up a candle, and, heedless of his brother's quick remonstrance, rushed into the room whence the noise proceeded. His entrance was followed by a crash, his candle was extinguished, and clouds of dust disgorged through the open door into the room where the younger brother remained. When this had a little subsided, Frederick Clifford, entering with some caution, found his brother standing in the midst of the rubbish, bewildered, but, excepting a bruise of little moment, unhurt. A heavy ceiling, covered with solid mortar, and a ponderous frame-work of wood attached in the center to support a painted plafond, had come down en masse. It was an escape next to a miracle, and the Englishman sent a rich offering the next day to the hospital of our Lady of the Elm, to whose protection, and his own piety, the good people of Cava piously attributed it. How far he shared an opinion which he so far encouraged may appear by the following brief conversation. It is a delicious afternoon, such as creeps cool and still over Italian mountains and in sight of blue Italian seas;-the brothers sit on their shady terrace, silent, a chess-board between them. In the manner of their play may be observed something of the difference in their characters. The elder hangs over the board with great attention for many minutes, and at last moves precipitately; the younger gives a glance at the situation of the pieces and plays, but with a judgment not easily criticised. "Check-mate!"-"Tis Frederick Clifford who speaks. "I see. Now there is no room for chance here; yet my imprudence ruins me! Had not I formed so hasty an attack-" "You would have beaten me, as another time you will," said the younger brother, looking up from the chess-board. But I must tell you; I have thought of a thing I will do. You are vexed at my staying at home on your account, and losing my bath and exercise. To-morrow morning then, you shall lie as long as you like ('twill assist very much the healing of your bruises) and I will ride down to Vietri before breakfast, and bathe. I can easily get back by nine, and in the afternoon you shall have your revenge. Is it good?" "All your plans are good." "As for the rest-your life being preserved in so great a danger proves that Providence watches over you.' Say rather, that I am so rash by nature, that if there be a danger near, I am sure to expose myself to it. People like me are always having hair-breadth escapes." "I admit that it is a lesson as well as a mercy," said the younger brother, beginning to replace the chess-men. CHAPTER II. THE eastern side of the rich and beautiful valley lay in the shadow of the mountains, though Monte Finestra, with his slopes of débris and the woods that skirt his base, gave back the rays of the sun, long since risen over the crest of the Apennines. The air was fresh then, so that the young Englishman, as his horse slowly descended the steep, winding mule-path, gathered closely round him a military cloak of the amplest dimensions, destined in his mind to serve another purpose, and reserved by fortune for another, yet different, which he did not at all anticipate. The figure of Frederick Clifford was by this means quite concealed, but his features, which of course were open to observation, may here be hinted at. They were of a regularity rare in either sex, and were indeed almost too regular for the expression of any thing but intellect, and that of the serenest type. The severe purity of these sculptured lineaments was sustained by a complexion of opaline uniformity, and united to the dark color and massive curl of his luxuriant locks, would have led a careless observer to mistake his country. He might have been turned of twenty-three; but you would hardly have guessed so much by his beard, which, if he possessed it, was not apparent unless in a faint purplish tone that darkened his short upper lip; his oval cheek was radiant as that of a statue, and his firm chin as polished. Yet some elements of human gentleness softened this classie majesty. When he turned to ask a question of the groom who followed him, his voice, though manly, was sweet, almost like that of extreme youth, and the glance of his rich hazel eye, though careless, was kindly. After a descent of some ten minutes, the path, reaching its lowest point, crossed a tremendous ravine by a stone bridge of a single arch, and then gradually ascended along the side of a hill covered with festooned vines, till it struck into the high road to Salerno, just below the Piazza di Cava. The ravine now spreads out into a deep cultured valley (the Cava, or hollow, from which the overhanging city derives its name) and the road is carried over it on a noble bridge which might vie with the finest Roman works. Beyond this, the broad highway, winding round the woody base of San Salvatore, penetrates a magnificent defile, and descends to the sea. The young man put his horse