hould say it would never do to tie up Pompey
in his Kennel."

"Reasoning by illustration, upon my soul!" ejaculated Riccabocca,
amazed.

"And," continued Jemima, "when I am to regard one who is to constitute
the happiness of that dear child, and for life, can I regard him as I
would the pleasant guest of an evening? Ah, trust me, Alphonso; I don't
pretend to be wise like you; but when a woman considers what a man is
likely to prove to woman,--his sincerity, his honour, his heart,--oh,
trust me, she is wiser than the wisest man!"

Riccabocca continued to gaze on Jemima with unaffected admiration and
surprise. And certainly, to use his phrase, since he had unbosomed
himself to his better half, since he had confided in her, consulted with
her, her sense had seemed to quicken, her whole mind to expand.

"My dear," said the sage, "I vow and declare that Machiavelli was a fool
to you. And I have been as dull as the chair I sit upon, to deny myself
so many years the comfort and counsel of such a--But, corpo di Bacco!
forget all about rank; and so now to bed.--One must not holloa till
one's out of the wood," muttered the ungrateful, suspicious villain, as
he lighted the chamber candle.

CHAPTER III.

RICCABOCCA could not confine himself to the precincts within the walls
to which he condemned Violante. Resuming his spectacles, and wrapped
in his cloak, he occasionally sallied forth upon a kind of outwatch
or reconnoitring expedition,--restricting himself, however, to the
immediate neighbourhood, and never going quite out of sight of his
house. His favourite walk was to the summit of a hillock overgrown with
stunted bush-wood. Here he would sit himself musingly, often till the
hoofs of Randal's horse rang on the winding road, as the sun set, over
fading herbage, red and vaporous, in autumnal skies. Just below the
hillock, and not two hundred yards from his own house, was the only
other habitation in view,--a charming, thoroughly English cottage,
though somewhat imitated from the Swiss, with gable ends, thatched roof,
and pretty, projecting casements, opening through creepers and climbing
roses. From his height he commanded the gardens of this cottage, and his
eye of artist was pleased, from the first sight, with the beauty which
some exquisite taste had given to the ground. Even in that cheerless
season of the year, the garden wore a summer smile; the evergreens were
so bright and various, and the few flow ers still