding to his heart triumphant; for here disguises would have fallen and he could have claimed his own. For, whether it were the terror of the time, or the trancelike and spiritual look of Lilian, or whether it were the jealous pang of seeing her in another's arms, the love on which he had been waiting for two years and more, to which he had sacrificed time and endeavor, which had brought him here to this danger and this death, returned now and overwhelmed him, and the passion of a day and night fell apart and left him in its ruins. This woman at his feet filled him with a strange disgust: that other woman—If this were the last hour of time, he would have risked his chances in eternity to have held her as John did. He threw himself, face down, on the divan, and he cursed God and called upon the drowning wave to come.

The captain leaped down the companion-way, and caught his pistols from a drawer. "Mr. Reyburn, we need you and the other gentlemen," he cried. "We are throwing out our ballast. All hands must take spells at the pumps, for the leak gains, and I shall have all I can do to keep the men at work and the yacht afloat."

"Let her sink!" yelled Reyburn into the cushions where he lay. "Damn her! let her sink!" And he did not stir. But John had gently released Lilian and placed her in a chair near the sofa where her mother lay gasping, and had sprung on deck with his father and the captain.

A horrid hour crept by—a bitter blank below, hard and fierce work above—and then the pumps were choked. Lilian and her mother had crept on deck, holding by whatever they could find, and surveying the amazing scene around them. For the great black storm-cloud was flying up and away, flying into the north-east, and through the torn vapors that followed in its rack a waning moon arose. A tremendous sea was running, monstrous wave breaking on monstrous wave in a mad white frolic far as the eye could see; as one billow bounded along, curling and feathering and swelling on its path, a score leaped round it to powder themselves in a common cloud of spray; and every cloud of spray as it shot upward caught the long ray of the half-risen moon, that but darkly lighted and revealed an immensity of heaven, till all the weltering tumult of gloom and foam was sown with a myriad lunar rainbows.

The beauty of it almost overcame the terror with Lilian as she grasped her mother's hand.

"It is a fit gate to enter heaven by," said John, coming to her side. "We have done all we can," he added.

At the moment the bows dipped with a prodigious sea. Somebody forward sang out, "She's settling, sir! she's settling, sir!" The cry ran along the deck like fire: there was one panicstricken shriek that followed, and the men had jumped for the boats, into which water and provision had been already thrown. Reyburn came staggering up the companion-way with Helen. The dingy and one of the quarter-boats were already swamped in the wild haste: the men were crowding into the other, which had been safely lowered.

"You brutes!" the captain shouted, "are you going to leave the women?"

"Let them come, then," answered a voice, "and make haste about it;" and Lilian found herself drawn forward and looking over the side into the shadow below.

"Are you going, John?" she said hurriedly.

"No, darling: it is impossible, you see, but—"

"Nor I, either," she answered quickly.

"Lilian!"

"No," she said, "no! We were to be together in life, and we shall be in death. Oh, John, do you think I can leave you now?"

"Make haste about it," was repeated harshly from the boat.

"I am going to stay," repeated Lilian firmly.

"Here," cried Reyburn, as he drew up the ropes to bind them round Helen's waist. "Take her." But the boat was already clear of the ship and away; and he flung the ropes down again with a motion of abhorrence, and stood leaning against the stump of the mast, where he could hear the murmurs of John and Lilian, straining his ears to listen, as if he must needs torment himself—to listen to those few low, fervent whispers, with one eager to pour out the love so long restrained, the other to receive it—both in the face of death making the life so lately found too sweet a thing to leave.

Soon the little company remaining on the wreck had clustered around that portion of it; the captain and Mr. Mason were near by, and Lilian's mother sat beside her and kept her hand; Mr. Sterling, not far off, held Helen, who lay faint with fright—faint too with many a pang, snatched as she had been from a dream of warmth and joy to a nightmare of horror; one moment ruling in a heart that in the next moment had cast her forth to be trampled on; bewildered by the repugnance she had too plainly seen in the face of her passionate lover of two hours ago; half heartbroken with the remembrance of the tone in which he had called to the crew of the quarter-boat to take her, and cold with the awful expectancy of the moment. The moon swam slowly up, and the sky cleared about her; the sea rose and fell less violently, its dark expanse everywhere running fire; but the broken yacht still rolled like a log, and they clung to each other as she rolled. She settled slowly, and another hour had passed and left her still afloat.

