the better of his first feelings of anger
and surprise on hearing of my contemplated marriage. He consented to
receive us on our wedding-day; and he gave my husband the appointment
which places us both in an independent position for life.

But he had his misgivings. He checked me when I tried to thank him.

"Come back in a year's time," he said. "I will wait to be thanked till
the experience of your married life tells me that I have deserved it."

The year passed; and the General received the honest expression of my
gratitude. He smiled and kissed me; but there was something in his face
which suggested that he was not quite satisfied yet.

"Do you believe that I have spoken sincerely?" I asked.

"I firmly believe it," he answered--and there he stopped.

A wiser woman would have taken the hint and dropped the subject. My
folly persisted in putting another question:

"Tell me, uncle. Haven't I proved that I was right when I married my
groom?"

"No, my dear. You have only proved that you are a lucky woman!"

MR. LEPEL AND THE HOUSEKEEPER

FIRST EPOCH.

THE Italians are born actors.

At this conclusion I arrived, sitting in a Roman theater--now many years
since. My friend and traveling companion, Rothsay, cordially agreed
with me. Experience had given us some claim to form an opinion. We had
visited, at that time, nearly every city in Italy. Where-ever a theater
was open, we had attended the performances of the companies which travel
from place to place; and we had never seen bad acting from first to
last. Men and women, whose names are absolutely unknown in England,
played (in modern comedy and drama for the most part) with a general
level of dramatic ability which I have never seen equaled in the
theaters of other nations. Incapable Italian actors there must be, no
doubt. For my own part I have only discovered them, by ones and twos,
in England; appearing among the persons engaged to support Salvini and
Ristori before the audiences of London.

On the occasion of which I am now writing, the night's performances
consisted of two plays. An accident, to be presently related, prevented
us from seeing more than the introductory part of the second piece.
That one act--in respect of the influence which the remembrance of it
afterward exercised over Rothsay and myself--claims a place of its own
in the opening pages of the present narrative.

The scene of the story was laid in one of the principalities of Ita