man,
smilingly. "Within a few hours I shall have news straight from home, and
but for you--see now how one thing depends upon another--it might never
have reached me at all. Had I never known you I might never have known
your excellent and estimable young friend, the Honorable Mr. Brunow,
and," he continued, smiling and bending over me, to lay the tip of a
bony finger on either of my shoulders before he straightened himself to
his gaunt height, "it is evident that if I had never met the Honorable
Mr. Brunow it would not have been possible for the Honorable Mr. Brunow
to bring me news."

"You get your news from Brunow?" I responded, little guessing what it
meant, and feeling in my blind ignorance quite friendly towards Brunow
for having done anything to give the sad exile so much pleasure. "And I
needn't ask you if the news is good news."

"I am told it is," he responded; "but I have it yet to hear." He
explained to me that he had two sisters resident in Italy, who lived at
tolerable ease upon what the family confiscations had left them of their
property. "They would have maintained me well," said the old man, with
his cordial, innocent smile, "but I have always pretended to them to
want nothing. They have children, and young men will be expensive, and
I get on very well without infringing on their little store. They live
together at Posilippo, and a neighbor of theirs, one Signor Alfieri, the
bearer of a great name, you observe--it is like an Englishman having Mr.
Shakespeare coming to see him--this Signor Alfieri is a neighbor and a
friend of theirs. He would have called upon me, but he failed to find
me, and he sails for Italy to-night. I meet him at--I forget the name,
but it is on your river, and the Honorable Mr. Brunow is so good as to
be my guide. Come with me," he said, suddenly. "You will learn the very
latest news of Italy, and you will meet a good patriot who will tell you
what was actually doing three weeks ago."

Now it happened, as fate would have it, that I was free that evening and
that Violet was engaged. If I had had any chance of meeting her I should
have declined Ruffiano's invitation; but the night seemed likely to be
vacant of employment, the old man seemed solicitous, and I saw no reason
for refusing him. Quite apart from that it would, as he suggested,
be agreeable and perhaps useful to know at first-hand what an Italian
thought of the chances of the rising which must have been imminent when
h