ed by, and too dear to, my own
heart. It will be a token that you have not driven away all remembrance
of our once youthful love, though it is at an end for ever."

He took her hand and clasped it tenderly, but the next moment he almost
flung it from him, and had turned and quitted the room. Gina burst into
a violent fit of weeping, and slowly retreated to seek the solitude of
her chamber.

Scarcely had the echo of her footsteps died away in the gallery, when
the door of a closet appertaining to the room was cautiously pushed
open, and out stepped the Signora Lucrezia, her eyes and mouth wide
open, and her hair standing on end.

"May all the saints reject me if ever I met with such a plot as this!"
she ejaculated. "I knew there was something going on underneath, but the
deuce himself would never have suspected this. So the innocent-faced
madam has not been winding herself round the Lady Adelaide for
nothing--the she-wolf in sheep's petticoats! Something was said, too,
that I could not catch, about her irreligion. The hypocrite dare not go
to confession, probably, and so keeps away. The letter of the wedding
night is explained now, and that changing, as they both did, to the hue
of a mort-cloth at sight of each other. May I die unabsolved if so sly a
conspiracy ever came up. However, I shall not interfere yet awhile. Let
my baby-mistress look out for herself: she has not pleased me of late,
showering down marks of favor upon this false jade. _Her_ rival! if she
did but know it! I'll keep my eyes and ears open. Two lovers cannot live
for ever under the same roof without betraying their secret; and there
will be an explosion some day, or my name is not Lucrezia Andrini."

From Household Words

A FASHIONABLE FORGER.

I am an attorney and a bill discounter. As it is my vocation to lend
money at high interest to extravagant people, my connection principally
lies among "fools," sometimes among rogues "of quality." Mine is a
pursuit which a prejudiced world either holds in sovereign contempt, or
visits with envy, hatred, and all uncharitableness; but to my mind,
there are many callings, with finer names, that are no better. It gives
me two things which I love--money and power; but I cannot deny that it
brings with it a bad name. The case lies between character and money,
and involves a matter of taste. Some people like character; I prefer
money. If I am hated and despised, I chuckle over the "per contra." I
find