he boy was scarce out of the hornbook before he was
introduced to Machiavelli. But somehow or other the simple goodness
of the philosopher's actual life, with his high-wrought patrician
sentiments of integrity and honour, so counteract the theoretical
lessons, that the Heir of Serrano is little likely to be made more wise
by the proverbs, or more wicked by the Machiavelli, than those studies
have practically made the progenitor, whose opinions his countrymen
still shame with the title of "Alphonso the Good."

The duke long cherished a strong curiosity to know what had become of
Randal. He never traced the adventurer to his closing scene. But once
(years before Randal had crept into his present shelter) in a visit
of inspection to the hospital at Genoa, the duke, with his peculiar
shrewdness of observation in all matters except those which concerned
himself, was remarking to the officer in attendance, "that for one dull,
honest man whom fortune drove to the hospital or the jail, he had found,
on investigation of their antecedents, three sharp-witted knaves who had
thereto reduced themselves"--when his eye fell upon a man asleep in
one of the sick wards; and recognizing the face, not then so changed as
Oliver had seen it, he walked straight up, and gazed upon Randal Leslie.

"An Englishman," said the official. "He was brought hither insensible,
from a severe wound on the head, inflicted, as we discovered, by a
well-known chevalier d'industrie, who declared that the Englishman had
outwitted and cheated him. That was not very likely, for a few crowns
were all we could find on the Englishman's person, and he had been
obliged to leave his lodgings for debt. He is recovering, but there is
fever still."

The duke gazed silently on the sleeper, who was tossing restlessly on
his pallet, and muttering to himself; then he placed his purse in the
official's hand. "Give this to the Englishman," said he; "but conceal
my name. It is true, it is true, the proverb is very true," resumed the
duke, descending the stairs, "Piu pelli di volpi the di asini vanno in
Pellieciaria." (More hides of foxes than of asses find their way to the
tanner's).

Dr. Morgan continues to prescribe globules for grief, and to administer
infinitesimally to a mind diseased. Practising what he prescribes,
he swallows a globule of caustic whenever the sight of a distressed
fellow-creature moves him to compassion,--a constitutional tendency
which, he is at last