l little sitting-room upstairs at the
great house, and so on. All that I might have had once Miss Milroy is to
have now--_if I let her_."

"Six o'clock.--More of the everlasting Armadale! Half an hour since,
Midwinter came in from his writing, giddy and exhausted. I had been
pining all day for a little music, and I knew they were giving 'Norma'
at the theater here. It struck me that an hour or two at the opera might
do Midwinter good, as well as me; and I said: 'Why not take a box at the
San Carlo to-night?' He answered, in a dull, uninterested manner,
that he was not rich enough to take a box. Armadale was present, and
flourished his well-filled purse in his usual insufferable way. '_I'm_
rich enough, old boy, and it comes to the same thing.' With those words
he took up his hat, and trampled out on his great elephant's feet to get
the box. I looked after him from the window as he went down the street.
'Your widow, with her twelve hundred a year,' I thought to myself,
'might take a box at the San Carlo whenever she pleased, without being
beholden to anybody.' The empty-headed wretch whistled as he went his
way to the theater, and tossed his loose silver magnificently to every
beggar who ran after him."

* * * * *

"Midnight.--I am alone again at last. Have I nerve enough to write the
history of this terrible evening, just as it has passed? I have nerve
enough, at any rate, to turn to a new leaf, and try."

II. THE DIARY CONTINUED.

"We went to the San Carlo. Armadale's stupidity showed itself, even in
such a simple matter as taking a box. He had confounded an opera with a
play, and had chosen a box close to the stage, with the idea that one's
chief object at a musical performance is to see the faces of the singers
as plainly as possible! Fortunately for our ears, Bellini's lovely
melodies are, for the most part, tenderly and delicately accompanied--or
the orchestra might have deafened us.

"I sat back in the box at first, well out of sight; for it was
impossible to be sure that some of my old friends of former days at
Naples might not be in the theater. But the sweet music gradually
tempted me out of my seclusion. I was so charmed and interested that I
leaned forward without knowing it, and looked at the stage.

"I was made aware of my own imprudence by a discovery which, for the
moment, literally chilled my blood. One of the singers, among the chorus
of Druids, was looking at me while he sang with the