ursery at the sound of an infant squall. O blessed privilege of
Authorship!

"O testudinis aureae
Dulcem quae strepitum, Pieri, temperas!
O mutis quoque piscibus
Donatura cyeni, si libeat, sonum!"

["O Muse, who dost temper the sweet sound of the golden shell of the
tortoise, and couldst also give, were it needed, to silent fishes
the song of the swan."]

CHAPTER II.

It is necessary to go somewhat back in the course of this narrative, and
account to the reader for the disappearance of Violante.

It may be remembered that Peschiera, scared by the sudden approach of
Lord L'Estrange, had little time for further words to the young Italian,
than those which expressed his intention to renew the conference, and
press for her decision. But the next day, when he re-entered the garden,
secretly and stealthily, as before, Violante did not appear. And after
watching round the precincts till dusk, the count retreated, with an
indignant conviction that his arts had failed to enlist on his side
either the heart or the imagination of his intended victim. He began now
to revolve and to discuss with Levy the possibilities of one of those
bold and violent measures, which were favoured by his reckless daring
and desperate condition. But Levy treated with such just ridicule any
suggestion to abstract Violante by force from Lord Lansmere's house, so
scouted the notions of nocturnal assault, with the devices of scaling
windows and rope-ladders, that the count reluctantly abandoned that
romance of villany so unsuited to our sober capital, and which would no
doubt have terminated in his capture by the police, with the prospect of
committal to the House of Correction.

Levy himself found his invention at fault, and Randal Leslie was called
into consultation. The usurer had contrived that Randal's schemes of
fortune and advancement were so based upon Levy's aid and connivance,
that the young man, with all his desire rather to make instruments
of other men, than to be himself their instrument, found his superior
intellect as completely a slave to Levy's more experienced craft, as
ever subtle Genius of air was subject to the vulgar Sorcerer of earth.

His acquisition of the ancestral acres, his anticipated seat in
parliament, his chance of ousting Frank from the heritage of Hazeldean,
were all as strings that pulled him to and fro, like a puppet in the
sleek, filbert-nailed fingers of