eternity, and then they are parted no more. Are you satisfied with
this? I thought not Well, what are your plans for the future?"

"I have scores of them. If I would take service with any of those South
American republics, there is not one would not give me rank and station
to-morrow. Brazil would take me. If I offered myself to the Sultan's
Government, where I am known, I could have a command at once."

"I don't know that I like Turkish ideas on the married state," said she,
gravely.

"Julia, Julia! do not torture me," cried he, anxiously. "It is my very
life is at stake--be serious for once;" he took her hand tenderly as
he spoke, and was bending down to kiss it, when a heavy foot was heard
approaching, and suddenly L'Estrange burst into the room, with an open
newspaper in his hand.

"I have got something here will surprise you, Jack," he cried. "You
will be astonished to learn that you owe your escape from Ischia to
no intrepidity of your own; that you had neither act nor part in the
matter, but that it was all due to the consummate skill of a great
diplomatist, who represented England at Naples. Listen to this--it is
'our own special correspondent' who writes:--'I have naturally been
curious to ascertain the exact history of Rogers' escape, the journals
of this country having invested that event with most melodramatic, I
might go further, and say incredible, details. My own knowledge of the
precautions adopted against evasion, and the jealous care bestowed by
the Neapolitan Government towards political prisoners, rendered me slow
to believe that an unaided convict would have the slightest chance of
effecting his liberation; and, as far as I can learn, late events have
not diminished, in any degree, my faith in this opinion.

"'If the stories which circulate in diplomatic circles are to be
credited, it was H. B. M's special envoy at this Court who planned
the whole achievement. He, seeing the fatal obduracy of the King's
Ministers, and the utter impracticability of all proceedings to instil
into them notions of right or honor, determined, while prosecuting the
cause with unusual ardor, to remove the basis of the litigation. By what
bribery he effected his object, or of whom, I do not profess to know,
though very high names are mentioned with unsparing freedom here; but
the fact remains, that when the last despatch of the Foreign Secretary
was on its way to our envoy, Rogers was careering over the glad waters
in