ning reader sufficient insight into
the state of things at Cheverel Manor in the summer of 1788. In that
summer, we know, the great nation of France was agitated by conflicting
thoughts and passions, which were but the beginning of sorrows. And in
our Caterina's little breast, too, there were terrible struggles. The
poor bird was beginning to flutter and vainly dash its soft breast
against the hard iron bars of the inevitable, and we see too plainly the
danger, if that anguish should go on heightening instead of being
allayed, that the palpitating heart may be fatally bruised.

Meanwhile, if, as I hope, you feel some interest in Caterina and her
friends at Cheverel Manor, you are perhaps asking, How came she to be
there? How was it that this tiny, dark-eyed child of the south, whose
face was immediately suggestive of olive-covered hills and taper-lit
shrines, came to have her home in that stately English manor-house, by
the side of the blonde matron, Lady Cheverel--almost as if a humming-bird
were found perched on one of the elm-trees in the park, by the side of
her ladyship's handsomest pouter-pigeon? Speaking good English, too, and
joining in Protestant prayers! Surely she must have been adopted and
brought over to England at a very early age. She was.

During Sir Christopher's last visit to Italy with his lady, fifteen years
before, they resided for some time at Milan, where Sir Christopher, who
was an enthusiast for Gothic architecture, and was then entertaining the
project of metamorphosing his plain brick family mansion into the model
of a Gothic manor-house, was bent on studying the details of that marble
miracle, the Cathedral. Here Lady Cheverel, as at other Italian cities
where she made any protracted stay, engaged a _maestro_ to give her
lessons in singing, for she had then not only fine musical taste, but a
fine soprano voice. Those were days when very rich people used manuscript
music, and many a man who resembled Jean Jacques in nothing else,
resembled him in getting a livelihood 'a copier la musique a tant la
page'. Lady Cheverel having need of this service, Maestro Albani told her
he would send her a poveraccio of his acquaintance, whose manuscript was
the neatest and most correct he knew of. Unhappily, the poveraccio was
not always in his best wits, and was sometimes rather slow in
consequence; but it would be a work of Christian charity worthy of the
beautiful Signora to employ poor Sarti.

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