ok ill. You
must eat something, or I shall have two patients on my hands."

"Who is the other?" asked Margaret and Julia in a breath.

"Fra Lorenzo."

The signora longed to speak with him in private. She must go away at
once, but she must speak with him before she said anything to her
friends. All the afternoon she watched for an opportunity, but found
none. At length, when it was growing dark, she went to walk in the
corridor, hoping to meet him. She had come to the open gallery looking
into the cloister. Here she would wait for him; and, leaning against the
open-work railing, she looked down. A white figure was walking to and
fro. Finally it came to the well and looked into it. Now another white
figure emerged from the shadows, and, laying an arm around the first,
led it gently away out of sight. Then her overstrained nerves gave way,
and she fainted.

When she recovered her senses she found herself in bed. The padre and
her friends were talking in whispers in the next room, but the former's
voice came to her distinctly. He was saying, "Now you know all. You must
take her away as soon as possible."

A year after, in Naples, the ladies received these few lines from the
padre: "God in his infinite mercy has taken my son to himself."

KATE JOHNSTON MATSON.

THE SUBSTITUTE.

CHARACTERS.

MR. NATHANIEL NOKES, _a Retired Wine-Merchant_.

MR. CHARLES NOKES, _his Nephew_.

MR. ROBINSON, MR. SPONGE, MR. RASPER, _Friends of Mr. Nokes the Elder_.

Waiter.

SUSAN, _Housemaid at the Hotel of the Four Seasons_.

MRS. CHARLES NOKES.

Landlady.

SCENE I.--_A handsome first-floor apartment in the Hotel of the Four
Seasons, Paris. Outside the window, the court-yard, with fountain, and
little trees in large pots._

_Enter MR. NATHANIEL NOKES, with a small book in his hand, very
smartly dressed, but in great haste, and with his shirt-collar much
dishevelled. [Rings the bell violently.]_

What's the good of these confounded French phrase-books? Who wants to
know how to ask for artichoke soup, or how far it is to Dijon? I want a
button sewn on my shirt-collar, and there's not one word about that.

_Enter Waiter_.

_Nokes._ Hi! what's-your-name! _Voulez-vous--avoir--la--bonte--de--_[I'm
always civil and very distinct, but, somehow, I can never make myself
understood.] I am going to be married, my good man; to be married--_tout
de suite_--immediately, and there is no time to change my-