ress of the fell disease.

In this she was successful; bodily health was indeed secured. But might
it not have been better that she had wasted slowly away, to sleep at
last beneath the yews of her own ancient churchyard, than live and
become what she has done?

Some years after this event I was, although at the time only an
_attache_ of the mission, acting as _Charge d'affaires_ at Naples,
during the absence of the minister and the secretary. I was sitting one
morning reading in my garden, when my servant announced the visit of an
Italian gentleman, il Signor Salvatori. The name was familiar to me, as
belonging to a man who had long been employed as a Spy of the Austrian
government, and, indeed, was formerly entrusted in a secret capacity
by Lord W. Bentinck in Sicily--a clever, designing, daring rascal, who
obtained his information no one knew how; and although we had always
our suspicions that he might be "selling" us, as well as the French,
we never actually traced any distinct act of treachery to his door. He
possessed a considerable skill in languages, was very highly informed
on many popular topics, and, I have been told, was a musician of no mean
powers of performance. These and similar social qualities were, however,
never displayed by him in any part of his intercourse with us, although
we had often heard of their existence.

As I never felt any peculiar pleasure in the relations which office
compels with men of his stamp, I received him somewhat coldly, and
asked, without much circumlocution, the reason of his visit.

He replied, with his habitual smile of self-possession, that his present
duty at "the Mission" was not a business-call, but concerned a matter
purely personal;--in fact, "with his Excellency's permission, he desired
to get married."

Not stopping him on the score of his investing me with a title to which,
no one knew better than himself, I had no pretensions, I quietly
assured him that his relation with "the Mission" did not, in any way,
necessitate his asking for such a permission--that, however secret and
mysterious the nature of his communications, they were still beyond the
pale of affairs personally private.

He suffered me to continue my explanation, somewhat scornful as it was,
to the end, and then calmly said,--

"Your Excellency will pardon my intrusion, when I inform you that the
marriage should take place here, at 'the Mission,' as the lady is an
English woman."

Whether it w