m?--My blessing?--Dear boy, I give
it him night and morning. But tell him you have given me a
happy day by speaking to me of him--tell him that I embraced
you as an old friend--(and he embraced me)--but you need not
say that I was in tears. Besides,' he added, 'it is with joy
that I weep.--And is it true that my son has a reputation?'

"'Indeed a very great reputation.'

"'How strange!' said the old man, 'who would have thought it,
when I used to scold him, because, instead of working, he would
be eternally beating time, and teaching his sister all the old
Sicilian airs! Well, these things are written above. I wish I
could see him before I die.--But your name?' he added, 'I have
forgotten all this time to ask your name.'

"I told him: it woke no recollection.

"'Alexandre Dumas, Alexandre Dumas,' he repeated two or three
times, 'I shall recollect that he who bears that name has given
me good news of my son. Adieu! Alexandre Dumas--I shall
recollect that name--Adieu!'

"Poor old man! I am sure he has not forgotten it; for the news
I gave him of his son was the last he was ever to receive."--P.
226.

Sicily is one of those _romantic_ countries, where you may still meet
with adventures in your travels, where you may be shot at by banditti
with pointed hats and long guns. M. Dumas passes not without his share
of such adventures. Perhaps, as Sicily is less trodden ground than
Italy, his "Souvenirs" will be found more interesting as he proceeds. We
have naturally taken our quotations in the order in which they presented
themselves, and we have not advanced further than the second of the five
delectably small volumes in which these travels are printed. Would our
space permit us to proceed, it is probable that our extracts would
increase, instead of diminishing, in interest.

* * * * *

AMMALAT BEK.

A TRUE TALE OF THE CAUCASUS. FROM THE RUSSIAN OF MARLINSKI.

CHAPTER VI.

_Fragments from the Diary of Ammalat Bek.--Translated from the Tartar_.

... Have I been asleep till now, or am I now in a dream?... This, then,
is the new world called _thought_!... O beautiful world! thou hast long
been to me cloudy and confused, like the milky way, which, they say,
consists of thousands of glittering stars! It seems to me that I am
ascending the mountain of knowledge from the valley of darkness and
ignoranc