ff, and the glitter of the opening shears, and have no wish to
stay the clipping of the frayed and tangled thread.

In comparison with the grim destiny Mrs. Orme had so systematically
planned the hideous "death in life," upon which she was deliberately
preparing to enter, a leap over that wall into the placid sea beneath
would have been welcome as heaven to tortured Dives; but despite the
loathing and horror of her sickened and outraged soul, she
contemplated her future lot as calmly as St. Lawrence the heating of
his gridiron.

Over the beautiful blue bay, where the moon had laid her pavement of
gold, floated a low sweet song, a simple barcarolle, that came from a
group of happy souls in a small boat

"Che cosi vual que pesci
Fiduline!
L'anel que me casca
Nella bella mia barca
Nella bella se ne va.
Fiduline."

Approaching the shore, the ruddy light burning at one end of the boat
showed its occupants; a handsome athletic young fisherman, and his
pretty childish wife, hushing her baby in her arms, with a slow
cradle-like movement that kept time to her husband's song.

"Te daro cento scudi
Fiduline.
Sta borsa riccama
Por la bella sua barca
Colla bella se ne va
Fidulilalo, Fiduline."

Springing ashore he secured the boat, and held out his arms for the
sleeping bud that contained in its folded petals all their domestic
hopes; and as the star-eyed young mother kissed it lightly and laid
it in its father's arms, the happy pair walked away, leaving the echo
of their gay musical chatter lingering on the air.

To the woman who watched and listened from the parapet above, it
seemed a panel rosy, dewy, fresh from Tempe, set as a fresco upon the
walls of Hell, to heighten the horrors of the doomed.

From her chalice fate had stolen all that was sweet and rapturous in
wifehood and motherhood, substituting hemlock; and as the vision of
her own fair child was recalled by the sleeping babe of the Italian
fisherman, she suffered a keen pang in the consciousness that those
tender features of her innocent daughter reproduced vividly the image
of the man who had blackened her life.

The face in Regina's portrait was so thoroughly Laurance in outline
and Laurance in colou