"We are safe," cried the captain, coming back to their side after a brief absence with the mate. "Mr. Reyburn, do you see?" But Mr. Reyburn did not even hear. A soft lustre began to blanch the violet depths of the lofty sky; a rosy flare welled up from the horizon and half drowned the shriveled moon; a star that was steady in the east was shaking a countless host of stars in the shaking waters round them. And then the rosy flare was a yellow flame that filled the heavens; the long swells that ran up to break against them were like sheets of molten jewels—rubies and beryls and sapphires and chrysolites, changing and flashing as they broke into a thousand splendors; strange mild-eyed birds were hovering about them and alighting on the wreck; the moon was gone; the vaporous gold that overflowed the east was burned away in the increasing glory, and the sunshine fell about them.

"We are not going down," cried Lilian, her face aglow and lovely in the light. "That smoke in the horizon is a steamer's, and she will take us off. Oh, John, we have our lives before us yet!"

The captain and Mr. Mason had already signaled the steamer, and before very long the wreck was quite abandoned, and those whom it had carried were on their northward way again.

It was a singular wedding that I saw one day about two months after the wreck of the Beachbird. I was going by the church of St. Saviour, and being of an inquiring mind in the matter of weddings, I went in. There were two brides there: the husband of the first, the fair one, was just turning away with her. So calm, so pure, so peaceful, so content, were the faces of that new husband and wife, that I could long have looked upon them, as on some picture of strong spirits in the presence of God, had not the beauty of the second bride arrested me. But that was a beauty one hardly sees twice in a lifetime—so perfect in outline, under snowy veils and blossoms, the dark eyes so softly, dewily dark, the white brow whiter for its tendril-like rings of raven hair; and where had I ever seen groom so stately, so lofty, so proud? But what did the pantomime mean? a stranger might well have asked. Was that the man's natural demeanor? or had he brought his mind to the task of taking her by an effort that had destroyed every sentiment of his soul but scorn? And for her? Had the rose forsaken her cheek and the smile her lip because she looked on life as on a desert? Was that utter sadness and dejection a thing that should one day fade away and leave a sparkle of hope behind it? Or was it the scar of one who had played with fire, who had not the strength to release a pledge, and was marrying a man who she knew loathed her and her beauty together?

HARRIET PRESCOTT SPOFFORD.

When the wretched, worthless and worn-out debauchee Gian Gaston dei Medici, grand duke of Tuscany, died on the 9th of July, 1737, the dynasty of that famous family became extinct. For some years before his death the prospect of a throne without any heir by right divine to claim it had set the cupidity of sundry of the European crowned heads in motion. Various schemes and arrangements had been proposed in the interest of different potentates. But the "vulpine cunning," as an Italian historian calls it, of Cardinal Fleury, the minister of Louis XV., at length succeeded in inducing the European powers to accede to an arrangement which secured the greater part of the advantage to France. It was finally settled that the duke of Lorraine should cede to France his ancestral states, which the latter had long coveted, and that he should be married to Maria Teresa, the heiress of the Austrian dominions, carrying in his hand Tuscany, the throne of which was secured to him at the death of Gian Gaston. It was further promised to the Tuscans, discontented at the prospect of having an absentee sovereign, that on the death of the emperor Francis, Tuscany should have a ruler of its own in the person of his second son. This Francis, who gave up the duchy of Lorraine to become the husband of Maria Teresa, reigned over Tuscany till his sudden death by apoplexy on the 18th of August, 1765. His second son, Leopold, reigned in Tuscany till, on the death of his elder brother on the 24th of December, 1789, he was in his turn also called to ascend the imperial throne. Thereupon the second son of Leopold became grand-duke in 1789, and reigned as Ferdinand III. till 1824, when, on the 18th of June, his son succeeded him as Leopold II. Now, though the sovereignty of Tuscany was thus entirely and definitively separated from that of Austria, all these princes were of the blood-royal of Austria, and might in the course of Nature have succeeded to the imperial throne. For this reason they were held, though only dukes of Tuscany, to be entitled to the style and title "imperial and royal," according to the custom of the House of Austria; and thus every grimy little tobacco-shop and lottery-office in Tuscany, in the days when I first knew it, in 1841, styled itself "imperial and royal."

