from any the castle had yet received, rattled over the lowered drawbridge, followed by his squire and other retainers. His horse was caparisoned sumptuously, and his armour was that, only worn by knights of noble degree. It was the brave Sir Edgar de Chilling.

"Our Lady be good to us!" screamed one of the ancient servitors, trembling violently as he recognised the badge of the young knight. "Is it the apparition of your noble self, Sir Edgar, or did you not fall, as we heard, in the wars?"

own cheery laugh. How is the baron, You seem to be in the

"Fall in the wars!" echoed Sir Edgar, with his "If I fell in them, my good Stephen, I rose again. my noble brother? and-and the Lady Ellana? height of revelry here."

"All are well, good Sir Edgar. And for the sound of revelry that you hear, the festivities held in honour of our lord's marriage are not yet over.

"Ah, ah!" laughed the knight; "so my good brother has mated, has he! And pray with whom ?"

"With none other than the fairest flower in the land, the Lady Ellana," returned the servitor.

"Pooh, pooh, old man, you are growing deaf and childish," interrupted Sir Edgar, with his old impetuosity. "I asked," he continued, raising his voice, "with whom it is that my brother has wedded.”

"Gramercy, good Sir Knight, I heard your question," replied the servitor, deprecatingly. "My lord has wedded his cousin, the Lady Ellana de Chilling."

Sir Edgar stood speechless for an instant, and then strode on. The youthful Baroness of Chillingwater, lovely in her costly white robes and her flowing ringlets, was the centre of a knot of guests, when he entered. He threw back his helmet and advanced to her, his handsome features. white with agitation. She gave a shrill scream, and made as if she would have rushed away, but he held her with an iron grasp.

"My brave brother! my lost brother!" uttered the baron, advancing to embrace him. "Our Lady be praised for this! We mourned you

dead."

"Edgar de Chilling alive!" stammered the lady-mother. "Sir Edgar de Chilling! Sir Edgar de Chilling!" reiterated the guests; and nothing but rejoicing and confusion reigned around.

Sir Edgar raised his arm to command silence, and there was that in his rigid face which hushed the clamour instantaneously. "I have come home, as you see," he spoke, "alive and well. Of my deserts and my honours I can leave others to speak-they are widely known. And I have come home to claim my wife."

"If you mean the late Lady Ellana de Chilling," uttered the baronessmother, beside herself with passion, "you are too late, and your bold speech, Sir Edgar, becomes you not. My daughter is the Baroness of Chillingwater.'

"Your daughter, madam," he answered, calm with concentrated indignation, "is the Lady Ellana de Chilling, and my wife."

"Peace, peace, boy!" uttered the lady-mother, contemptuously; “your brain is hot with folly. Ere you went to the wars, you may have induced my child to exchange love-vows with you-inexperienced as she

was! But how dare you presume to insult the Baroness of Chilling water by calling her wIFE ?"

"And how dare you presume to deny my right ?" retorted Sir Edgar, his fiery indignation mastering him. "You are the first that ever doubted the word of a De Chilling. Your daughter, madam, became my wife in the sight of God, kneeling in His presence, at His holy altar; and my wife she is, so long as we both shall live. Stand forth, wretched woman, he continued, throwing the young baroness into the circle-"stand forth, guilty bride of two husbands, and own, before high Heaven, whose wife you really are!"

With a half scream, half moan of pain, the Lady Ellana, the instant she was released, darted from the hall. She might have been seen speeding along the terraces outside, like one possessed, her dark hair flowing behind her. Her face, in its shame, was never raised from its cowering position, and the dreadful words, that had made public her crime, rang in her ears, guilty wife of two husbands!" And they brothers! She could never more hold up that once proud face, never more hold it up again, on earth.

66

The commotion that ensued in-doors was terrific. A fierce quarrel took place between the baron and his brother; the lady-mother playing her part in it, and loading Sir Edgar with sundry opprobrious epithets. The guests espoused the cause, some on one side, some on the other, as it was common for guests in those fierce periods to do; and, altogether, it was a considerable time before the Lady Ellana was sought for. They searched in her own apartments, as Baroness of Chilling water; they searched in those formerly occupied by her; finally, they searched the castle from turret to basement; and they could not find her. But when they came to visit the grounds, and some looked in the Holy Well, there lay the ill-fated Lady Ellana, her drowned body contrasting horribly with her rich white garments and sparkling jewels, and her unhappy soul winging its shadowy flight to purgatory-so, at least, her confessor asserted.