into a gallop, and in a quarter of an hour dismounted at the marina of Vietri. A crowd of boats were conveying bathers of both sexes to and from the bathing-places. The Englishman looked for one that he could appropriate, but all were partly engaged. The boatThey played another game, which Frederick man whom the brothers had employed, and took care to lose; and the next morning, agree- whom, for the afternoons, they had retained, ably to the plan he had formed not to abridge was putting off with a party of Italians. It was his brother's enjoyment of his society, he set off the Marchese Altino and two other gentlemen for Vietri on horseback at the early hour of six. from Cava, with the three daughters of the Vietri is a small white town which hangs on the Marchese, and their governess. The eldest mountain side, over the Salernian Gulf; and it Signorina Altino, a pretty brunette, touched her is not more than two miles from Cava. Imme- father's elbow. The latter looked round, perdiately below it is the narrow marina or beach. ceived Clifford, made the boatmen put back, and Here are fishers' houses; some hostelries, a prayed the Signor Don Federigo to join their market, boats and sometimes shipping. The party. inhabitants are numerous, lazy and picturesque. Clifford was not exactly shy, but neither did this proposal quite suit him. He was going, he | the young man leaped ashore. The men silently said, to a spot more distant than the Marchese, pushed her off again, and in a minute were out he was sure, would like; but if the latter would of sight. allow the boat to take him thither after putting ashore his own party, and the young ladies would permit it A general exclamation of "Sicurissimo!Padrone!" Clifford took a small parcel from the groom, and entered the boat. The northern shore of the bay of Salerno is a chain of beautiful promontories. It is a coast dear alike to history and fable, and nature may still claim it as invested by her with a poetry that desolation and ignorance can not destroy. On the southern shore-a flat unwholesome lea backed by mountains-the temples of Pæstum, lifting their yellow columns in an uninhabitable plain, attest the exquisite civilization of Magna Græcia. But it was under the green acclivities that crown the precipitous northern coast that the boat of the Marchese Altino now shot along. The rocky base on which they rest, the loose and earthy portions having been worn away by the waves, is every where indented with recesses of varying depth, floored with sand, walled with rock, and, from the steepness of the shore, not only inaccessible, but invisible except from the water. It is to these recesses, exposed all day to the sun, and whose sandy floors a tideless sea never wets, that the inhabitants of this part of Italy resort for bathing. Clifford began forwith to prepare for a bath which, at least in the ordinary way, he was not destined to enjoy. He spread his cloak in the sunniest hollow of the sand close to the rock. He untied the parcel he had taken from the groom, shook out the folds of an ample sheet of unbleached linen, fragrant with lavender, and spread it over the cloak. Clifford's dress was the negligent costume of an Italian summer, but which perhaps better than any other could have done, set off a figure that corresponded to the statuesque majesty of his ideal countenance. In his well-fashioned linen trowser and snowy tunic, he looked though somewhat modernized, the type of that form of blended grace and force, which antique Art ascribed to the irresistible lord of the bow and the lyre. It was at this stage of his toilet, and while he was in the act of removing from his neck a jeweled cross suspended there by a chain of gold, and which he kissed ere he laid it down, that a faint shriek mingled with the low dash of a wave over a sunken rock. Clifford left off undressing and looked over the water, with an air of curiosity rather than alarm. It seemed that he was too tranquil a person to be startled by any thing; but when, steadily gazing in the direction whence, as he was assured, the sound had come, he saw nothing, and the sound itself was not repeated, nor any thing that could be a sequel of it, an expression of anxiety succeeded even on that calm countenance; he dashed in, half-dressed as he was, and waded up to the waist. Manners differ like climes. 'Tis a trite remark. This bathing in the open sea and beneath the open sky, is not very agreeable, at the first blush, to northern notions of delicacy in the more reserved of the sexes; yet the Signorine Altino, who would have been scandalized cer- From the green crest of the promontory tainly by the demeanor that is quite a matter of whose outjutting formed this quiet cove, the course in English girls in society, got out of sheer and overhanging rock descended to the their father's boat with their governess when water in a smooth wall, and divided his natural they had reached the slightly-sheltered recess dressing-room from a similar nook not three which was to serve them for a dressing-room, yards distant from it. Clifford immediately perwith the most undisturbed self-possession. Clif- ceived signs of its being similarly occupied too; ford, who knew the customs of all countries, and but the bather, or the party, was absent. Behad reasoned on all with the calmness of phi-yond it, the shore abruptly retired, and a sharp losophy, thought not the worse of their modesty; although, had they been his countrywomen he might have doubted. The boat shot on some hundred yards, and the Marchese and his friends also went ashore in a convenient spot. They had already come further than the Cliffords had been wont, and were far withdrawn from the part of the coast frequented by bathers. Still Clifford resolved to go on; and declining with great courtesy a frank invitation on the part of his companions to join them, said that he was bound on a voyage of adventures. The goodnatured Italians laughed.-"God give you good success, Don Federigo," they said, while they wondered at the insular reserve which even the humanizing influence of the Catholic religion had not been able to overcome. Our hero (for surely this is our hero) passes on to a region by him at least not previously explored. The four stout oarsmen pulled well and together, for they counted on the foreigner's liberality. They put a good space between themselves and their recent companions; they rounded a point; they shot across a beautiful and very retired embrasure of the bay, and at a signal from Clifford, the oars rose upright, the boat swayed round till the stern grounded, and line of rock was defined against sea and sky. From that quarter came faintly, over the waves, the voices and laughter of women or children. He took in all this, and turned once more to look over the water-an object rose flashing to the surface. To dash forward, swim when he lost footing, plunge after the object when it disappeared, grasp a slight vestment, rise to the surface again with the unresisting form of its wearer, and bear it ashore-were the successive acts of as many moments. It was the body of a young female, attired in a long, sleeveless symar. Her long hair, which had not, it seemed, been restrained even in bathing, streamed from her head in wet tresses of apparently the softest auburn; a deadly pallor could not disguise the perfect loveliness of the face; the ivory arm was of faultless mold; and the wet, clinging drapery betrayed a symmetry which might have belonged rather to some nymph of the sea than any mortal maid. She did not breathe; her heart had ceased to beat; at least the artery at the wrist betrayed not the faintest pulsation to the delicate test of Clifford's fingers. When the flame of life burns so low, that it can not even be discerned by our coarse senses, a careless breath, a touch too much, is sufficient to extinguish it altogether. It must not be roughly fanned, but suffered to burn in a tranquil air. Clifford's conduct now was marked by absolute self-possession, and a singular confidence of knowledge. The dry, absorbent sand drank rapidly the moisture from the stranger's dress and floating hair. When he judged that this had proceeded far enough, he placed the passive form, still invested with the cold, wet robe, on the sort of couch he had prepared for his own repose after the bath, and wrapped the linen and cloak many times round her. The influence of the moderated application of a depressing agent, like cold and moisture, in recalling and stimulating that reaction, inappreciable to us, which is really taking place in every living body, though apparently devoid of life, was well known to Clifford. When this was accomplished, he rose and examined the rocks above him with great care. Here he soon discerned, as he expected, the purple flowers of the poisonous digitalis, but clinging to the face of the rock at such a height as made it perilous to attempt them. Nevertheless, by a little ingenuity he contrived to bring down one of the plants, and then from time to time so presented the flowers, that the unconscious stranger, if the feeblest sensibility or the lightest breath remained, might inhale or perceive ever so faintly their sickening and potent perfume. In fine, he took her exquisite hands, whiter and colder than snow, in his own, glowing and warm, despite his recent plunge, and her chilling contact. the language which he thought most likely to be hers. "You are as with a brother." "I am sure of it," faintly murmured the stranger, in the sweet words of the same language, in which it is so beautiful, sometimes, that the adjectives express the sex of the speaker. She seemed now quite mistress of herself. She closed her eyes, and breathed, almost inaudibly, some words of thanksgiving, in language taken from the English Psalter. "Have I been so happy as to save the life of a countrywoman?" said Clifford with emotion, and using his country's tongue. แ "English too?" said the beautiful unknown. Her dark eyes grew darker and softer every minute. "What shall I do for you more ?" said Clifford. "Shall I call your friends, if, as I suppose, it is their voices that I have heard not very distant ?" Oh, by no means," replied the young girl instantly, with alarm. "If I could manage so that they might not even find out what has happened!" She was still enveloped helplessly, and almost without the power of stirring, in his cloak. Clifford took her in his arms as if she had been an infant. He bore her through the shallow water to the neighboring recess, where he had observed marks of occupation, and which he rightly conjectured to have been occupied by her. It was a sunny, sheltered nook. A huge white umbrella, with a long handle, such as artists use in sketching, to keep off the sun, was Nor were these efforts unsuccessful. There spread out toward the water, evidently to prowas, at length, a pulsation; then he became tect the young bather from observation in the sensible that she breathed; the lips reddened; inevitable toilet. Articles of feminine attire of there was a soft sigh. Clifford watched her an exquisite neatness, were disposed on a flat countenance with a sort of radiant attention; rock that served as a dressing-table. Here was and as he bent over her, himself so ideally beau- also a box of colors, with a half-finished drawing tiful, so powerful, and so tranquil in his knowl-resting against the open lid. An artist's stool, edge, you might, without any very violent effort of imagination, have thought of the angel that bent under the Shaping Hand, while the yet unanimated ancestress of all living lay, motionless as marble, and whiter than snow, on some violet bank of Paradise; so softly, too, shone forth that same tenderest aspect of the Arche- "I don't need any, thank you!" She glanced typal Nature in this unconscious maid, on whom round with a sort of frightened desperation, and the tide of animation was now returning from looked extremely as if she were going to swoon. its recent and alarming ebb with such visible"What time is it?" she asked, quickly; "my rapidity. watch is on the shawl." A pair of large and soft dark eyes had opened, as the stars first appear in the sky, ere he was aware. The lady scanned the noble visage of her preserver as in a dream. She could hardly be conscious, at the moment, of any thing but the vague fact that her life had been saved from a peril that she scarcely yet recalled, by a being who looked fit to be one of her guardian angels. Whether any thought of this kind was in her mind, or if, through the bright haze of partial consciousness, she believed him to be really a denizen of some more perfect world, can not be said; but, at all events, her glance was very expressive of tender and admiring trust. Neither can we give here a clear account of what was passing in Clifford's mind; but that which he did was to bend down, and gently kiss the still pale cheek of the fair young creature he had saved. "Fear nothing, dear Signorina,” he said, in with a seat of embroidery, stood against the rock, and on this Clifford now seated his trembling burthen. "Are you quite fit to dress yourself?" said Clifford, tenderly. "You are so very young that you might accept my assistance." It was one of the most diminutive watches that ever were seen, and had a Venetian chain. By it lay (nothing escaped Clifford) an ivory comb, the back of which was carved in a delicate bas-relief of the hours, with a minute legend. "Twenty minutes to eight." "Oh, I shall have time!" Her color came back again. "They are not to come till eight. They will suppose that I am drawing." "I shall stay within hearing of your faintest call," said Clifford, as he withdrew. Clifford leaned against the rock, with folded arms, and looked abstractedly over the blue gulf spread before him, and at its purple boundary of mountains, while this youthful and innocent toilet was made. "I am quite ready now, if you please,” said at last a tremulous, sweet voice. She appeared, now that she was in her ordi It was a man between thirty-five and forty, with a countenance indicative of intelligence and positiveness. He spoke in a clear, manly voice, with a slight Irish accent. "Not one minute, I assure you, my dear Dr. Macpherson," replied Lady Alice, advancing somewhat unsteadily. She managed, however, to gain a broad stone against which the boat rested, and to catch the proffered hand. "I was afraid we had," continued the gentleman, as he handed her in. "For Mrs. Macpherson tells me you disappeared after the first ten minutes this morning. But I suppose, as you had your sketch to finish, you have been able to amuse yourself." 