gain touching upon the dangerous topic!" rejoined the Signor. "If
you stay here long, I think you and the prison-walls will become
acquainted. But here is what used to be poor Mr. Royal's happy home,
and yonder is where Madame Papanti resides,--the Madame Guirlande I
told you of, who befriended the poor orphans when they had no other
friend. Her kindness to them, and her courage in managing for them,
was what first put it in my head to ask her to be my wife. Come in and
have a _tete-a-tete_ with her, sir. She knew the girls from the time
they were born, and she loved them like a mother."

Within the house, the young man listened to a more prolonged account,
some of the details of which were new, others a repetition. Madame
dwelt with evident satisfaction on the fact that Rosa, in the midst
of all her peril, refused to accept the protection of Mr. Fitzgerald,
unless she were married to him; because she had so promised her
father, the night before he died.

"That was highly honorable to her," replied Mr. King; "but marriage
with a slave is not valid in law."

"So the Signor says," rejoined Madame. "I was so frightened and
hurried, and I was so relieved when a protector offered himself, that
I didn't think to inquire anything about it. Before Mr. Fitzgerald
made his appearance, we had planned to go to Boston in search of you."

"Of _me_!" he exclaimed eagerly. "O, how I wish you had, and that I
had been in Boston to receive you!"

"Well, I don't know that anything better could be done than has been
done," responded Madame. "The girls were handsome to the perdition
of their souls, as we say in France; and they knew no more about the
world than two blind kittens. Their mother came here a stranger, and
she made no acquaintance. Thus they seemed to be left singularly alone
when their parents were gone. Mr. Fitzgerald was so desperately in
love with Rosabella, and she with him, that they could not have been
kept long apart any way. He has behaved very generously toward
them. By purchasing them, he has taken them out of the power of the
creditors, some of whom were very bad men. He bought Rosa's piano, and
several other articles to which they were attached on their father's
and mother's account, and conveyed them privately to the new home he
had provided for them. Rosabella always writes of him as the most
devoted of husbands; and dear little Floracita used to mention him as
the kindest of brothers. So there seems every rea