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a star, do you think that I could see her?"

This astronomical apotheosis startled me for a moment, but I said unhesitatingly, "Yes," feeling sure that the lustrous eyes that looked in mine could certainly see as far as Dante's, when Beatrice was transferred from his side to the highest realm of Paradise. I put my head beside hers upon the pillow, and stayed till I thought she was asleep.

I then followed Kenmure into Laura's chamber. It was dusk, but the after-sunset glow still bathed the room with imperfect light, and he lay upon the bed, his hands clenched over his eyes.

There was a deep bow-window where Laura used to sit and watch us, sometimes, when we put off in the boat. Her clian harp was in the casement, breaking its heart in music. A delicate handkerchief was lodged between the cushions of the window-seat, - the very handkerchief she used to wave, in summer days long gone. The white boats went sailing beneath the evening light, children shouted and splashed in the water, a song came from a yacht, a steam-whistle shrilled from the receding steamer; but she for whom alone those little signs of life had been dear and precious would henceforth be as invisible to our eyes as if time and space had never held her; and the young moon and the evening star seemed but empty things, unless they could pilot us to some world where the splendor of her loveliness could match their own.

Twilight faded, evening darkened, and still Kenmure lay motionless, until his strong form grew in my moody fancy to be like some carving of Michel Angelo, more than like a living man. And when he at last startled me by speaking, it was with a voice so far off and so strange, it might almost have come wandering down from the century when Michel Angelo lived.

"I have

"You are right," he said. been living in a dream. It has all vanished. I have kept no memorial

of her presence, nothing to perpetuate the most beautiful of lives."

Before I could answer, the door came softly open, and there stood in the doorway a small white figure, holding aloft a lighted taper of pure alabaster. It was Marian in her little nightdress, with the loose, blue wrapper trailing behind her, let go in the effort to hold carefully the doll, Susan Halliday, robed also for the night.

"May I come in?" said the child. Kenmure was motionless at first, then, looking over his shoulder, said merely, "What?"

"Janet said," continued Marian, in her clear and methodical way, "that my mother was up in heaven, and would help God hear my prayers at any rate; but if I pleased, I could come and say them by you."

A shudder passed over Kenmure; then he turned away, and put his hands over his eyes. She waited for no answer, but, putting down the candlestick, in her wonted careful manner, upon a chair, she began to climb upon the bed, lifting laboriously one little rosy foot, then another, still dragging after her, with great effort, the doll. Nestling at her father's breast, I saw her kneel.

"Once my mother put her arm round me, when I said my prayers." She made this remark, under her breath, less as a suggestion, it seemed, than as the simple statement of a fact.

Instantly I saw Kenmure's arm move, and grasp her with that strong and gentle touch of his that I had so often noticed in the studio, a touch that seemed quiet as the approach of fate, and as resistless. I knew him well

enough to understand that iron adoption.

He drew her toward him, her soft hair was on his breast, she looked fearlessly in his eyes, and I could hear the little prayer proceeding, yet in so low a whisper that I could not catch one word. She was infinitely solemn at such times, the darling; and there was always something in her low, clear tone, through all her prayings and phi

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in. Marian's baby breathing grew deeper and more tranquil; and as all the sorrows of the weary earth might be imagined to exhale themselves in spring through the breath of violets, so it seemed as if it might be with Kenmure's burdened heart. By degrees the strong man's deeper respirations mingled with those of the child, and their two separate beings seemed merged and solved into identity, as they slumbered, breast to breast, beneath the golden and quiet stars. I passed by without awaking them ; I knew that the artist had attained his dream.

I

THE RELIGIOUS SIDE OF THE ITALIAN QUESTION.

I.

HAVE of late frequently been asked by my English friends why it is that I decline to return to my country, and to associate my own efforts for the moral and political advancement of Italy with those of her governing classes. "The amnesty has opened up a path for the legal dissemination of your ideas," they tell me. "By taking the place already repeatedly offered you among the representatives of the people, you would secure to those who hold the helm of the state the support of the whole Republican party. Do you not, by throwing the weight of your name and influence on the side of the malcontents, increase the difficulties of the government, and prolong the fatal want of moral and political unity, without which the mere material fact of union is barren, and unproductive of benefit to the people?"

The question is asked by serious men, who wish my country well, and is therefore deserving of a serious answer.

