menacing, so he wisely retreated to his Hall. Arrived at "The Swan," I demanded pen, ink, and paper, and wrote to my friend in town to come to me for the purpose of performing the office of second, after which I endeavoured to kill time in this lonely village till dinner. Feeling hungry, I made a sumptuous repast and turned into bed with feelings full of revenge towards the Baron. "No more Phantom Fleas to-night," I said to myself as I tucked myself up in my comfortable little bed at "The Swan," and soon fell into a sound sleep. And now, said the lawyer, when he had got thus far in his narrative, I must root up an old and very painful subject that occurred in my early life, and which I would fain have allowed to rest for ever. In my earlier days, when as yet I had no fixed profession, during my travels in Italy, I became enamoured of a beautiful Italian girl. Poor Mariangela! how she loved me! That girl possessed the soul of an angel. I see her before me now, with her sweet, dreamy, saintlike eyes, and her quiet graceful step. We were never married, for I was not in a position then to support a wife. She vowed that she would never love anyone else but me. We parted, and--and--she died; died through love of me. (Here the lawyer became visibly affected and hastily brushed away a tear-drop with his hand. Mastering himself at length, he resumed.) On her death-bed she sent for me. I arrived just in time to catch her parting breath. When I stooped down to kiss her she hung a small relic of some saint that had been blessed by the Pope, suspended with a piece of ribbon, round my neck, and begged me to wear it for her sake, and said that it would preserve me from all harm. Poor girl! she died in my arms; I followed her to the grave and was for a long time inconsolable. But time, that changes everything, changed me. A tender recollection of her past love only remained; the wild tumultuous passion I had felt for her while living, and the overwhelming grief I experienced at her death, had subsided. For two years I wore the relic she gave me round my neck. Not because I believed in its virtue, not being a Roman Catholic myself, but for her sake alone. In remembrance of _her_. Afterwards, however, I