The Palmerinis-a family now extinct -had flourished at Bologna, at the beginning of last century, as a wealthy and illustrious line. The ruins of one of their castles are still shown in the neighborhood, as well as those of another castle, where the drama is said to have taken place.

One Concitta Palmerini had been sought in marriage by a rich and powerful suitor whom she hated. Incensed by her repeat ed refusals, he had carried her off by force and thrown her into the dungeon keep of his castle, threatening to starve her to. death if she did not consent to his wishes. Here, looking out of the prison window one day, she was seen by a young German painter travelling about the country in search of studies, and who, struck by her melancholy beauty, had paused outside the moat to make a sketch of her. Then the two young people had fallen in love, and the painter resolved to deliver his sweetheart. With infinite toil and pain he at last succeeded in penetrating into the dungeon, but, alas! he came too late. When he entered her cell he found but a corpse. Concitta had died of grief and privation.

"Is it not sad?'' said Felice when she had finished speaking, looking up at me with her large soft eyes. But I dare say it is not true after all. Some people say that no such German painter ever existed, and that this particular Concitta Palmerini died of the pest in 1720."

I made no answer in words, for I felt that this was no mere legend; but I drew my wife closer to me, conscious only of a deep sense of gratitude to Providence that I, at least, had not come too late to save this Concitta from a similar fate.

We had been married for more than a year, and I already had held my first-born son in my arms, before I revisited Tannenhorst, when, having received the intelligence that old Konrad had succumbed to an acute attack of pleurisy, it became necessary to appoint a successor.

I went there alone, for Felice was not yet able to travel, and I would have dreaded exposing her to the cold and discomfort of a journey in November.

Just before starting for Tannenhorst I happened to remember the turret key, which had been lying undisturbed all this time in the drawer where I had placed it on receiving it back from Konrad before I started on my travels.

At Tannenhorst I found everything buried in ice and snow just as I had left it, for winter there sets in much earlier than in the south of Pomerania. The country for miles around presented but a desolate surface of unbroken white, while the outlines of the stunted pines in the approach were almost unrecognizable from the heavy burden of icicles which bowed them down.

My first action on finding myself alone that evening was to fit the key I had brought with me into the lock of the turret door. It opened with difficulty because of the dust which had gathered in all these months, but at last I succeeded in forcing it open, and what was then my surprise to see hanging there, at the original place above the old secrétaire, the picture of Concitta P—— which had disappeared so unaccountably two years previously!

Postscript.

Since writing the above, a sceptical friend of mine who has been reading the

I HAD been spending one of the most delightful and exciting afternoons I ever remember. Fond as I am of pictures, and unwilling to miss visiting any of the annual exhibitions, yet I find a gallery a most try ing place. My frame is generally bowed with fatigue, my legs ache wofully long before my eyes are satisfied with the feast. Apart from the physical strain of standing about for hours, there is something in the motionless, warm air of most picture shows that takes it out of you; then it is cold outside-you carry in with you a thick overcoat that soon weighs like lead, there is nowhere to deposit it, you must carry it about till you are halfcooked; and in addition to all this, there is the too plentiful presence of your fellow-creatures. A knot of people have gathered just in front of a small picture you are especially anxious to examine: they have got into interminable conversation about the parochial affairs of Sludgebury, or the County Council of Potatoshire; they could carry it on just as well anywhere else, but there they stand bulky, vociferous, abominably good tempered the conference seems likely to last half the afternoon. You pass on in despair, and presently become absorbed in. contemplation of another work, till you are reminded by an aura of impatience behind you that you are yourself obstructing the view of others equally anxious, perhaps, to get a fair view of the piece. All this and a thousand other little inconveniences combine to make your recieation a test of physical endurance.

But here-to-day-in the New Gallery, among the enchanting objects which compose the Guelph Exhibition, all had been different. In the first place, it had so happened that there were comparatively few visitors; and these had seemed as much attracted by the miniatures, letters, jewelry, etc., shown in cases in the centres of the rooms, as in the pictures on the walls. But in the next place, there was the peculiar nature of the exhibition itself. Viewed merely as a collection of pictures, it must be frankly owned that the standard is not high. "Pot-boilers" abound-too few of them that would bear

comparison with the noble pot-boilers of Franz Hals, now on exhibition in Burlington House, in which every stroke of the brush tells of the confident freedom and knowledge which came as the fruits of thorough training and hard work; too many of them betraying conventional treatment, faulty materials, or hurried execution, as if the painter had been impatient to get to the coffee-house.

