s, yes," he said, a little testily; "unless--and I pray it may not be
so--unless you ever need the help of an old friend."

"Dear Signor Graziano!"

"And now you will sing me my 'Nobil Amore'?"

"I will do anything you like."

The signorino sighed and looked at her for a minute. Then he led her
into the little parlour, where Madame Petrucci was singing shrilly in
the twilight.

THE BRIGAND'S BRIDE: A TALE OF SOUTHERN ITALY, By Laurence Oliphant

The Italian peninsula during the years 1859, 1860, and 1861 offered a
particularly tempting field for adventure to ardent spirits in search
of excitement; and, attracted partly by my sympathy with the popular
movement, and partly by that simple desire, which gives so much zest to
the life of youth, of risking it on all possible occasions, I had taken
an active part, chiefly as an officious spectator, in all the principal
events of those stirring years. It was in the spring of 1862 that I
found matters beginning to settle down to a degree that threatened
monotony; and with the termination of the winter gaieties at Naples and
the close of the San Carlo, I seriously bethought me of accepting the
offer of a naval friend who was about to engage in blockade-running, and
offered to land me in the Confederate States, when a recrudescence of
activity on the part of the brigand bands in Calabria induced me to turn
my attention in that direction. The first question I had to consider
was, whether I should enjoy myself most by joining the brigands, or the
troops which were engaged in suppressing them. As the former aspired to
a political character, and called themselves patriotic bands fighting
for their church, their country, and their king,--the refugee monarch of
Naples,--one could espouse their cause without exactly laying one's self
open to the charge of being a bandit; but it was notorious in point of
fact that the bands cared for neither the pope nor the exiled king nor
their annexed country, but committed the most abominable atrocities
in the names of all the three, for the simple purpose of filling their
pockets. I foresaw not only extreme difficulty in being accepted as
a member of the fraternity, more especially as I had hitherto been
identified with the Garibaldians, but also the probability of finding
myself compromised by acts from which my conscience would revolt, and
for which my life would in all likelihood pay the forfeit. On the other
hand, I could think of n