Before treating the personal matter, however, let me say that, since 1859,

the Republican party has done precisely what my English friends required it to do. The Italian Republicans have actually assisted and upheld the government with an abnegation worthy of all praise, sacrificing even their right of Apostolate to the great idea of Italian unity. Perceiving that the nation was determined to give monarchy the benefit of a trial, they have—in that reverence for the national will which is the first duty of Republicans—patiently awaited its results, and endured every form of misgovernment rather than afford a pretext to those in power for the nonfulfilment of their declared intention of initiating a war to regain our own territory and true frontier, — a war without which, as they well knew, the permanent security and dignity of Italy were impossible, and which, had it been conducted from a truly national point of view, would have wrought the moral redemption of our people.

The monarchy, however, which, as I pointed out in my article on “The Republican Alliance," had had five years to prepare, and was in a position to take the field with thirty-five thousand regu

lar troops, one hundred thousand mobilized National Guards, thirty thousand volunteers under Garibaldi, and the whole of Italy ready to act as reserve, and make any sacrifices in blood or money, abruptly broke off the war after. the unqualifiable disasters of Custozza and Lissa, at a signal from France, basely abandoning our true frontier, the heroic Trentino, and accepted Venice as an alms scornfully flung to us by the man of the 2d of December.

I may be told that a people of twenty-four millions who tamely submit to dishonor deserve it.

I admit it; but it must not be forgotten that our masses are uneducated, and that it is the natural tendency of the uneducated to accept their rulers as their guides, and to govern their own conduct by the example of their soidisant superiors; and I assert that, if our people have no consciousness of their great destiny, nor sense of their true power and mission, if, while twenty-four millions of Italians are at the present day grouped around, I will not say the conception of unity, but the mere unstable fact of union, the great soul of Italy still lies prostrate in the tomb dug for her three centuries ago by the Papacy and the Empire, - the cause is to be found in the immorality and corruption of our rulers.

The true life of a people must be sought in the ruling idea or conception by which it is governed and directed.

The true idea of a nation implies the consciousness of a common aim, and the fraternal association and concentration of all the vital forces of the country towards the realization of that aim.

The national aim is indicated by the past tradition, and confirmed by the present conscience, of the country.

The national aim once ascertained, it becomes the basis of the sovereign power, and the criterion of judgment with regard to the acts of the citizens.

Every act tending to promote the national aim is good; every act tending to a departure from that aim is evil.

The moral law is supreme. The re

ligion of duty forms the link between the nation and humanity; the source of its right, and the sign of its place and value in humanity.

Such are the essential characteristics of what we term a nation at the present day. Where these are wanting, there exists but an aggregate of families, temporarily united for the purpose of diminishing the ills of life, and loosely bound together by past habits or interests, which are destined, sooner or later, to clash. All intellectual or economic development among them, — unregulated by a great conception supreme over every selfish interest, instead of being equally diffused over the various members of the national family, leads to the gradual formation of educated or financial castes, but obtains for the nation itself neither recognized function, position, dignity, nor glory among foreign peoples.

These things, which are true of all peoples, are still more markedly so of a people emerging from a prolonged and deathlike stupor into new life. Other nations earnestly watch its every step. If its advance is illumined by the signs of a high mission, and its first manifestations sanctified by the baptism of a great principle, other nations will surround the new collective being with affection and hope, and be ready to follow it upon the path assigned to it by God. If they discover in it no signs of any noble inspiration, ruling moral conception, or potent future, they will learn to despise it, and to regard its territory as a new field for a predatory policy, and direct or indirect domination.

Tradition has marked out and defined the characteristics of a high mission more distinctly in Italy than elsewhere. We alone, among the nations that have expired in the past, have twice arisen in resurrection and given new life to Europe. The innate tendency of the Italian mind always to harmonize thought and action confirms the prophecy of history, and points out the rôle of Italy in the world to be a work of

As I sit sometimes in the twilight,
And call back to life in the coals
Old faces and hopes and fancies

Long buried, — good rest to their souls!

Her face shines out of the embers;

I see her holding the light,
And hear the crunch of the gravel

And the sweep of the rain that night.

'Tis a face that can never grow older,
That never can part with its gleam;
'T is a gracious possession forever,
For what is it all but a dream?

AN ARTIST'S DREAM.

WHEN

HEN I reached Kenmure's house, one August evening, it was rather a disappointment to find that he and his charming Laura had absented themselves for twenty-four hours. I had not seen them since their marriage; my admiration for his varied genius and her unvarying grace was at its height, and I was really annoyed at the delay. My fair cousin, with her usual exact housekeeping, had prepared everything for her guest, and then bequeathed me, as she wrote, to Janet and baby Marian. It was a pleasant arrangement, for between baby Marian and me there existed a species of passion, I might almost say of betrothal, ever since that little three-year-old sunbeam had blessed my mother's house by lingering awhile in it, six months before. Still I went to bed disappointed, though the delightful windows of the chamber looked out upon the glimmering bay, and the swinging lanterns at the yardarms of the frigates shone like some softer constellation beneath the brilliant sky. The house was so close upon the water that the cool waves seemed to plash deliciously against its very basement; and it was a comfort to think that, if there were no adequate

human greetings that night, there would be plenty in the morning, since Marian would inevitably be pulling my eyelids apart before sunrise.

