Giovanni, gravely, "provided only there is no offence to Donna Tullia."

"None whatever. The reasons are purely political. Madame Mayer-or Donna Tullia, since you prefer to call her so is the centre of a sort of club of so-called Liberals, of whom the most active and the most foolish member is a certain Ugo del Ferice, a fellow who calls himself a count, but whose grandfather was a coachman in the Vatican under Leo XII. He will get himself into trouble some day. He is always in attendance upon Donna Tullia, and probably led her into this band of foolish young people for objects of his own. It is a very silly society; I daresay you have heard some of their talk?”

"Very little," replied Giovanni; "I do not trouble myself about politics. I did not even know that there was such a club as your Eminence speaks of."

Cardinal Antonelli glanced sharply at his companion as he proceeded.

"They affect solidarity and secrecy, these young people," he said, with a sneer, "and their solidarity betrays their secrecy, because it is unfortunately true in our dear Rome that wherever two or three are gathered together they are engaged in some mischief. But they may gather in peace at the studio of Monsieur Gouache, or anywhere else they please, for all I care. Gouache is a clever fellow he is to paint my portrait? Do you know him? But, to return to my sheep in wolves' clothing-my amusing little conspirators. They can do no harm, for they know not even what they say, and their words are not followed by any kind of action whatsoever. But the principle of the thing is bad, Giovanni. Your brave old ancestors used to

fight us Churchmen outright, and unless the Lord is espesially merciful, their souls are in an evil case, for the devil knoweth his own, and is a particularly bad paymaster. But they fought outright, like gentlemen; whereas these people-foderunt foveam_ut caparent me-they have digged a ditch, but they will certainly not catch me, nor any one else. Their conciliabules meet daily and talk great nonsense and do nothing; which does not prove their principles to be good, while it demonstrates their intellect to be contemptible. No offence to the Signor Conte del Ferice, but I think ignorance has marked his little party for its own, and inanity waits on all his councils. If they believe in half the absurdities they utter, why do they not pack up their goods and chattels and cross the frontier? If they meant anything, they would do something."

"Evidently," replied Giovanni, half amused at his Eminence's tirade.

"Evidently. Therefore they mean nothing. Therefore our good friend Donna Tullia is dabbling in the emptiness of political dilettanteism for the satisfaction of a hollow vanity; no offence to her-it is the manner of her kind."

Giovanni was silent.

"Believe me, prince," said the Cardinal, suddenly changing his tone and speaking very seriously, "there is something better for strong men like you and me to do, in these times, than to dabble in conspiracy and to toss off glasses of champagne to Italian unity and Victor Emanuel. The con. dition of Our lives is battle, and battle against terrible odds. Neither you nor I would be content to waste our strength in fighting shadows, in waging war on

petty troubles of our own raising, knowing all the while that the powers of evil are marshalled in a deadly array against the powers of good. Sed non prævalebunt !"

The Cardinal's thin face assumed a strange look of determination, and his delicate fingers grasped Giovanni's arm with a force that startled him.

"You speak bravely," answered the young man. "You are more sanguine than we men of the world. You believe that disaster impossible which to me seems growing daily more imminent."

Cardinal Antonelli turned his gleaming black eyes full on his companion.

If

"O generatio incredula! you have not faith, you have not courage, and if you have not courage you will waste your life in the pursuit of emptiness! It is for men like you, for men of ancient race, of broad acres, of iron body and healthy mind, to put your hand to the good work and help us who have struggled for many years and whose strength is already failing. Every action of your life, every thought of your waking hours, should be for the good end, lest we all perish together and expiate our lukewarm indifference. Timidi nunquam statuarunt trophæum-if we would divide the spoil we must gird on the sword and use it boldly; we must not allow the possibility of failure; we must be vigilant; we must be united as one man. You tell me that you men of the world already regard a disaster as imminent to expect defeat is nine-tenths of a defeat itself. Ah, if we could count upon such men as you to the very death, our case would be far from desperate."

"For the matter of that, your Eminence can count upon us well enough," replied Giovanni, quietly.

"Upon you, Giovanni-yes, for you are a brave gentleman. But upon your friends, even upon your class-no. Can I count upon the Valdarno, even? You know as well as I that they are in sympathy with the Liberals that they have neither the courage to support us nor the audacity to renounce us; and, what is worse, they represent a large class, of whom, I regret to say, Donna Tullia Mayer is one of the most prominent members. With her wealth, her youth, her effervescent spirits, and her early widowhood, she leads men after her; they talk, they chatter, they set up an opinion and gloat over it, while they lack the spirit to support it. They are all alike-non tantum ovum ovo simile-one egg is not more like another than they are. Non tali auxilio-we want no such help. We ask for bread, not for stones; we want men, not emptyheaded dandies. We have both at present; but if the Emperor fails us, we shall have too many dandies and too few men-too few men like you, Don Giovanni. Instead of armed battallions we shall have polite societies for mutual assurance against political risks,-instead of the support of the greatest military power in Europe, we shall have to rely on a parcel of young gentlemen whose opinions are guided by Donna Tullia Mayer."

