when Riccabocca,
bending his long dark face over the student's shoulder, said abruptly,--

"Diavolo, my friend! what on earth have you got there? Just let me look
at it, will you?"

Leonard rose respectfully, and coloured deeply as he surrendered the
tract to Riccabocca.

The wise man read the first page attentively, the second more cursorily,
and only ran his eye over the rest. He had gone through too vast a
range of problems political, not to have passed over that venerable
Pons Asinorum of Socialism, on which Fouriers and Saint-Simons sit
straddling, and cry aloud that they have arrived at the last boundary of
knowledge!

"All this is as old as the hills," quoth Riccabocca, irreverently; "but
the hills stand still, and this--there it goes!" and the sage pointed to
a cloud emitted from his pipe. "Did you ever read Sir David Brewster on
Optical Delusions? No! Well, I'll lend it to you. You will find therein
a story of a lady who always saw a black cat on her hearth-rug. The
black cat existed only in her fancy, but the hallucination was natural
and reasonable,--eh, what do you think?"

"Why, sir," said Leonard, not catching the Italian's meaning, "I don't
exactly see that it was natural and reasonable."

"Foolish boy, yes! because black cats are things possible and known.
But who ever saw upon earth a community of men such as sit on the
hearth-rugs of Messrs. Owen and Fourier? If the lady's hallucination was
not reasonable, what is his who believes in such visions as these?"

Leonard bit his lip.

"My dear boy," cried Riccabocca, kindly, "the only thing sure and
tangible to which these writers would lead you lies at the first step,
and that is what is commonly called a Revolution. Now, I know what that
is. I have gone, not indeed through a revolution, but an attempt at
one."

Leonard raised his eyes towards his master with a look of profound
respect and great curiosity.

"Yes," added Riccabocca, and the face on which the boy gazed exchanged
its usual grotesque and sardonic expression for one animated, noble, and
heroic. "Yes, not a revolution for chimeras, but for that cause which
the coldest allow to be good, and which, when successful, all time
approves as divine,--the redemption of our native soil from the rule
of the foreigner! I have shared in such an attempt. And," continued the
Italian, mournfully, "recalling now all the evil passions it arouses,
all the ties it dissolves, all the blood that it comma