The Tuscans had been greatly discontented when the arrangements of the great powers of Europe, entered into without a moment's thought as to the wishes of the population of the grand duchy on the subject, had decided that they were to be ruled over by a German prince of whom they knew absolutely nothing. It was not that the later Medici had been popular, or either respected or beloved. The misgovernment of especially the last two of the Medicean line had reduced the country to the lowest possible social, moral and economical condition. But yet the change from the known to the utterly unknown was unwelcome to the people. They feared they knew not what changes and innovations in their old easy-going if downward-tending ways. But Providence, in the shape of the ambitions and intrigues of the great powers, had better things in store for them than they dreamed of. The princes of the Lorraine dynasty so ruled as not only quickly to gain the respect and affection of their subjects, but gradually to render Tuscany by far the most civilized and prosperous portion of Italy. The first three princes of the Lorraine line were enlightened men, far in advance not only of the generality of their own subjects, but of their contemporaries in general. They were conscientious rulers, earnestly desirous of ameliorating the condition of the people they were called on to govern. Of the last of the line the same cannot in its entirety be said. A portion of the eulogy deserved by his predecessors may be awarded to him unquestionably. He was, I fully believe, a good and conscientious man, anxious to do his duty, and desirous of the happiness and well being of his people. But he was by no means a wise or enlightened man. It could hardly be said that he was popular or beloved by his subjects at the time when I first knew Florence. The Tuscans were very far better off than any other Italians at that time, and they were fully conscious that they were so. But this superiority was justly credited to the wise rule of the grand duke's father and grandfather, rather than to any merit of his own. Yet he was liked in a sort of way—I am afraid I must say in a contemptuous sort of way. The general notion was that he was what is generally described by the expressive term "a poor creature." He probably was so, in truth, from his birth upward. It was said—and I believe with truth—that he had been in his childish years reared with the greatest difficulty; and strange as it may seem, it is, I believe, a fact that a wet-nurse made an important part of the establishment of the prince at the Pitti Palace till he was about twenty years old. How far physiologists may deem that such an abnormal circumstance may have been influential in producing a diathesis of mind and body deficient in vigor, energy and "hard grit" of any kind, I do not know. But if that is what such a bringing-up may be expected to produce, then the expectation was in the case in question certainly justified. Nevertheless, Italians had been for so many generations and centuries taught by bitter experience to consider kings and princes of all sorts as malevolent and maleficent scourges of humanity that a sovereign who really did no harm to any one was, after a fashion, as I have said, popular. Accessibility is always one sure means of making a sovereign acceptable to large classes of his subjects; and nothing could be easier than to gain access to the presence of Leopold II., grand duke of Tuscany. A little anecdote of an occurrence that took place at the time when Lord Holland, to the regret of everybody in Florence, English or Italian, ceased to be the representative of England at the grand ducal court, will show the sort of thing that used to prevail in the matter of the admission of foreigners to the Pitti Palace.

English travelers on the continent of Europe are, and have been for many years, as it is hardly necessary to state, a very motley and heterogeneous crowd. The same thing may be said of American travelers now, but it was not so much the case at the time of which I am writing. It is not so with the people of any other nation; and foreigners are apt to sneer on occasion at the unkempt and queer specimens of humanity which often come to them from the two English-speaking nations. We can well afford to let them stare and smile, well knowing that if a similar amount of prosperity permitted the people of other countries to travel for their pleasure in similar numbers, the result would be at the very least an equally—shall I say undrawing-room-like contribution to cosmopolitan society? When Sir George Hamilton assumed the duties of British representative at Florence, the yearly throng of English visitors was becoming more numerous and more heterogeneous, and all wanted to be invited to the balls at the Pitti Palace. Those were the most urgent in their applications, as will be easily understood, whose claims to such distinction were the most problematic. The practice was for the minister to present to the grand duke whom he thought fit, and those so presented went to the balls as a matter of course. The position of the minister, it will be seen, was an invidious one. Under the pressure of these circumstances, Sir George Hamilton declared that he would in no case take upon himself to decide on the fitness or unfitness of any person, but would act invariably upon the old recognized rule of etiquette observed at other courts in such matters—i.e., he would present anybody who had been presented at the court of St. James, and none who had not been so presented. The result was soon apparent in a singular thinning of the magnificent suites of rooms of the Pitti on ball-nights. The general appearance of the rooms might be something more like what the receiving-rooms of princes are wont to look like, but all that was gained in quality was attained by a very marked sacrifice of quantity. In a week or two Sir George received a hint to the effect that the grand duke would be pleased if the minister would be less strict in the matter of presenting such English as might desire to come to the Pitti. "Oh!" said Sir George, "if that is what is desired, there can be no difficulty about it. I am sure I won't stand in the way of filling the Pitti ball-room. Let them all come." And accordingly everybody who asked to be presented was presented without any pretence of an attempt at discrimination.

