and train her taste from earliest infancy.
As a little child, she used to scrawl in pencil
till her father taught her the rudiments of
drawing. By-and-by, as she grew older and
more skilful, she learned to colour prints and
photographs for sale, and, some few months
before her father died, had begun to study the
art of enamel-painting.

Isolated thus in the heart of an ancient city;
looking down upon the alien throng in street
and market-place; watching the golden sunlight
fade and change on Giotto's bell-tower and
Brunellesco's rusty dome; listening to the clang
of bells at matins and even-song, and catching
now and then faint echoes of chanted hymn or
military march; growing daily more and more
familiar with the glories of Italian skies; reading
few books, seeing few faces, and ignorant
of life and the world as a cloistered nun, this
young girl spent the first years of her solitary
youth. And they were very happy years,
although—nay, perhaps because—they were so
solitary. Having few ties, few tastes, few
occupations, her character became more intense,
her aims more concentrated than those of most
very young women. She loved her mother with
a passionate devotion that knew no limit to
obedience and tenderness. She reverenced and
admired her father with so blind a faith in
his genius, that, despite her better knowledge,
she believed even in the Nymphs and Dryads
with all her tender heart. If her reading
had been circumscribed, it had at least been
thorough. Shakespeare and Milton, Dante and
the Bible, made the best part of her library;
but she had read and re-read these books,
thought about them for herself, treasured up
long passages from them in her memory, and
gathered from their pages more poetry, wisdom,
and knowledge than ever came off the shelves
of a modern circulating library. Nor were these
the only advantages of her secluded life. Never
having known wealth, she was poor without
being conscious of poverty—just as she was
innocent, because she had seen no evil—just as
she was happy, because she coveted no blessings
which were not already hers.

But at length there came a time when this
simple home was to be made desolate. The
unsuccessful painter fell ill and died, leaving his
wife to the cold charity of Lady Castletowers.
In an evil hour she travelled home to England,
thinking so to conciliate her haughty sister and
serve her child. But Lady Castletowers declined
to see her; and the bitter English winter smote
upon her delicate lungs and brought her to the
verge of the grave; and for this it was that
Helen Rivière went down to Castletowers, and
prayed her haughty aunt for such trifling
succour as should take them back in time to the
sweet south.

Just at this crisis, like a prince in a fairy
tale, Mr Trefalden made his appearance in their
dreary London lodging, bringing with him hope
and liberty, and his cousin Saxon's gold. If
his story were not true, if he had never known
Edgar Rivière in his life, if he despised the
pictures he affected to praise, how were they to
detect it? Enlightened connoisseur, munificent
patron, disinterested friend that he was,
how should the widow and orphan suspect that
he purchased his claim to those titles with
another man's money?

CHAPTER LIII. SAXON CONQUEROR.

SAXON TREFALDEN, writing letters as he sat
by the open window in his pleasant bedroom at
Castletowers, laid his pen aside, and looked out
wistfully at the sky and the trees. The view
over the park from this point was not extensive;
but it was green and sunny; and as the soft air
came and went, bringing with it a faint perfume
of distant hay, the young man thought of his
pastoral home in the old Etruscan canton far
away.

He knew, as well as if he were gazing upon
them from that tiny shelf of orchard-ground at
Rotzberg, how the grey, battlemented ridge of
the Ringel was standing out against the deep
blue sky; how tenderly the shadows lay in the
unmelted snowdrifts in the hollows of the
Galanda; and how the white slopes of the far-off
Julian Alp were glittering in the sun. He
knew, as well as if he were listening to them,
how the goat-bells were making pleasant music
to the brawling of the Hinter Rhine below;
and how the pines were falling every now and
then with a sullen crash beneath the measured
blows of the woodman's axe. And then he
sighed, and went back to his task.

A pile of hastily scribbled notes to London
acquaintances and tradesmen lay on one side,
ready for the post-bag; and he was now writing
a long letter to his uncle Martin—a long, long
letter, full of news, and bright projects, and
written in Saxon's clearest and closest hand.
Long as it was, however, it was not finished,
and would not be finished till the morrow. He
had something yet to add to it; and that
something, although it could not be added now, was
perplexing him not a little as he sat, pen in
hand, looking out absently at the shadows that
swept over the landscape.

He had made up his mind to propose to
Olimpia Colonna.

He had told himself over and over again that
the man who aspired to her hand should be a
prince, a hero, a soldier, an ardent patriot, at
the least; and yet, modest as he was of his own
merit, he could no longer doubt that his
proposal would be accepted whenever he should
have the courage to make it. Lady Castletowers,
who had shown a great deal of
condescending interest in him of late, had dropped
more than one flattering hint with the view of
urging him forward in his suit. Colonna's
bearing towards him, ever since the day when he
had given in his subscription, had been almost
significantly cordial; and Olimpia's smiles were
lavish of encouragement. Already he had been
more than once on the brink of an avowal;
and now, as the last week of his visit was
drawing to a close, and his letter to Switzerland
awaited despatch, he had fairly reviewed his