him with his object.

Under the pretence that he was an old friend and former schoolfellow,
Kostalergi asked him to share their humble dinner, and there, in that
meanly-furnished room, and with the accompaniment of a wretched and
jangling instrument, Nina so astonished and charmed him by her performance,
that all the habitual reserve of the cautious bargainer gave way, and he
burst out into exclamations of enthusiastic delight, ending with--'She is
mine! she is mine! I tell you, since Persiani, there has been nothing like
her!'

Nothing remained now but to reveal the plan to herself, and though
certainly neither the Greek nor his guest were deficient in descriptive
power, or failed to paint in glowing colours the gorgeous processions of
triumphs that await stage success, she listened with little pleasure to it
all. She had already walked the boards of what she thought a higher arena.
She had tasted flatteries unalloyed with any sense of decided inferiority;
she had moved amongst dukes and duchesses with a recognised station, and
received their compliments with ease and dignity. Was all this reality of
condition to be exchanged for a mock splendour, and a feigned greatness?
was she to be subjected to the licensed stare and criticism and coarse
comment, it may be, of hundreds she never knew, nor would stoop to know?
and was the adulation she now lived in to be bartered for the vulgar
applause of those who, if dissatisfied, could testify the feeling as openly
and unsparingly? She said very little of what she felt in her heart, but no
sooner alone in her room at night, than she wrote that letter to her uncle
entreating his protection.

It had been arranged with Lanari that she should make one appearance at a
small provincial theatre so soon as she could master any easy part, and
Kostalergi, having some acquaintance with the manager at Orvieto, hastened
off there to obtain his permission for her appearance. It was of this brief
absence she profited to fly from Rome, the banker conveying her as far as
Civita Vecchia, whence she sailed direct for Marseilles. And now we see
her, as she found herself in the dreary old Irish mansion, sad, silent, and
neglected, wondering whether the past was all a dream, or if the unbroken
calm in which she now lived was not a sleep.

Conceding her perfect liberty to pass her time how she liked, they exacted
from her no appearance at meals, nor any conformity with the ways of
others, and she n