tions as he could in the bewilderment of his soul, and slowly becoming used to the two beautiful young women, unexpected apparitions, who transformed life itself and everything in it. Was one his real sister, strange as it seemed? and the other? Vincent fell back and resigned himself to the strange, sweet, unlooked-for influence. They went up to London together next day. Sunshine did not disperse them into beautiful mists, as he had almost feared. It came upon him by glimpses to see that fiery sorrow and passion had acted like some tropical tempestuous sun upon his sister's youth; and the face of his love looked back upon him from the storm in which it died, as if somehow what was impossible might be possible again. Mrs Mildmay, a wandering restless soul as she was, happened to be absent from London just then. Alice was still to stay with her dearest friends. The Nonconformist went back to his little home with the sensation of an enchanted prince in a fairy tale. Instead of the mud-coloured existence, what a glowing, brilliant firmament! Life became glorious again under their

touch. As for Mrs Vincent, she was too happy in getting home-in seeing Susan, after all the anguishes and struggles which no one knew of fully but herself, rising up in all the strength of her youth to this renewed existence-to feel as much distressed as she had expected about Arthur's temporary withdrawal from his profession. It was only a temporary withdrawal, she hoped. He still wore his clerical coat, and called himself "clergyman" in the Blue Book—and he was doing well, though he was not preaching. The Nonconformist himself naturally was less sober in his thoughts. He could not tell what wonderful thing he might not yet do in this wonderful elevation and new inspiring of his heart. His genius broke forth out of the clouds. Seeing these two as they went about the house, hearing their voices as they talked in perpetual sweet accord, with sweeter jars of difference, surprised the young man's life out of all its shadowsone of them his sister-the other

After all his troubles, the loves and the hopes came back with the swallows to build under his eaves and stir in his heart.

MR T. TROLLOPE's novels, 'La Beata' and 'Marietta,' have an interest apart from their merit as works of fiction; they give an insight into Italian life, and more especially into the temper and domestic character of the lower stratum of society, and the manner in which the religious teaching of the Italian priesthood affects the morality of the people. We ourselves have always felt persuaded that, unless the present political movement in Italy is accompanied (as it probably will be) by some corresponding religious movement, it will come to nought. The existing priesthood will be always at variance with the constitutional monarchy-will be concealed or open enemies; will so preach and teach, that their flocks will believe that obedience to the Church is a righteous and necessary thing, but that obedience to the State is rather a policy than a duty. They will produce a popular opinion similar to what has been produced in Ireland, where rebellion is always considered as having a certain spice of religion in it: obedience to the laws being a temporising policy, which may be excused where the police are strong; but rebellion against the civil government having in it the true righteous principle of conduct. And even if the Italian Church keeps truce with the Government, the education it gives the people is not calculated to make them good and intelligent citizens. Not that we should accuse its clergy of neglecting to teach the ordinary rules of morality, but they advance superstitious practices into the high place these ought to occupy. And living in a period of transition, and being first of all anxious to preserve their own existence and influence in the world, they are quite as solicit ous that the people should not be instructed in whatever knowledge would weaken that influence, as they are earnest in giving such in

struction as tends to make them faithful disciples of the Church.

Mr Trollope's novels have a bearing on this subject. Moreover, without wishing to disparage his previous writings, it appears to us that La Beata' and 'Marietta' show so great an advance in style, in skill, in tact, in all that conduces to literary success, that they may be paired off apart from the rest. On those previous compositions we have no censure to bestow; we have only to confess that they did not attract us-that, notwithstanding a certain measure of historical research, which ought to have kept our attention, we found the volume fall from our hands before it was completed. Perhaps a certain stiffness in the style, mingled very inharmoniously with sundry Carlylisms, helped to produce that effect. When you have confessed thus much of any work, that you broke down in reading it, you have incapacitated yourself for giving any grave and final judgment upon its merits, beyond such inference as may be drawn from the fact of your being so arrested in its perusal. But in these novels, 'La Beata' and Marietta,' there was no tendency whatever to let the book fall till the last page was read. There is a greater simplicity in the style, and though the subject may be slighter than the 'Decade of Italian Women,' or other of his historical sketches, there is an improved tone of thought as well as of manner.

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The novel La Beata,' viewed as a work of art, might be described rather as a sketch than a finished picture; but it is a sketch in which one of the figures, at least, is both well conceived and beautifully drawn. The character of La Beata is simplicity itself, but it is a simplicity which might easily have been marred. The attempt, for instance, to unite her quiet, single, and unselfish love with a higher

standard of intellect, would have converted the conception into an impossibility. It must be added, too (and this gives to the novel a specific interest), that only in Italy could such a character have developed itself under the given circumstances. In Mr T. Trollope's novels we have the Italian sky always about us-a southern atmosphere pervades the whole picture; La Beata is not only an Italian, but she is the product of a state of opinion peculiar to Italy, which, at all events, is unlike anything to be found in England: she is not only a Catholic, but Catholicism was necessary to her existence. She is no English girl transported to Florence-she is the very child of Florence.