This was the manner in which the thing was done: All new-comers were told that if they wished to go to the Pitti balls they must notify to the English minister their desire to be presented to the grand duke. In return, they received an intimation that they must be in the ante-room of the suite of receiving-rooms at eight o'clock on such an evening—ladies in ball-dress; gentlemen in evening-dress with white neckcloths. It may be observed here that this matter of the white neckcloth was the only point insisted on. Both ladies and gentlemen were allowed to exercise the utmost latitude of private judgment as to what constituted "ball-dress" and "evening-dress." I have seen a black stuff gown fitting closely round the throat pass muster for the first, and a gray frockcoat for the second. But the officials at the door would refuse to admit a man with a black neckerchief; and I once saw a man thus rejected retire a few steps into a corridor, whip off the offending black silk and put it in his pocket, obtain a fragment of white tape from some portion of a lady's dress, put that round his shirt-collar, and then again presenting himself be recognized by the officials as complying with the exigencies of etiquette. The aspirants to "court society" having assembled, from twenty to fifty, perhaps, in number, according as it was earlier or later in the season, presently the minister bustled in, and with a hurried "Now then!" led his motley flock into the presence-chamber, where they were formed into line. Much about the same moment (for the grand duke had "the royal civility" of punctuality, and rarely kept people waiting) His Serene Imperial and Royal Highness came shambling into the room in the white-and-gold uniform of an Austrian general officer, and looking very much as if he had just been roused out of profound slumber, and had not yet quite collected his senses. Walking as if he had two odd legs, which had never been put to work together before, he came to a standstill in front of the row of presentees. If there was any person of any sort of distinction among them, the minister whispered a word or two in the grand ducal ear, and motioned the lion to come forward. His Imperial and Royal Highness, after one glance of helpless suffering at the stranger, fixed his gaze on his own boots. A long pause ensued, during which courtly etiquette forbade the stranger to utter a word. At last His Highness shifted his weight on to his left foot, hung his head down on his shoulder on the same side, and said "Ha!" Another pause, the presentee hardly considering himself justified in replying to this observation. The duke finding he had made a false start and accomplished nothing, shifted his weight to the right foot, simultaneously hanging his head on his shoulder on that side, and said "Hum!" It would often occur that when he had reached that point he would make a duck forward with his head to signify that the audience was at an end.

If there was anything that the presenting official thought might be appropriately remarked to the distinguished presentee, he would whisper a hint to that effect in the grand ducal ear, of which His Highness was usually glad to avail himself. I remember one amusing instance in point, when it needed all the sense of the majesty of the sovereign presence to preserve in the bystanders the gravity due to the occasion. It was in the case of an American presentation. The United States had at that time no recognized representative at the grand ducal court, and Americans, much fewer in number then than of late years, were generally presented by a banker who had almost all the American business. This gentleman, having to present some one—I forget the name—who was connected by blood or in some other special manner with Washington, whispered to the grand duke that such was the case. His Serene Highness bowed his appreciation of the fact. Then, after going through the usual foot-exercise, and after a longer pause than usual, he looked up at the expectant visitor standing in front of him, and said, but with evident effort, "Ah-h-h! Le grand Vaash!" There was nothing more forthcoming. Having thus delivered himself, he made his visitor a low bow, and the latter retired. It was evident that the grand duke of Tuscany heard of "Le grand Vaash" then for the first time in his life.

After any specialty of this sort had been disposed of, the ruck of presentees, standing like a lot of school-boys in a long row, were "presented," which ceremony was deemed to have been effectually accomplished by one duck of the grand ducal head, to be divided among all the recipients, and an answering duck from each of them in return. They were then as free to amuse themselves in any manner it seemed good to them as if they had been at a public place of entertainment and had paid for their tickets. And not only that, but they were free to return and do the same, without any fresh presentation ceremony, every time there was a ball at the palace, which was at least once a week from the beginning of the year to the end of Carnival.

Nor were the amusements thus liberally provided by any means to be despised. There was a magnificent suite of rooms, with a really grand ball-room, all magnificently lighted; there was a large and very excellent band; there was a great abundance of card-tables, with all needed appurtenances, in several of the rooms; ices and sherbets and bonbons and tea and pastry were served in immense profusion during the whole evening. At one o'clock the supper-rooms were opened, and there was a really magnificent supper, with "all the delicacies of the season," and wine in abundance of every sort. And the old hands, who would appear knowing, used to say to new-comers, "Never mind the champagne—you can get that anywhere—but stick to the Rhine wine: it comes from the old boy's own vineyards." To tell the truth, the scene at that supper used to be a somewhat discreditable one. The spreading of such a banquet before such an assemblage of animals as had gone up into that ark was a leading them into unwonted temptation which was hardly judicious. Not that the foreigners were by any means the worst offenders against decent behavior there. If they carried away bushels of bonbons in their loaded pockets, the Italians would consign to the same receptacles whole fowls, vast blocks of galantine, and even platefuls of mayonnaise, packed up in paper brought thither for the purpose. They were like troops plundering a taken town. Despite the enormous quantity of loot thus carried off, inexhaustible fresh supplies refurnished the board again and again till all were satisfied. I never saw English or Americans pocket aught save bonbons, which seemed to be considered fair game on all sides, but the quantity of these that I have seen made prizes of was something prodigious.