And never, from that hour, was the spot again called the Holy Well -how can that be holy whose waters have been polluted? But, in time, it acquired the name of the "Lady's Well," and, as such, is it known unto the present day.

Wretchedness and ruin fell upon the Castle of Chilling water. A reconciliation was effected between the brothers, but the baron retired at once into the neighbouring monastery, devoting his young years to the ascetic duties of a monk; and Sir Edgar de Chilling returned to the holy wars, and lost his life in Palestine. The lady-mother, whose haughty pride nothing could subdue, remained in the castle, imperiously swaying there until her death. It was then left uninhabited, to go to rack and ruin, and during the civil war, in the time of the first Edward, it was razed to the ground.

Dec.-VOL. XCIX. NO. CCCXCVI.

2 G

WHILE you, good Mr. Editor, together with every native of "La perfide Albion," are warming yourselves over huge fires of smutty coal, or shivering in the cold, moist, foggy streets of London, where Phoebus rarely indulges you by even a glimpse of his cheerful countenance, and your vision is constantly circumscribed by the lamp-post on the opposite side of the way, little do you dream how we are enjoying ourselves in the lovely "City of Flowers"-where perennial summer reigns-sweet, poetic, middle-age Florence!

I must insist on telling you all we are about, in the amiable intention of making you utterly miserable and discontented in your boasted city of the modern Babylon, and by the time I have done giving you the last gossip from the Tuscan capital, if you have not a fit of envious spleen, it will not be my fault. London indeed! I wouldn't be there if you gave me a palace in Belgrave-square, unlimited credit at Howell and James's, and an opera-box to boot-not I. So here goes for the sunny south-"List, O list!"

This same 2nd of November is a glorious day; the sun streams out in all the power of July, and as one traverses the Lung 'Arno, beats down in such thumping rays, one trembles, and contemplates a coup de soleil. All around is bathed in the glorious, radiant light; the blue sky above, azure as a canopy of turquoise, unbroken by a single cloud. The antique, richly-tinted houses, bordering the river, stand out in the clear light with a distinctness, professionally speaking, only to be compared to stereotype the tile roofs, of that deep colour peculiar to southern climes, project over the white walls, and the bright green jalousies making the only perceptible shade on the huge façade of those huge palazzos once glorious feudal fortresses-each furnished with its lofty tower, but now, alas! mostly in this quarter converted into hotels or lodgings, with glaring boards stretching across, announcing them as being of "Les Isles Britanniques," or "Del Nuovo York.”

How I love this beautiful Lung 'Arno, quaint and confined as it seems, and yet so grand when viewed from a distance. The yellow-muddy Arno (which, after once seeing, one can never rave or be enthusiastical about again, spite of the shades of Dante, Cellini, and Milton, who all loved its banks) is now, nevertheless, a noble stream, as, swollen by the late rains, it rushes in huge waves through the bridges, threatening destruction to the graceful arches of the classical Ponte della Trinità. The Lung 'Arno would, if perfect, be the most beautiful promenade in the world; but, spite of all its suggestive charms, how can one like to gaze on the backs of the opposite houses, with all the hideous excrescences, mis-shapen windows, and deformed projections, thereto belonging? If each side corresponded, and the opposite bank were adorned with the same magnificent mansions, and furnished with a street and pavé similar to the one on which I am now standing, it would, I repeat,

be perfect. But it is far otherwise; and the finest part of Florence is consequently a failure, and only redeemed by the rich colouring and grotesque deformity of those very houses from being hideous. It is not one part alone, but everything is strangely unfinished in this city: the sturdy citizens were too occupied in domestic broils to carry out any of the majestic plans formed for its embellishment. The Duomo, that stupendous piece of mosaic, inlaid like a monstrous cabinet, has no façade; whitewash and mortar alone indicate the principal entrance, and meet the eye as it surveys the beautiful baptistery close by. Santa Croce -that venerable church where repose the ashes of Michael Angelo, Galileo, and Alfieri, and the noblest monument of modern times is reared to the memory of Dante-Santa Croce wants an entrance. San Lorenzo and the Medicean Chapel, with its marbles and rich stones, and great dome vieing with the cathedral, is in no part completed. The works of Michael Angelo that adorn its walls are in the same condition; mere sketches of what they were to be-all unfinished.

But we won't talk of the churches now, but turn towards that delicious old mediæval Ponte Vecchio, covered, like old London-bridge, with small shops, and surmounted by a long passage, tiled at the top, and pierced by windows, leading from the Uffigi, with its Medicean Venus and all its other fabled treasures, to the Pitti palace, the residence of the grand duke, boasting a rival collection almost as rich and rare-those Raphaels, those Murillos, those Titians!