Giovanna laughed and glanced at his Eminence, who chose to refer all the imminent disasters of the State to the lady whom he did not wish to see married to his companion.

"Is her influence really so great?" asked Sarracinesca, incredulously.

"She is agreeable, she is pretty, she is rich-her influence is a type of the whole influence which is abroad in Rome—a reflection of the life of Paris. There, at least,

the women play a real part-very often a great one: here, when they have got command of a drawingroom full of fops, they do not know where to lead them; they change their minds twenty times a day; they have an access of religious enthusiasm in Advent, followed by an attack of Liberal fever in Carnival, and their season is brought to a fitting termination by the prostration which overtakes them in Lent. By that time all their principles are upset, and they go to Paris for the month of May-pour se retremper dans les idees idealistes, as they express it. Do you think one could construct a party ont of such elements, especially when you reflect that this mass of uncertainty is certain always to yield to the ultimate consideration of self-interest? Half of them keep an Italian flag with the Papal one, ready to thrust either out of their window as occasion may require. Good-night, Giovanni. I have talked enough, and all Rome will set upon you to find out what

secrets of State I have been confiding. You had better prepare an answer, for you can hardly inform Donna Tullia and her set that I have been calling them a parcel of-weak and ill-advised people. They might take offense-they might even call me by bad names,

fancy how very terribly that would afflict me! Good-night, Giovanni-my greetings to your father."

The Cardinal nodded, but did not offer his hand. He knew that Giovanna hated to kiss his ring, and he had too much tact to press the ceremonial etiquette upon any one whom he desired to influence. But he nodded graciously, and received his cloak from the gentleman who accompanied him and who had waited at a respectful distance, the statesman passed out of the great doorway, where the double line of torch-bearers stood ready to accompany him down the grand staircase to his carriage, in accordance with the custom of those days.

"WAS ever stream or valley so besung!" exclaimed Dr John Brown, when, coming down the southern slopes of Minchmuir, he beheld the famous Border river twinkling in the sun. Nor was the exclamation an unreasonable one, but rather just such a question as would naturally suggest itself to the ballad and Borderloving author of the Hora Subsecivæ'; for if ever the poet's consecration and the dream" shed its imperishable fascination on any particular locality, investing its landscape with that "light which never was on sea or land," surely Yarrow can claim pre-eminence in such a case. Not alone in modern times, but for centuries it has been a favourite shrine of the muses-a kind of Scottish Forest of Arden -where, on every hawthorn and every thistle, the poets, Orlando like, have hung their odes and elegies.

When Lockhart claimed for Yarrow the title of the most romantic of Scottish rivers, he was possibly thinking less of its indebtedness to modern poetry than to the lustre and distinction it inherits from the exquisite ballads with which its name will always be associated. No doubt every river of the Scottish Border is more or less suffused with this inherited after-glow, gilding with its heavenly alchemy every stream and valley of that legend-haunted land; for even in a country which can boast the names of Scott and Burns, the historical and romantic ballad-poetry of the Border still keeps its place, and remains now, as ever, the supreme and unapproached characteristic of Scottish literature.

Although the Tweed and the

Teviot, the Ettrick and the Yarrow, the Liddel and the Esk, each and all can lay claim to the reflected glory of the ballad period, amongst these the Yarrow must always be credited with a unique claim of its own. Not only by the abundance, but by the distinctive quality of its poetical associations, Yarrow has more right to be regarded as the veritable Hippocrene of the Border Helicon, than any other stream in the district.

The pagan belief that every river and every fountain had its own presiding deity, may now, we suppose, be considered an exploded superstition, and yet underneath the classic myth, lay a certain significance which our soi-disant civilisation has not been able altogether to dispense with; for although we no longer offer our oblations to Naiad or Dryad, nor propitiate their favour as of old with offerings of milk and honey and oil, it is almost as common to apostrophise a favourite stream among our own poets, as it was in the days of Virgil. These fair humanities of old religion have borne fruit in the spirit if not in the body: the ritual has disappeared, but the homage remains. Many instances of this river fascination occur over the whole field of English poetry, from Spencer's "silver streaming Thames," to Wordsworth's Duddon Sonnets. Burns evidently regarded running water as one of the most powerful awakeners of the poetic faculty:

"The Muse, nae poet ever fand her, Till by himsel' he learnt to wander, Adown some trotting burn's meander."

The peculiar power exercised by Yarrow on her votaries is very