The grand duchess had hardly more to say for herself than the grand duke, and her manner was less calculated to please her visitors. That which in the grand duke was evidently shyness and want of ready wit, took in the grand duchess the appearance of hauteur and the distant manner due to pride. She was a sister of the king of Naples, and was liked by no one. The one truly affable member of the court circle, whose manner and bearing really had something of royal grace and graciousness, was the dowager grand duchess, the widow of the late grand duke, who to all outward appearance was as young as, and a far more elegant-looking woman than, the reigning grand duchess. She had been a princess of the royal family of Saxony, and was no doubt in all respects, intellectual and moral as well as social, a far more highly cultivated woman than the scion of the Bourbon House of Naples. She was the late grand duke's second wife, and not the mother of the reigning duke.

Why were all these balls given—at no small cost of money and trouble—by the grand duke and duchess? Why did his Serene Imperial and Royal Highness intimate to the English minister his wish that every traveling Briton from Capel Court or Bloomsbury should be brought to share his hospitality and the pleasures of his society? The matter was simply this: His Serene Highness was venturing a small fish to catch a large one. As a good and provident ruler, anxious for the prosperity and well-being of his subjects, he was making a bid for the valuable patronage of the British Cockney. He was acting the part of land-lord of a gratuitous "free-and-easy," in the hope of making Florence an attractive place of residence to that large class of nomad English to whom gratuitous court-balls once a week appeared to be a near approach to those "Saturnia regna" when the rivers ran champagne and plum-puddings grew on all the bushes. And it cannot be doubted that the grand duke's patriotic endeavors were crowned with success, and that his expenditure in wax-lights, music, ices and suppers was returned tenfold to the shopkeepers and hotel and lodging-house keepers of his capital.

One other point may be mentioned with reference to these balls, as a small contribution to the history of a system of social manners and usages which has now passed away. The utmost latitudinarianism, as has been mentioned, was allowed in the matter of costume, but this rule was subject to one exception. On the night of New Year's Day, on which there was always a ball at the Pitti, all those who attended it were expected to appear in proper court-dress. Those who were entitled to any official costume, military or other, donned that. I have seen a clergyman of the Church of England make his academical robes do duty as a court-dress, as indeed they properly do at St. James. But in the rooms at the Pitti His Reverence became the observed of all observers to a remarkable degree. Those who could lay claim to no official costume of any sort had to fall back on the old court-dress of the period of George I., still worn, oddly enough, at the English court. It is a sufficiently handsome dress in itself, and had at all events the advantage of looking extremely unlike the ordinary costume of nineteenth-century mortals, It was often a question with American civilians what dress they should wear on these occasions, and I used to endeavor to persuade my American friends to insist upon their republican right to ignore in Europe court-tailor mummeries of which they knew nothing at home; being perfectly sure that they would have carried the point victoriously, and not unmindful of Talleyrand's remark when Castlereagh at Vienna appeared in a plain black coat, without any decoration, among the crowd of continental diplomatists bedizened with ribbons of every color and stars and crosses of every form and kind: "Ma foi! c'est fort distingué!" But I never could prevail, having, as I take it, the female influence against me on the subject; and Americans used to adopt generally a blue cloth coat and trousers well trimmed with gold lace, and a white waistcoat.

In later days, when popular discontent and the agitation arising from it were gradually boiling up to a dangerous height in every part of Italy, and the hatred felt toward the different sovereigns was reflected in many an audacious squib and satire, the grand duke of Tuscany never shared to any great degree the odium which pursued his fellow-monarchs. It was with a scathing vigor of satire that Giuseppe Giusti characterized each of the Italian crowned heads of that period in burning verses, which were circulated with cautious secresy in manuscript from hand to hand, long before a surreptitious edition, which it was dangerous (anywhere in Italy save in Tuscany) to possess, appeared, to be followed in after years by many an avowed one. These have given the name of Giusti a high and peculiar place on the roll of Italian poets. But the satirist's serpent scourge is changed for a somewhat contemptuously used foolscap when the Tuscan ruler is introduced in the following lines: