Here's your supper; I'm going home, and shan't be here till tomorrow afternoon, so you'll have had time to think it over' before we meet again. Duncan will be thinking I've run away with you if he doesn't find me at home. Good night. You won't be wanting a night-light, will you?"

He put a few hard sea biscuits on a barrel, and a cup of water, and shutting the door after him, shot the heavy bolt into its hole in the rock, and went away. Norah was alone in this dreary cavern, which was now fast becoming quite dark, as evening drew on. Harry must have begun to wonder at her prolonged absence, and would perhaps pass below this very spot in his search for her. Would he hear her if she shouted? She tried, but her voice seemed choked and strangled by the solid sandy walls on all sides. And even should she succeed in letting him know where she was, if Michael found him there he would fling Harry down the rocks with ease, for he was an enormously powerful man. No, she would remain quiet, still refusing to take the oath required of her till she should find some means of escape. Then kneeling to offer her usual nightly prayers to God and to the Blessed Virgin for safety and protection, with more fervor than she had ever yet breathed them, she lay down with a calm, strong heart, and fell asleep. When she awoke on the following morning, it was some minutes before she could collect her scattered thoughts and recollect where she was, and all that had passed. It was quite impossible to tell what time it was, but it seemed to her from the light that the day was far advanced. She ate the frugal breakfast that Michael had left for her on the previous day, and then set to work to examine her prison, to see if there were any mode of escape. But she VOL. VII.-8

searched for some time in vain. The door was firmly fastened into the solid cliff, and other egress there was none. She dragged some boxes under the little slit that served her as a window, and piling one on the top of another, peeped out. But there was nothing to be seen except the blue sky, a passing cloud, or a gull flapping slowly by. She was too high even to distinguish the splash of the breakers beneath; and dismounting from her pedestal, she restored the boxes to their former place, fearful lest Michael should discover her anxiety to escape. As she did so, she broke an empty bottle that lay on the ground, and stooping to pick up the bits of broken glass, a sudden thought struck her. Might she scrape a hole through the door sufficiently large to allow her arm to pass through and draw back the bolt? Eagerly she tried, but the hard door laughed at her efforts, and the scraping sounded so hollow and loud, that she knew Michael must hear it long before she could be aware of his approach. With a sigh she threw away the glass, and sat down once more on her blanket to ruminate sadly on the peril into which her idle curiosity had brought her. By and by Michael's step sounded outside, and he opened the door.

66

"Well," he said, with the same taunting smile, are you pretty well tired of your own company? You've had time to think it over' now, I guess. What do you say?

Which is it to be?"

"I'll never be your wife, Michael White," replied Norah fiercely. "You may kill me, if you dare, but I'll be no wife of yours."

A scowl darkened the man's face as he listened to her answer, and for some minutes he stood there in silence.

"You've a fine spirit," he said coolly at last, "but I'll break it before I've done with you. I'll give

you a couple of days more of this, and see what you say then, and if you stick to what you say now, why, you know I'm not a man to break my word. Young Duncan came round to me last night, and I showed him all over my house to prove that you weren't there. I'm thinking I've thrown him off the scent for the present, so he won't be taking the jump from this cliff I promised him. I ain't going to starve you, so here's your dinner." He put some dried fish and seabiscuit on the barrel, and left her once more to her own thoughts. Norah's heart did not fail her yet. Much might happen in two days, and she ate her biscuit and fish cheerfully, and then began once more to search for means of escape. The door was hopeless, and she tried the sandy wall. With the aid of the bit of glass it crumbled, though not easily, and she thought that she might yet loosen that obstinate bolt that kept her from life and happiness. It made less noise than the door, but still she feared that Michael might hear, and resolved to wait until he left her in the evening. She knew he was there, for she heard him whistling softly to himself, and she sat down to wait patiently till evening came with a fresh ray of hope to cheer her. The hours dragged wearily on, and the tears would gather in her eyes as she pictured poor Harry's frantic grief at her disappearance. At length Michael opened the door, and throwing in a heap of biscuits, said gruff ly, "You must make those last you as you can, for I'm not coming here till the day after to-morrow, so you must make up your mind by that time, for I'm tired of this work."

He slammed the door, and bolted it, and strode away, evidently ruffled by something that had occurred.

Norah breathed more freely. She would be alone, then, for two nights and a day, free to work at the bolt, free, perhaps, to descend

as she had come, and once more return to Harry and happiness. Seizing her piece of glass, she set to work, scrape, scrape, scrape; pausing at times to listen, lest his declaration of intended absence might have been a ruse on the part of Michael to entrap her. But no; all was still, and patiently and vigorously she scraped the hard wall, slowly making her way to the socket of the bolt. At length, with arms and fingers aching, she lay down and went to sleep, knowing by the progress she had already made, that she would have time to finish her task before the return of her gaoler.

But it was harder work on the following day, for the grain of the stone grew closer, and the glass broke before it again and again. But patiently, steadily she worked on, pausing now and then to listen or to eat, though her arms and back ached with the unceasing exertions of hours. The streak of sunlight from her little window crept slowly across the wall, and then died out; the rosy glow of sunset faded into the gloom of night, but still she had not yet reached the bolt, and she knew not how early on the morrow Michael would arrive. It would be maddening indeed to be balked on the very eve of escape, and eagerly, frantically Norah worked away, as the darkness became deeper and deeper. Suddenly the glass broke short off in her hand. It was the last piece of the bottle which she had broken, and she groped about to find another. Then her hand came in contact with something on the ground. It was a box of lucifers. She struck one, found a bottle, and breaking the neck off, set to work once more. Now and then she struck one of her lucifers to see how she progressed, for she felt more and more convinced that if she did not escape before Michael's next return, all hope was gone. In the bright light of day she might be seen and brought back, even after

she had left the cave.

hour she worked on, till, with an ecstasy not to be described, she felt the glass scrape the rough iron bolt, and in a few seconds she had pushed it back with quick, eager fingers, and stood free! Her heart beat wildly as she crept through the long dark passage in which she found herself. It wound on and on, now up, now down, till at length she perceived a little glimmer of light before her, and knew she was approaching the outer cave. Hastily, yet cautiously, she hurried forward, till a sight met her eyes that nearly brought a scream of terror and dismay to her lips. In the very mouth of the cave by which she had entered, sat a man, in whose broad shoulders and bullet head she recognized Michael White. He was gazing out to sea, apparently watching for somebody, and evidently had not heard her steps. Poor Norah! her heart sank as she found herself thus thrust back at the very moment of escape. She leaned against the wall for a few moments in an agony of indecision. Should she rush forward and pass him before he had time to see her, or should she wait patiently in the hope of his falling asleep? Even her terror could not bring her to the first alternative, and she stood perfectly still, waiting to see what he might do. Presently he turned his head, and taking up a bottle by his side, drank a deep draught of its contents.

"The coward!" he muttered angrily to himself, "he's afraid of this bit of a moon.

He won't come, and I shall have to keep this girl here another night."

He settled himself against the side of the cave, and drank again and again from the bottle by his side. Norah watched him with renewed hope. He would soon feel the effects of the strong spirit, the odor of which filled the cavern, and fall asleep. She was right. His

What sudden consciousness was it that made the sleeping, halfdrunken man start up from his sleep just as Norah's head was disappearing beneath him? With a loud oath he sprang to his feet, and Norah, with a terrified wail, sprang wildly from point to point, clinging, scrambling, clutching in her eager haste, less fearful of the death below than of the wretch above, horribly conscious that he was following her with steps as rash and rapid as her own. She reached the bottom by the same huge boulder on which she had been sitting before she began her disastrous climb to the cavern; at that moment her eye fell on the fatal cliff, and as it did so a fearful scream reached her ears, a dark form dashed past her, and Michael White lay a crushed and quivering mass upon the rocks at her feet. With a scream of horror, she fled away from the dreadful spot, over the hard, smooth sands, towards the little village that lay wrapped in slumber. Her cries and knocks soon roused her uncle and aunt, who heard her strange tale with horror and surprise, and Harry was soon on the spot, holding his lost darling in his arms. The sun was just rising over the cliffs as the fishermen brought back the mangled body of their late comrade

to his home, there to await his burial in the quiet churchyard on the hill; but Harry was not with them, for he felt that he could not look with charity on the corpse of him who had sought to do him such a grievous wrong. There were few followers and no mourners at the funeral of the smuggler; but bright

smiles and hearty good, wishes were on every side when, a week after, Harry Duncan led Norah Grey to the altar, and many a grasp of the hand did each receive in token of the sympathy that all had felt for them in the troubles that had ruffled the course of their true love.

THE two points of attraction of my last Italian journey lay above on Vesuvius and below in subterranean Rome. In the Roman catacombs we had for our distinguished guide a prince of the Church, who devotes himself to their investigation. The great results of such studies are now known, and a more natural and correct picture of the first centuries of Christendom is produced than those obscure representations of deathlike paleness and the darkness of the grave. I wished on Vesuvius, ten times over, for a scientific guide. How many dark secrets lie petrified around it! Longingly I thought, amid the smoke and roaring of the volcano, of my honored teacher who enliven ed his sparkling geological lectures with a poetical intuition. Another new source of rich recollections I now found in Italy. But this lay neither above nor beneath the earth; the best part of it floated, as in Kaulbach's Battle of the Huns, in the air. It was the spirits of the old Goths, who, over the ruins of their royal city of Ravenna, over the half-buried tomb of Theodoric, over that wide, solitary pine forest by the solitary sea, go hither and thither in the air, mourning and sighing that they were slain so soon. Yet, always unsatisfied, they cannot quit the sight of that beautiful

land in which Gothic virtue was at least able to establish permanent forms of government.

Yet of Ravenna and the catacombs perhaps another time; now I would tell of our visit to Vesuvius.

We had actually given it up. The mountain was too uneasy. As soon as it was dusk in Naples, the red tuft of flame shone upon its heights, threatening and solemn. All night through one saw every couple of minutes the summit veiled in smoke and fire. In Pompeii every one said, it is exceedingly dangerous, impossible even to climb up to the crater. Travellers who had come down from the mountain had scarcely seen anything but the current of lava which had broken out at the cone of ashes. There did not seem to me to be sufficient to compensate us, that I should ask my lady companion to undergo the pain and fatigue which I was able to appreciate from a former ascent. We went therefore from Pompeii as far as Sorrento.

For those who do not wish to go to Sicily, there is no more beautiful resting-place on the Italian journey than Sorrento. Our entrance was favored. Before the gates of the city Signor Gargiulo met us,the proprietor of the Cocumella in which I had spent so many pleas

ant days five years before. The host recognized and greeted me immediately. The great flowerterrace with its rooms was vacant, the house not too full. A few minutes later we were surrounded by the refreshing shade, the fresh scent of flowers, and the deep, unchanging quiet which fill this house on the shore, distinguished among all the splendid spots on the earth. Ah, what heavenly days of repose were those again in Sorrento. Our terrace projected like an elevated hall, far out into the orange-garden, over whose green tops one looked into the blue sparkling sea. From the green woods around, from the screen of flowers on the terrace, rise inexhaustible perfumes; from the sea floats up eternal freshness. But the Gulf of Naples is grand enough to be pre-eminently sublime and beautiful. The shore opposite, with the green mountain behind, the strand beneath as if sown with pearls, the blue pointed heads of the islands swimming in the pure ether, all combines to form the most magnificent tableau, and all is as if drowned in splendor, and surrounded by eternal rest. One observes not how time passes, in looking and thinking. And this sea so sparkling and so lovely! When we sat below between the rocks, how beautiful were the green waves in their swelling and murmuring, and so clear and transparent, like mountain water, transparent even beneath their mirror to the mossy rocks, below, down to the gloomy depths out of which the white shells sparkled. The sun goes on its eternal course in the lofty firmament, the shadows grow longer; suddenly all the water swims in a red glow, and then a mist sinks down, and the rippling and whispering and plashing of the waves becomes louder, yes, it is evening; one has not observed the passing of the day in this cool rest and quiet, where no thoughts throw any shadows of

strife into the heart, and the soul is bright and clear to the bottom, as the wide, warm, blue ether around, and the illuminated depths of the sea.

Only a little disquietude ever again returned; it was Vesuvius even, which looked down so proud in its might, so challenging. As the ruler of the gulf it had already met us when we descended at Capua from the coach. How beautiful and magnificent he stretched upwards, clothed in the purest velvet blue like a prince's mantle, the white cloud of smoke like a crown on his head. When we rode down, two evenings later, from Camaldoli, and the sun was setting, the entire mountain seemed drowned in rosy light, just as if a mild inward glow had broken out on every side. And now he thundered sullenly through the silence of Sorrento, and now he threw up his sheaves of flame into the night. A giant of the gloomy primeval ages he projected into the gentle present, dark, mysterious, and hostile to man. The volcano occupied the mind even when one was not looking at it. On the fourth evening we made a sudden resolution, and a quick three-horse team brought us speedily the four hours' journey to Pompeii,-a lovely drive. in the night through blooming fragrant gardens, or down by the sea beneath lofty hills from which the white towns threw down their lights on the quiet mirror of the gulf.