Yet it would be difficult to find a more satisfying expanse of color than that presented on the wall on the visitor's right hand as he enters the North Gallery. A few marble busts at long intervals are relieved on a background of mellowed canvas, and the eye is not cloyed with the profusion of new gilding that detracts so painfully from the charm of an exhibition of modern pictures. The feeling of gold is there, but the metal is tarnished, and worn to a low harmony.

But it is for the mind rather than the senses that this treat has been prepared ; here Mnemosyne, the muse of Memory, presides. Of all the centuries of English history, none lays hold more powerfully on the imagination than the eighteenth. It is remote enough to be romantic-not so long past as to be indistinct. None of the previous centuries have been brought so thoroughly within our understanding by literature; the influences which actuate us, the aspirations which inspire us, the customs we observe, seem to have taken their birth among the men and women with whom Chesterfield, Walpole, Selwyn, and Boswell have made us so intimate. Admit that this is a superficial view of our civilization, but admit al: o that the gulf which separates us from mediæval feeling lies on the far side of the seventeen hundreds, and that nothing divides us from the people of last century but the accident of death. Even this separation is hard to realize as you encounter the gaze of one after another of the well-known personages, whose eyes follow you somewhat wistfully as you pass along.

So, as I have said, the afternoon had been to me one long delight. The excitement of meeting-in the flesh, I had

I know I shall find you closely hedged in by the petticoats of all the pretty women in the place. How long have I known you? Who will be more chagrined than you when the time comes that we all have to separate once more? How well I remember your saying that, like a member of Parliament's wife, you revived directly you came to London."

"Yes; but recollect I was then imprisoned in a wretchedly constructed carcase. My life, for the last thirty years of it, was but one long stratagem to escape the gout, but my heart ever lay at Strawberry.

"Fortune, who scatters her gifts out of

66 Horace, Horace!" said the soldier quietly, smiling but shaking his head.

"Harry, you know there are exceptions," returned the other; none knows better than yourself how grateful I am for them. Never suppose that I hold myself to be one of these exceptions. I have not, like Pope,

"Made every vice and private folly known In friend or foe, a stranger to his own.' Nay, I have lived selfishly, peevishly, with shallow joys and narrow aim, but, thank Heaven! I have never been found dull. I may have often been hated, but I never was dreaded as a bore. I have seldom been loved, but many have coveted my society. Gods! what is the cruel law of moral chemistry that makes dulness an inevitable ingredient of temperance and chastity? Now begone! do your devoir and return. I shall wait about for you.' Left alone, he paced restlessly up and down the landing muttering to himself, and smiling with a peculiar, calm, though penetrating look in his dark eyes. They, and a sensitive mouth, redeemed the harshness of his features, which were of bloodless pallor, though suffused with the fire of intelligence. I grew impatient to descend to the lower rooms, now crowded with company, whence rose an everincreasing murmur of voices, and, while

said.

I was afraid I startled you, sir," I

'Nay, sir, I have no nerves now, yet I pray you will not put yourself to the exertion of shouting" (I was aware that my too earthly voice was in loud contrast to the delicate, metallic tones in which I was addressed), I am not deaf. But stayI do not know-I have not the honor of recognizing your features your dress too -pardon me--but have I the good fortune to address a living gentleman ?'' I owned to the substantial fact.

66

'I am indeed fortunate : it is what I have longed for for years. Oh, you were afraid of running up against me! My dear sir, you may run through me if you please, I should never feel it. I am a havebeen- -a phantom-a mere simulacrum. And you-you are still really solid.”

"I am indeed," I answered, excitedly, "and I'm so glad to meet you, for I'm tremendously interested in spooks-I beg your pardon-in spirits. I never saw one before."

66

You

Well, I am infinitely at your service, sir," he rejoined; "and I think I can sympathize with you. Let me make myself known to you-I am the uncle of the late Earl of Orford'; it is possible you may have heard of me as Horace Walpole.' (I bowed.) Well, as you know, I became Lord Orford later. look perplexed-permit me to explain. We have been brought here by our greatgrandchildren to illustrate the history of our century-that is to say, our portraits have been brought here, and we—that is, our disembodied spirits are permittednay, directed-to associate ourselves with our pictures each night from twelve to three. This, as you probably are aware, is a standing order in the Shades, wherever our pictures happen to be; the only choice allowed us is as to which of our portraits we shall attach ourselves for the night. Now it so happens that every existing portrait of me hangs in a countryhouse where it is the rarest thing possible for anything of more consideration than a mouse to be stirring after midnight. Hence the peculiar pleasure which [ex