66 'Really I have not touched my sketch this morning," said Lady Alice. "I am afraid then you have disobeyed my injunctions," said the doctor, smiling and shaking his head. "I must tell you, for the hundredth time, that cold bathing-especially sea-bathing is a powerful sedative, and can not be prolonged beyond a certain point without injuriously depressing the vital energies. It is true that at present you have a great deal of color, as I see Mrs. Macpherson and Helen are going to remark, but that may be febrile reaction. There were two children in the boat, with fair round English faces, fresh from the recent bath. There was also a lady's maid who went ashore to fetch "her ladyship's things." This important affair accomplished, the barge put off again in the same direction from which it had approached. Four savage Amalfitani, with brawny arms and legs, handled the oars. แ Pray, Lady Alice," continued Dr. Macpher son, "did you hear or see any thing of a boat after quitting the water this morning? Mrs. Macpherson and Helen say they heard oars which first approached, and then retired toward Vietri." "We couldn't see any thing," observed Helen, "but thought you might, and that perhaps you would be disturbed." "No boat from Vietri ever comes so far as this," said the doctor. "It must have been the oars of this barge that you heard." "How absurd!" said his wife; "as if we could have heard them so plainly." "Over the water, sounds are very deceptive." "Mrs. Macpherson's ears did not deceive her in this instance," said Lady Alice, quietly, "as I saw a boat come in and then retire." "I was sure of it," said the lady, triumph antly. "Were not you frightened ?" said Helen. "Yes, I was," said Alice. "I thought, as Dr. Macpherson says, that no boats ever came here." "Nor do they," said the doctor. ""Tis an exception that proves the rule; and, as you mentioned, as soon as they saw you, they retired immediately." "I beg pardon," said Lady Alice, "but that is not exactly what I said." "No," replied the doctor, "but that is the way it happened, you may rely on it. I don't like the people here; but I must do them the justice to say, that they are very scrupulous in respecting any spot of the coast that they see to be occupied by ladies or females of any rank." Here Lady Alice, whether from the too sedative influence of her bath, or from the febrile re-action, of which the learned doctor had spoken, being carried too far, suddenly fainted. This created an extreme sensation; but while her friends are busy in trying to recover her, we shall leave her to their kind and skillful care, and explain how this affair came to happen at all in the way it did. Lady Alice (and who Lady Alice was, shall be stated in a proper place) was generally accompanied on these occasions by her maid-a French maid of course-a young girl of about her own age. But this morning, as it happened, Mademoiselle Clairvoix had been dispatched to Naples, with her mistress's keys and orders to cause a certain carriage to be unpacked and every case it contained ransacked, if necessary, for a particular article which the young lady fancied she indispensably required. Thus, and because Lady Alice absolutely, perhaps willfully, refused any other attendant, it happened that (the proximity of Mrs. Macpherson and Helen excepted) she was alone. This mistress and maid had been wont to consider the whole of the quiet cove into which Clifford that morning intruded, as effectually cut off from the open bay, and practically as safe from intrusion as if it had been walled in. Lady Alice had made sketches from every point of it; she had exulted in the feat of swimming across its calm and sheltered waters, nearly embraced by the curvature of the rocky shore; and at the moment when the intrusive boat broke its silence by the dashing oars and prow, she was actually reposing after such an exertion on a rock lying just within the point which formed its opposite limit. Her consternation was extreme to behold a young man, as in the Arabian Tales, leap out and take possession of a spot so near her own dressing-place, and cutting off her retreat to it. Alice, and confined himself to the slighter indication afforded by Dr. Macpherson's agreeable Celtic intonation, which had not escaped his quick ear when that gentleman was giving orders to his boatmen. He ascertained in a few days that an Irish physician, a resident of Naples the summer on the coast with his family; and Augustus could inform him, that in the latter was included a young lady, his sister-in-law-a Miss Stewart. But Dr. Macpherson had then gone off on a boating excursion round the peninsula, to be absent a week; and it was at the earliest possible date after his return that the brothers were now making their first call. It was in the rash attempt to regain it ere the invader could be ready to enter the water-an-his brother's physician in fact was spending attempt that her modesty rendered