Everybody who ever passed a day in Florence knows the Ponte Vecchio and its tempting jewellers' shops ranged on either side of the street— such places of sweet temptation! Bracelets fit for a princess-brooches worthy to clasp the girdle of a sultana-studs that might confine the transparent muslin on a Guiccioli's bosom! What a display there always is on that dear old Ponte Vecchio. They never seem to sell anything, or their stores are legion, for the treasures are like the widow's cruise-ever undiminished.

Crowds are leaning over the parapets, gazing at the swollen river, and speculating on all the mischief it will do, as it rolls by in turbid, angry waves, darkened by lines of tremendous currents at either side. Above, to the left, is the beautifully-situated church of San Miniato, crowning its graceful hill, enveloped like a flower amid large leaves by a grove of dark cypress-trees, whose tall stems rise towards the deep blue sky. A perfect emerald setting to the venerable old church of black and white marble is that cypress-grove and long avenue shooting up the hill-side to the great portico. Beyond are the blue hills, dotted with villas and casinos, a shade fainter in colour than their neighbour the sky, with which they blend in one sweet harmonious whole under the mellowing influence of the bright sunshine.

On the other side, at a little distance, the elegant bridge of the Trinità spans the river, which widens considerably below it, and stretching along in a graceful bend displays the deep woody shades of the Cascine, now just tinted with the ruddy hues of autumn, deepening the tints of the branches that overhang and dip into the yellow Arno.

Those Cascine so redolent of gossip, where every leaf might, if audible, tell some separate tale, and every branch of those old elms relate a per

fect compendium of scandal-where so many characters are lost and so few won-where beauty and not virtue-Venus rather than Diana-has long reigned, how beautiful they look as I lean over the bridge, gazing at their lengthening lines of forest scenery, with the light graceful suspension-bridge marking the entrance to this mysterious and fatal woodas dangerous as the gardens of Armida, and scarcely less beautiful. Bordered by the river, edged with deep shady avenues, impenetrable thickets, broad grassy spaces, and pretty central square, where the gay heart of Florence palpitates in audible pulsations-of faultless drags, unexceptionable dog-carts, gay equipages, dashing chasseurs, brilliant britschkas, gay cavaliers, elegant Amazons, forming an ensemble infinitely more sprightly, picturesque, and enchanting than our old jog-trot Hyde Park, where people drive round and round with all the solemnity and melancholy of criminals undergoing punishment on a treadmill.

Nothing interrupts the gay throng at the Cascine unless the grand duke and duchess make their appearance in an open carriage, which they do nearly every day when at the Pitti Palace. Then there is a pause and a hush, and people take off their hats and look askance at the sovereign, who is quite hated by his subjects since he has imported 1500 Austrian troops to keep himself firmly seated on the throne, and given up to them as a barrack the superb palace of Poggio Reale. Gavazzi's trial has done him no good in every one's opinion, for imprisoning the poor man until he was half dead, and then letting him go by way of an act of mercy when he had never done any harm at all. Poor Gavazzi! no one could ever forget his face of suffering as he appeared at the trial and pleaded his own cause with such consummate eloquence and tact. The late affair of Miss Cunninghame, who was arrested at the Baths of Lucca, has been thoroughly unpopular. She was denounced at the English church there, being pointed out by the contadina to whom she gave some Italian tracts while attending divine service. The very priests at the Baths cried shame; but she was taken off, ill and alone, to the prisons at Lucca, and confined in Rosa Madiai's cell! Spite of the illustrious Leopold, she is now free; and he may bite his nails in impotent rage at his failure in oppressing British subjects! To be sure, he is the most hideous man one ever beheld his face, the index of his mind, is overgrown with grey hair, something after the fashion of a white polar bear.

The Grand Duchess Antonina of Naples is a handsome, buxom, smiling dame, who looks as if she fed on the fat of the land, and enjoyed it; a striking contrast to her consort, the lugubrious Leopold, well benamed the Tuscan Morpheus. Their carriage is generally followed by one or two others filled with fat, chubby princes and princesses, and still fatter ladies in waiting. Indeed, the whole court, with the exception of the grand duke, are as jolly and convivial-looking a circle as can well be conceived.

As to remaining long on the Ponte Vecchio-" in meditating musing rapt"-the thing is impossible; such a crowd perpetually pushes and elbows one, to say nothing of being momentarily run over by the baroccios and their peasant drivers, who dash along regardless even of the Austrian officers who are lounging about the shops-which is being very bold indeed. Then there are the voitures de place, swarming with