writing it with a pencil which hung at her waist.
The servant left the room, and George said:

"I was not wrong. This is from my uncle,
and it comes from Amherst. He says :'Meet
me at Morley's Hotel this evening, at six.'"

"Very odd," said Routh. "Well, George,
I am sure I wish you all manner of luck with
your American uncle.''

He had taken up his hat and gloves as he
spoke, and now rang for the servant, whom he
directed to call a hansom. The man went to the
door, and transferred the commission to a street-
boy lingering about there, who ran off, and
returned in two minutes with the required vehicle.
George and Routh were standing on the steps as
the boy reappeared, talking. They shook hands,
and Routh was stepping into the cab, when
George followed him, and said, in a whisper:

"Was it not extraordinary the boy did not
recognise poor Deane?"

"What boy?" said Routh, in astonishment,
and stepping back on to the flagway.

"Why, that boy; the boy you always employ.
He brought you my message the other day.
Don't you remember it was he who brought
your note to poor Deane that day at the tavern?"

"I did not remember; I did not particularly
notice," said Routh. "Good-bye." And he
jumped into the cab, and was driven away.

George went back into the house, eyed
curiously by Jim Swain, who touched his cap as he
passed.

THE DEAD LOCK IN ITALY.

A LETTER FROM AN ENGLISHMAN IN ROME, TO
AN ITALIAN IN LONDON.

. . . . "You are visiting Rome for the
fourth time. You have leisure at your
command, you have eyes in your head, and your
sympathies in the Italian question are on the
liberal side. Rome is now on the eve of a
change which may be felt all over Europe. Tell
me, in my exile, how Rome looks."

This very natural request of yours reaches
me, my good friend, on the fifteenth of November.
In one calendar month from that date, the
French troops are bound, under the Convention,
to leave the Pope and the People to settle their
differences together. Must I tell you truly how
Rome looks, under these circumstance?
Prepare yourself to be astonished; prepare
yourself to be disappointed. Rome looks as Rome
looked when I was here last, nearly four years
sinceâ??as Rome looked when I was here, for
the second time, eleven years sinceâ??as Rome
looked, when I was here, for the first time,
twenty-eight years since. New hotels have
been opened, in the interval, I grant you; the
Pincian Hill has been improved; a central railway
station has been made; an old church has
been discovered at St. Clemente; a new church
has been built on the ruins ot the Basilica of
St. Paolo; Seltzer water is to be had; crinolines
are to be seen; the hackney-coachmen have been
reformed. But, I repeat, nevertheless, the
Rome that I first remember in '38 is, in all
essentials, the Rome that I now see in '66.
Nobody walking th rough the city, nobody looking
at the people and the priests, would have
the faintest suspicion of the change which you
tell me is at hand, of the convulsion that may
be coming in a month's time.

What is the secret of this extraordinary
apathy? I take the secret to be, that the
Roman Catholic Religion sticks fastâ??and that
the people stick fast with it. I may be quite
wrong, but the impression produced on my
mind by what I have seen and heard in Italy
this time isâ??that the Pope's position is, even
yet, by no means the desperate position which
the liberal newspapers represent it to be. I see
three chances still for His Holiness and the
Priest. First, the enormous religious influence
at their disposal. Secondly, the miserable dearth
(since Cavour's death) of commanding ability
in the civil and military administration of the
Italian Kingdom. Thirdly, the inbred national
defects of the Italian character.

Don't crumple up my letter, and throw it into
the fire! Don't say, "The priests have got
hold of him! My friend is nothing better than a
reactionary and a Jesuit after all!" No Englishman
living, is a heartier friend to the Italian
cause than I am. No Englishman living, desires
more earnestly than I do to see this nation great,
prosperous, and free, from one end of the
peninsula to the other. But, there are two
sides to every questionâ??the shady side, and the
bright. Italian liberals and English liberals
have agreed long enough (in my opinion) to look
at Italian politics on the bright side only. Give
the shady side its turn. "When an individual
man is in a difficulty, it is universally admitted
that his best preparation for getting out of it,
is, to look the worst in the face. What is true
of individuals, in this case, is surely true of
nationsâ??doubly true, I venture to think, of
your nation. Suffer a barbarous Englishman to
speak the rude truth. The very last thing you
are any of you willing to do, is, to look the worst
in the face. Give me your arm, and let us look
at it together.

You have been twenty years in England; you
are almostâ??though, fortunately for my chance
of convincing you, not quiteâ??an Englishman.
Have you noticed, in the time during which you
have inhabited my country, what the religious
influence can do, applied to purely political and
purely worldly objects? Why, even in my
country, where Religion expressly assumes to
leave thought free, and to let men decide for
themselvesâ??the so-called religious influence,
applied to political and social ends, fights from
a 'vantage-ground in the minds of the masses of
mankind equally above the reach of reason and
of right.

If the (always so-called) religious influence
can do this in England, what sort of enemy have
you Italians to deal with, in the religious influence
of Rome? You have a system against you
here, which for generation after generation, and
century after century, has put the priest before