La Beata loves the artist Pippo, and lives with him without the sanction of the marriage ceremony; but her conscience is not afflictedshe is doing no violence to her religious feelings; and the social opinion which has been brought to bear upon her-the opinion of her own neighbours, of the women of her own class-visits her with no censures. She loves, therefore, with simple, unhesitating, unreproved passion; she has no feeling of disgrace or shame; her love mingles with her piety, and fills all her prayers. The apparition of such a character in England under similar circumstances would have been impossible: the English girl would have destroyed her own character as well as her own peace by throwing herself unprotected on the love of one who could desert her at any moment of her life. La Beata loves, and thinks all is said in that one word. She cannot read men's hearts she believes that Pippo loves her. Has he not said it? She does not read men's hearts she does not read her own; she simply lives her love; and, with her, love and life are one. She does not dream of its discontinuance; and when the hour of desertion arrives, and she sees herself alone in the world, it is a calamity worse than

death, but it is a calamity only. She does not treat it as an injury or a wrong; it is a fatality, like death itself a cruel fatality, that kills everything but her love.

This purity of heart, preserved, and in part fostered, by her very ignorance-this unlimited tenderness and constancy that cannot withdraw the love once given-constitute the whole character of La Beata. Love is with her its own sanction; it is duty as well as love it stands in the place of reason. On the other hand, the man on whom she bestows this implicit, uncompromising affection is the very type of selfishness. A poor artist, he is greedy of success. The moment prosperity knocks at his door in the shape of patronage, and the possibility of marrying the only daughter of the rich wax-chandler, he prepares to dismiss his loving "Tina," as he is in the habit of calling her. Circumstances are propitious to his cruel design. The very lodging in which La Beata had formerly lived with her mother, and where during her mother's life she had occupied herself in making artificial flowers, is now occupied by another widowed old lady, who also pursues the same occupation of flower-making. What could be more opportune ? To place La Beata, under some pretext, with this lone woman, whom she will assist in an art by which they will both obtain their subsistence, appears to him the most complete arrangement. La Beata resumes the life from which he took her-resumes it in the very locality where he first made acquaintance with her. There is but the substitute of one lone widow for another. The broken chain is reunited-that interval in which she lived with him can drop into oblivion conveniently for both. She is the poor artificial - flower maker, he is the rising young artist-to which several careers had not Providence originally called them?

The cruel design is executed with eager, unrelenting haste. On pre

tence of her own ill-health, which, indeed, is nothing but the result of the neglect he has already begun to practise, he conveys her, with her little bundle of clothes, weeping and bewildered, to the new, old home.

"The worthy widow Sappi manifested neither surprise nor curiosity at what she saw. She had lived-maid, wife, and widow-more than fifty years in the world, and the entire plot, beginning, progress, and dénouement of the little drama, one scene of the last act of which was passing before her, was quite as perfectly intelligible to her as if she had witnessed the action of the entire piece.

"To the world-worn widow it was the old old story; a 'disgrazia,' not necessarily involving any moral turpitude on the part of any of the actors concerned in it possibly admitting of mitigation by due use of candles and rosaries in the proper quarters, but evidently not calling for interference on her part. Though she felt, therefore, no indignation against the handsome young artist as she opened the door for him to depart, she was none the less anxious, as she returned on closing it after him, to say or do anything within the limits of her simple understanding and small power to alleviate the sorrows of the victim.

"And it is easy to imagine that consolations drawn from such a view of the case were more tolerable to La Beata's unswerving fidelity of affection, than any based on blame of her heart's idol could have been. It is true that Signora Sappi's first well-meant attempts to treat the case as one already arrived at the stage which, to her experienced eyes, it had already reached, were met by vehement and indignant protestations of Pippo's unalterable affection, and the temporary nature of their separation. But as soon as the widow perceived that her patient was in an earlier phase of her misfortune than she had imagined, she adapted her tone and treatment accordingly, only lamenting to herself that so much misery still remained to be developed from what she too well knew to be the inevitable future.

"And the next day Tina was in her old place, at her old occupation amongst the bits of painted calico and waxed paper-very wan, very silent, very miserable, anxiously endeavouring to do her utmost in the interest of her entertainer, but with the best part of her mind in her ear, painfully watching, during the long hours of the day, for the footstep on the stair, which came not.'

