y be an Englishman, your Highness: and remember that we
have already a troublesome affair on our hands with that other youth,
who in some way claims Upton's protection. Had we not better go more
cautiously to work? I can see and speak with him."

"What a tyranny is this English interference! There is not a land,
from Sweden to Sicily, where, on some assumed ground of humanity, your
Government have not dared to impose their opinions! You presume to
assert that all men must feel precisely like your dogged and hard-headed
countrymen, and that what are deemed grievances in your land should be
thought so elsewhere. You write up a code for the whole world, built
out of the materials of all your national prejudices, your insular
conceit,--ay, and out of the very exigencies of your bad climate; and
then you say to us, blessed in the enjoyment of light hearts and God's
sunshine, that we must think and feel as you do! I am not astonished
that my nobles are discontented with the share you possess of my
confidence; they must long have seen how little suited the maxims of
your national policy are to the habits of a happier population!"

"The people are far better than their nobles,--that I 'm sure of," said
Stubber, stoutly.

"You want to preach socialism to me, and hope to convert me to that
splendid doctrine of communism we hear so much of. You are a dangerous
fellow,--a very dangerous fellow. It was precisely men of your stamp
sapped the monarchy in France, and with it all monarchy in Europe."

"If your Highness intends Proserpine to run at Bologna, she ought to be
put in training at once," said Stubber, gravely; "and we might send up
some of the weeds at the same time, and sell them off."

"Well thought of, Stubber; and there was something else in my
head,--what was it?"

"The suppression of the San Lorenzo convent, perhaps; it is all
completed, and only waits your Highness to sign the deed."

"What sum does it give us, Stubber, eh?"

"About one hundred and eighty thousand scudi, sir, of which some twenty
thousand go to the National Mortgage Fund."

"Not one crown of it,--not a single bajocco, as I am a Christian knight
and a true gentleman. I need it all, if it were twice as much. If we
incur the anger of the Pope and the Sacred College,--if we risk the
thunders of the Vatican,--let us have the worldly consolation of a full
purse."

"I advised the measure on wiser grounds, sir. It was not fair and just
that a set of