velling acquaintance;
and, by a singular coincidence, the very first question his companion
put, was--whether he knew that gentleman who had just entered the house
opposite?

"No! do you?" was the prompt reply of Winston.

"I do not," said the other; "but I confess I am rather curious to learn.
He must be _somebody_--travels in grand style--has taken the best rooms
in the _Victoria_. I took him for a Russian prince, but he speaks
English like a native."

"The Russians are said to be such good linguists, this may be no
criterion," said Winston, hiding, as best he could, under the
commonplace remark, the agitation that he felt. He very soon made some
excuse to escape from his companion, and returned to his hotel. That day
he was at dinner more absent than usual; yet there was something in his
manner which Louisa liked, which gave her more hope than she had lately
entertained.

The next morning Winston called as usual at the Bloomfields. They had
ridden out; and he learned, on inquiry, that his seat in the carriage
had been occupied by this mysterious stranger. Where should he go? what
should he do? He now felt how complete a slave he had become--how
utterly dependent for all his happiness upon another. His happiness!
what but misery could he reap from this passion? And now to love was to
be added all the pangs of jealousy.

He entered the gardens opposite the Villa Reale. That "prince of
promenades," as some one has called it, extending as it does along a
quay unparalleled for the beauty of its position, with its thick dark
shelter of olives on the one side of you, and its light and graceful
avenue of acacias on the other, with its statues surrounded each by its
parterre of flowers or niched in its green recess, with the fountain
bubbling from the ground at its feet--all had ceased to please. At one
part the promenade projects into a small semicircle, fitted up with
marble seats, which commands an uninterrupted view of the bay and of
Vesuvius. It is difficult to recognise our old boisterous friend, the
sea, such as we know him in our northern latitudes, in the dancing blue
waters which, stirred by the lightest breeze, are here flinging the
whitest foam over the polished black rocks or stones that line these
coasts, and still more, in the glassy azure which extends, like a lake,
in the distance: it is a scene to induce the most perfect repose. But
Winston found no repose in it, and its beauty awoke not a single emoti