Of course the visits of Pippo became rarer and rarer, till they altogether ceased. He changed his old studio on the fourth floor for one better suited to his rising fortunes, so that she could not even follow him in imagination. Very pathetically is the utter desolation of the It is Newpoor girl described. Year's Day :

"Religion and custom forbade the widow Sappi and her assistant to occupy the hours with their accustomed labour. The materials of their craft had all been carefully gathered and put away. The poor, fireless, brick floored room was swept and garnished, a fresh supply of oil was poured into the little lamp that hung in front of the old black picture of the Madonna; Tina had knelt in the solitude of her closet before the cherished coloured print of the Virgin of the Seven Sorrows,' which had accompanied her in her migration to Pippo's home, and had been brought back to its old place on her return she had poured forth all her simple tale of sorrows and passionate craving, with streaming eyes upraised to the serenely sad face of the picture, and the seven symbolical poniards planted in her maternal bosom. Then the two women attended mass in the little neighbouring church which Tina used to frequent, in the old, dull, and monotonous, but comparatively happy days, with her mother. mass, however, did not last very long, and when they returned from it to their dreary room, the holiday which all Florence was enjoying began to weigh upon them very severely.

The

"The regular course for the disposal of the afternoon, according to the fashion of their class, would have been to array themselves in the neat and becoming toilette which most Florentine women manage to possess, even if the acquisition of it cost them the half of their daily pittance of dry bread during many a month of saving, and then to have sallied forth to meet acquaintances in the course of a walk on the Lungarno. Or, as often occurs where poverty is so great as to have rendered the acquisition of the garments indispensable for a becoming appearance in the streets absolutely incompatible with the necessity scarcely recognised as more important, of keeping body and soul together, they might have arranged their hair with all the care and skill of a professional artist, limited their toilette ambition to render ing themselves presentable down to the

waist only, and thus have sat at the open window exposing to public gaze only as much of them as was fitted to meet the eye, and contenting themselves with such modicum of chat as could be enjoyed with neighbours and acquaintances in the street, prevented by the friendly window parapet from seeing that the 'mulier formosa superne' ended in a ragged or dirty wrapper.

"But neither the widow nor her boarder were in a condition to enjoy even this mildest form of dissipation and holiday-making. The malaria produced by the results of the flood had penetrated to the poor widow's joints and muscles, and produced rheumatism, which had caused her much suffering for several days past. And Tina, on returning from mass, was attacked by violent shivering fits, and felt so unwell that she proposed to profit by the holiday to go to her bed. Partly for company's sake, and partly for kindness' sake, the widow, with the thin blanket from her own bed thrown over her shoulders, and a scaldino under her feet, established herself by her guest's bedside, and so these two kept their holiday-tide of welcome to the beginning

year.

"At last the weary day wore to its early close, and at the twenty-four the churches rung out the Ave Maria. They had been sitting in silence for some time past as the shadows deepened around them. Tina heaved a great sigh as the evening call to prayer was rung. She recited devoutly the Latin words of the formula prescribed in a whispered tone, and then said, 'I had been thinking, Marta, for the last ten days, that he might perhaps come on this day when everybody sees their -- all those they love. But the day is over!'

Everything is over!' she added, after a moment's pause; and then again, while the good widow was meditating how best to take advantage of the moment to fix in her mind the truth that such was indeed the case, she saidShould you hear the bell at the door, Marta, sitting here in this room?'

"Sure, I should hear it, my child, and so would you, if any hand were there to pull it. But, bless your dear heart, he you are thinking of will never pull that bell again.'

"Tina made no answer, but turned her poor thin face to the pillow, and her tears flowed fast and silently.

"But, Marta,' she said again suddenly, after a while, 'suppose he were ill-too ill to come out or write.'

"Poor little thing!' answered La

Sappi, sadly, 'it is very hard to think that all is over even when one says it. But what would you have? The world is made so! Men don't love like we do. I knew, when he first came here, how it would be. My good man went to sea, and never came back any more. He was drowned. And you must think likeways of him that he is gone from you.'

"Marta Sappi's efforts failed to af ford any consolation. Tina turned her face again wearily to the pillow, and another silence ensued. After a while she said, 'I wish I was quite sure, Marta, that it was for Pippo's good that he should leave me. But I know so little! Do you think that it is likely to be best for him?'

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'Well, I suppose, if he comes to be a famous painter, as they say, he will be wanting to marry some one who has got money and friends that would be likely to help him, you know,' responded the widow, like an experienced and judicious widow as she was.

"And I have neither money nor friends to give him,' said Tina, musingly; that is certain. But it has often seemed to me,' she added, after a pause, that money and friends are not the best of all things to have.'

"She had not the slightest idea, poor child, that she was plagiarising from doctors and teachers from Solomon downwards, still less that she was propounding a great moral truth. She was giving, with all diffidence, the result of her own unaided meditations on her own

sorrows.

"All the money and friends in the world,' she pursued, are nothing at all to me in comparison to being loved by him; why should they be so much more valuable to him than all the love I gave him?'

"If I could only be satisfied that Pippo was really better off,' resumed Tina, after another long pause, and if I could but die, Marta mea, out of this weary, weary world, I would be content.

And so passes the holiday with these two women in their poverty and their grief. The scene is brought before us with genuine pathos, but we have made this rather long quotation, not only for itself, but because it will enable the reader, should he not have perused the work, to understand the consummate atrocity of the incident which is next recorded. It appears to us that, in the whole