rtment.

"Well, sir, a pleasant affair this!" cried a harsh voice, interrupting
his cheery occupation; and on looking round he saw the purple and
sinister face of the fermier-general looming through the window.

"What affair?" asked the visconte, in unfeigned astonishment, for he had
been quite certain that his worthy son-in-law was quietly in his bed.

"Your daughter's conduct."

"What of her?"

"Just this--she is a ----!" and, with the term of outrage, Le Prun
uttered a forced laugh of fury.

"I cannot have heard you aright: be kind enough to repeat that."

There was a certain air of pomp and menace in this little speech, which
drove Le Prun beyond all patience. He repeated the imputation in
language still grosser. This was an insult which the ancient blood of
the Charrebourgs could not tolerate, and the visconte taunted him with
the honor which one of his house had done him in mingling their pure
blood with that of a "roturier." Then came the obvious retort, "beggar,"
and even "trickster," retaliated by a torrent of scarcely articulate
scorn and execration, and an appeal to the sword, which, with brutal
contempt, (while at the same time, nevertheless, he recoiled
instinctively a foot or two from the window,) the wealthy plebeian
retorted by threatening to arrest him for the sums he had advanced. Le
Prun had the best of it; he left the outraged visconte quivering and
shrieking like an old woman in a frenzy. It was some comfort to have
wrapt another in the hell-fire that tormented himself.

[From the Examiner.]

MAZZINI ON ITALY.

We may--we do differ from Mazzini in many of his political views, and in
our estimate of what may be the wisest policy for Italian liberals in
existing circumstances. We think that he seeks to impart to politics a
mathematical precision of which they are not susceptible, and does not
sufficiently regard a principle the correctness of which has been
admitted by himself, that the fact of a thing being true in principle
cannot give the right of suddenly enthroning it in practice. But his
errors are all on the large and generous side. He is too apt to
attribute to society the precise convictions and spirit he feels within
himself, and so to expect impossibilities, by impossible means. But
there is a power of reasoning in Mazzini, an unsullied moral purity, a
chivalrous veracity and frankness, an utter abnegation of self, and a
courage that has stood the severest trials, which