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.

RECOLLECTIONS OF THE TUSCAN COURT UNDER THE GRAND DUKE LEOPOLD.

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