imperative— that her strength failed, or the terror of not succeeding paralyzed her. Though conscious that she was sinking, it may be doubted whether she would have claimed his aid by that faint shriek, had she not in the moment of her agonized helplessness observed him devoutly kiss the jeweled reliquary which he took from his bosom. This mark of piety inspired her with an instinctive confidence, the grounds of which she had no time to canvass. She called faintly for help, and swooning, as persons generally do when they drown, sank. CHAPTER IV. DR. MACPHERSON's villa stood on the highest point of the green promontory, at the foot of which had taken place the scenes described in the second and third chapters of this book. In front, and far beneath, rolled the bay; in the rear, two finely-wooded valleys ran up into the bosom of the peninsula, offering here and there patches of culture-a platform of maize, or a vine-clad slope. Wild eagles soared round the inaccessible heights that closed in and overhung this sylvan background. A fortnight had elapsed, and the two Cliffords were now, in the cool of the afternoon, approaching the house, after a ride of an hour and a half over the hills. Its external appearance was rude. The brothers entered a dilapidated court, overlooked by few windows, and of which the prison-like walls were encrusted with a cement as hard as stone. They were then ushered up a naked staircase of the same material. Only when they entered the apartments actually tenanted by the family, did they begin to see traces of comfort and even of a certain extempore elegance. "A cheerful room!" said Augustus, as they were left by the servant in the saloon. A divan of striped calico, blue and white, ran round the apartment, which was floored with a brilliant tile of white and pink. In the center was a table on which lay some richly-bound volumes, and an open portfolio of drawings. Clifford took up one of the volumes, and turned to the leaf where the name of the owner is usually to be found;-it was inscribed, "To Helen-from Alice Stuart." Augustus, who was a great connoisseur, had seized upon the portfolio, and now invited his brother to look at some of the drawings, which he assured him were uncommonly fine. 66 They are hers," thought Frederick. "The work of a professional artist, doubtless," said Augustus. "That is possible, too," thought Frederick. Frederick Clifford was not a man to be long baffled in a pursuit that interested him, although from motives of delicacy he refrained from using the clew he possessed in the name and beauty of Mrs. Macpherson presently appeared in the drawing-room, to deplore her husband's temporary absence, to promise his speedy return, and in the meantime to welcome both brothers in his name with a degree of over-earnest (what might be called fussy) cordiality. Frederick said, that the disparity between members of the same family was often immense. But when Helen Stewart came in, and was introduced by her sister, he quite lost his very remarkable selfpossession; stared, absolutely reddened, and replied stammeringly and mal-à-propos to the queries with which Mrs. Macpherson courteously plied him. Our friend had indeed rather hastily identified his Vietri heroine as the sister of Mrs. Macpherson. It was however certain, as he now reflected, recovering from his first discomfiture, that she was a friend of the family, if not a relative. A third sister? Hardly possible. He remembered the books and drawings. "Some one is very fond of sketching, by what I see here," he observed as soon as Mrs. Maepherson gave him an opportunity. "Yes, I sketch a little, and Helen a great deal. Most of those are hers. You draw, Mr. Clifford ?" "Not too well. But pray who did this ?" And he took up one of those which Augustus had so much admired. "Oh, Lady Alice Stuart did that. She is quite an artist. She made several sketches for Helen and me." "What-Lady Alice Stuart is that ?" asked Frederick, careful not to take his eyes off the drawing. "The daughter of the Duke of Lennox, you know," said the lady. "She came here with us for the sea-bathing, which, perhaps you are aware, is singularly fine. Dr. Macpherson attended Lady Edith in Naples. They pretend to say that we are somehow related, which is very good of them, you know. All Stewarts are one stock originally, I believe; but this is through Cluny.' "Scottish consanguinity is a proverb," said Clifford. "It is late for them to be in Naples," he added, with a nonchalant air. "Are they there still ?" "Not in Naples since the first of June," said the lady, "but at Ischia. Dr. Macpherson sent Lady Edith there for the waters. The duchess went with her; and Lady Alice, who could not well be taken to Ischia, came to us. She was with us a month, quite domesticated. But you asked if they were still in Naples, that is, in the neighborhood. They are not. They sailed for |