so unaccountably on the night of the
Chevalier's performance! There were my initials engraved on the back,
amid a forest of flourishes, and there on the dial was that identical
little Cupid with the cornucopia of flowers, which I once thought such a
miracle of workmanship! Alas! what a mighty march old Time had stolen
upon me, while that little watch was standing still!

"Oh, Heaven!--oh, husband!"

Startled from my reverie more by the tone than the words, I turned and
saw Hortense with a packet of papers in her hand--old, yellow, dusty
papers, tied together with a piece of black ribbon.

"I found them there--there--there!" she faltered, pointing to a drawer
in the table which I now saw for the first time. "I chanced to press
that little knob, and the drawer flew out. Oh, my dear father!--see,
Basil, here are his patents of nobility--here is the certificate of my
birth--here are the title-deeds of the manor of Sainte Aulaire! This
alone was wanted to complete our happiness!"

"We will keep the table, Hortense, all our lives!" I explained, when the
first agitation was past.

"As sacredly," replied she, "as it kept this precious secret!"

* * * * *

My task is done. Here on my desk lies the piled-up manuscript which has
been my companion through so many pleasant hours. Those hours are over
now. I may lay down my pen, and put aside the whispering vine-leaves
from my casement, and lean out into the sweet Italian afternoon, as idly
as though I wore to the climate and the manner born.

The world to-day is only half awake. The little white town, crouched
down by the "beached margent" of the bay, winks with its glittering
windows and dozes in the sunshine. The very cicalas are silent. The
fishermen's barques, with their wing-like sails all folded to rest, rock
lazily at anchor, like sea-birds asleep. The cork-trees nod languidly to
each other; and not even yonder far-away marble peaks are more
motionless than that cloud which hangs like a white banner in the sky.
Hush! I can almost believe that I hear the drowsy washing of the tide
against the ruined tower on the beach.

And this is the bay of Spezzia--the lovely, treacherous bay of Spezzia,
where our English Shelley lost his gentle life! How blue those cruel
waters are to-day! Bluer, by Heaven! than the sky, with scarce a ripple
setting to the shore.

We are very happy in our remote Italian home. It stands high upon a
hill-side, and