It seemed scarcely dawn when I was roused by a little arm round my neck, and waked to think I had one of Raphael's cherubs by my side. Fingers of waxen softness were ruthlessly at work upon my eyes, and the little form that met my touch felt lithe and elastic, like a kitten's limbs. There was just light enough to see the child, perched on the edge of the bed, her soft blue dressinggown trailing over the white nightdress, while her black and long-fringed eyes shone through the dimness of morning. She yielded gladly to my grasp, and I could fondle again the silken hair, the velvety brunette cheek, the plump, childish shoulders. Yet sleep still half held me, and when my cherub appeared to hold it a cherubic practice to begin the day with a demand for lively anecdote, I was fain drowsily to suggest that she might first tell some stories to her doll. With the sunny readiness that was a part of her nature, she straightway turned to that young lady, - plain Susan Halliday, with both cheeks patched, and eyes of different

colors,

and soon discoursed both her Life to her was no alternation of joy and me into repose. and grief, but only of joy and more joyous.

When I waked again, it was to find the child conversing with the morning star, which still shone through the window, scarcely so lucent as her eyes, and bidding it go home to its mother, the sun.

Another lapse into dreams, and then a more vivid awakening, and she had my ear at last, and won story after story, requiting them with legends of her own youth, "almost a year ago," -how she was perilously lost, for instance, in the small front yard, with a little playmate, early in the afternoon, and how they came and peeped into the window, and thought all the world had forgotten them. Then the sweet voice, distinct in its articulation as Laura's, went straying off into wilder fancies, a chaos of autobiography and conjecture, like the letters of a war correspondent. You would have thought her little life had yielded more pangs and fears than might have sufficed for the discovery of the North Pole; but breakfast-time drew near at last, and Janet's honest voice was heard outside the door. I rather envied the good Scotchwoman the pleasant task of polishing the smooth cheeks, and combing the dishevelled silk; but when, a little later, the small maiden was riding down stairs in my arms, I envied no one.

At sight of the bread and milk, my cherub was transformed into a hungry human child, chiefly anxious to reach the bottom of her porringer. I was with her a great deal that day. She gave no manner of trouble: it was like having the charge of a floating butterfly, endowed with warm arms to clasp, and a silvery voice to prattle. I sent Janet out to sail, with the other servants, by way of holiday, and Marian's perfect temperament was shown in the way she watched the departing.

"There they go," she said, as she stood and danced at the window. "Now they are out of sight."

66

What!" I said, "are you pleased to have your friends go?"

Twilight brought us to an improvised concert. Climbing the piano-stool, she went over the notes with her little taper fingers, touching the keys in a light, knowing way, that proved her a musician's child Then I must play for her, and let the dance begin. This was a wondrous performance on her part, and consisted at first in hopping up and down on one spot, with no change of motion, but in her hands. She resembled a minute and irrepressible Shaker, or a live and beautiful marionnette. Then she placed Janet in the middle of the floor, and performed the dance round her, after the manner of Vivien and Merlin. Then came her supper, which, like its predecessors, was a solid and absorbing meal; then one more fairy story, to magnetize her off, and she danced and sang herself up stairs. And if she first came to me in the morning with a halo round her head, she seemed still to retain it when I at last watched her kneeling in the little bed-perfectly motionless, with her hands placed together, and her long lashes sweeping her cheeks — to repeat two verses of a hymn which Janet had taught her. My nerves quivered a little when I saw that Susan Halliday had also been duly prepared for the night, and had been put in the same attitude, so far as her jointless anatomy permitted. This being ended, the doll and her mistress reposed together, and only an occasional toss of the vigorous limbs, or a stifled baby murmur, would thenceforth prove, through the darkened hours, that the one figure had in it more of life than the other.

On the next morning Kenmure and Laura came back to us, and I walked down to receive them at the boat. I had forgotten how striking was their appearance, as they stood together. His broad, strong, Saxon look, his noble bearing and clear blue eyes, enhanced the fascination of her darker beauty.

"Yes," she answered; "but I shall America is full of the short-lived be pleased-er to see them come back." bloom and freshness of girlhood; but

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