she bestowed not one thought on such subjects; the most terrible thing that could befal her would be the knowledge of having rendered Antonio wretched; and she judged from her own heart what would be his anguish should she decide on giving him up. With feverish haste and trembling hand she wrote a few lines, in which she consented to abide by all her lover's plans, and by which she bound herself to be his in life and death. She dared not trust herself to think on what she had done, but hurried from her chamber to the breakfastroom, where she found Antonio alone. With burning blushes and downcast eyes she held out her scarce legible scrawl to him, and he seized it with avidity. Geraldine then stole away, and went to the dressing-room of her kind hostess.

Antonio read, with rapture, the decision of his beloved, and, in the space of a few hours had completed all the arrangements for his marriage. His marriage! and with whom? With the fairest, the best of God's creatures.

No alloy mixed with the fulness of his joy as he re-entered the Palazzo, and gazed during the hours of evening on her who would in so short a space of time become his own, his cherished bride. He found an opportunity of informing Geraldine respecting his morning's occupation, and was answered by a smile of mingled love and sadness.

The morning of Geraldine's bridal arose in gladness and brilliancy. The sun shone cheerily in the arched heavens, and the birds sang their sweetest carols outside the fair girl's window as she attired her lovely form in simple white, no jewel decked her person, no splendid apparel added lustre to her beauty, yet never had that beauty been more transcendent. The flush of love, and hope, and fear, and triumph was on her cheek, and the brilliancy of her eyes was dimmed or rather softened by tears of a mixed

nature.

An old woman, who had nursed Geraldine, and who still attended her with unceasing affection, was her sole confidant on this important

occasion, and if her prayers could have ensured her sweet nursling's happiness, Geraldine would have been most blessed. At length all was completed, and the clocks of the Palazzo struck the appointed hour.

Who has not felt the thrill and start of almost overwhelming emotion as the first toll of a long prayed for hour has arisen on the silence. The heart seems to stand still, and what we had most coveted, now that it is at hand, strikes us with a feeling of awe akin to sadness.

Geraldine quitted the Palazzo for ever, and guided by her nurse arrived at the place where Antonio impatiently awaited her arrival. When she joined him, he spoke no word, he grasped her hand in both of his, and a smile of unutterable beauty quivered for an instant around his mouth; that smile full of bliss repaid Geraldine for all she had suffered. They went in silence— (for when was deep happiness loquacious?)—to God's holy altar, and there exchanged vows as fervent and sincere as ever were breathed by mortals. They were married by both the Pro

testant and Catholic rituals, and then Antonio, for the first time since the day on which he had first beheld Geraldine, enjoyed the security of his bliss.

In that moment he forgot that he was a pilgrim in a vale of tears; he forgot that beauty could fade, or dark sorrow blight hearts with its withering breath; he remembered not that joy is but for a day, and that grief cometh in the morning; and death with his sable wings and clammy fingers appeared, but as a far, far remote vision.

But Geraldine trembled in the midst of her happiness. A voice whispered in her ear that the sacred duties she had outraged, the ties of nature through which she had broken, would haunt her for ever, and stand like dark shadows between her and the sun of her life.

They remained in Florence, as Geraldine could not bear the idea of leaving it whilst there was a chance of reconciliation with her parents. She had left letters for them and her kind Italian friends, explaining the cause of her

flight. The letter to her parents was couched in the humblest and most moving terms, imploring their blessing and forgiveness, and assuring them solemnly, that although she had found sufficient courage in her heart to disobey them, she felt that to be utterly cast off by them would be a punishment weightier than she could bear.

It may easily be conceived how great was the consternation of the Prince and Princess

M when they opened the letter of Geraldine; but words can convey but a faint idea of the mingled rage and astonishment which overwhelmed the Arbuthnots, when on their return, the morning after Geraldine's marriage, they heard the news. The father and son swore to renounce the degraded creature for ever, and Colonel Arbuthnot commanded his wife, as she loved or dreaded him, to abstain from all communication with her unworthy daughter, and to return any letters she might receive from her, unopened. Mrs. Arbuthnot was scarcely less indignant than her husband; yet the natural