"They are very hard: still, they may be borne: and it will be far better to bear them, than to come to an open rupture. I know the world better than you do."

"You counsel me to bear insults tamely ?"

"I do, indeed; I do it for your own sake: I know it will be happier for you in the end. Lord Level does not intrude personal insult upon you; and what takes place away from your knowledge you had better not inquire into."

Lady Level shook back her head defiantly. "Blanche, listen to me. The very last thing you must think of, is a separation from your husband. I tell you that I speak for your happiness."

Before more could be said, the old steward, Mr. Drewitt, appeared. Lord Level was now calm again, and wished to see Mr. Ravensworth. They went up-stairs together. Lord Level fixed his eyes upon Mr. Ravensworth, as he advanced to him.

"So, it's you!" he exclaimed. "They told me my lady had got some intruder down stairs. What brings you here? Did my lady send for you ?"

"No. Major Carlen came to my house, and requested me to come down."

Major Carlen? Oh! very good. I'll make a note of that. I'll blow his brains out, if he interferes between me and my wife; and that he knows."

"So far as I believe, Major Carlen has no intention, or wish, to interfere. Lady Level sent to him, in her alarm, and he requested me to come in his place."

"If Major Carlen has entered into a league with you to ferret out matters that concern me, which he dare not attempt to come and do for himself

"I beg your lordship's pardon," was the curt interruption. "I do not like or respect Major Carlen sufficiently to be in league' with him. I came down here, certainly in compliance with his desire, but in a spirit of kindness to Lady Level, and to you, to be of assistance to you if I could."

"How came you to bring Lady Level over from Germany?" growled the peer. "You shall account to me for it yet."

"Your wife wished to travel home with myself and Mrs. Ravensworth, and she did so. What fault have you to find with it ?"

“This fault-that, but for you and your meddling interference, she would be abroad still. I wished her to remain abroad for the winter." "If Lady Level returned home against your wish, I am not responsible for it. It was not my place to dictate to her that she should, or should not." Lord Level lay in silence for a while, and the angry expression left his face. "I hope this injury to your lordship will not prove a grave one," Mr. Ravensworth remarked.

my

knee

"It is a trifle," was the answer-"nothing but a trifle. It's that keeps me prostrate here," striking the bed; " and I have inter

mittent fever."

"Can I be of service to you? If I

can,

command me."

"I don't want anybody to be of service to me, if you allude to this stabbing business. Some drunken fellow got in, and

"The servants say the doors were all left secure, and were found so." "The servants say so to hide their carelessness," roared Lord Level, in a contortion of pain. "This knee gives me twinges, at times, like a redhot iron."

"Had any one got in, especially any drunken man

"Mr. Ravensworth," imperatively interrupted Lord Level, "it is my pleasure that this affair should not be investigated. I say that some drunken man got in-a poacher, I'll lay a guinea, and attacked me, not knowing what he was doing. To have a row made over it would only excite me, in my present state of fever. Therefore, I shall put up with the injury, and shall be well all the sooner for doing so. You will be so obliging," he sarcastically added, "as to do the same." Almost as Lord Level spoke the fever came on again, his face became crimson, his eye wild, and his voice rose to a scream. He flung his left arm about the bed. Mr. Ravensworth looked for the bell, and rang it. "Drewitt, are the doors fast?" raved his lordship. hear me, Drewitt? Have you looked to the doors? Now where are the keys? Where have you put them? That door

"Do you

Mrs. Edwards entered and essayed to soothe him. She put cool applications on his head and held his arm gently. "The doctor will be here in a moment," she whispered to Mr. Ravensworth: "that was his ring as I came into the room."

"Has Lord Level been violent?"

Only in speech, sir. head. I don't know that knee and his right arm. him last night."

He just dashes one arm about, and rolls his he could do more, considering his powerless He was so much better till this attack upon

"So, he's off again!" exclaimed the doctor, when he entered : well, if he will excite himself, he can expect nothing else. Mrs. Edwards, will you call your brother? I shall want his assistance in dressing the wounds. You are a friend of the family, I hear, sir," he added to Mr. Ravensworth. "I hope you purpose to order an investigation into this extraordinary affair."

"I have no authority to do so. And Lord Level does not wish it done."

"A fig for Lord Level! he does not know what he's saying," replied the doctor. "There never was so monstrous a thing heard of, as that a nobleman is to be stabbed in his own bed, and the fellow to be let off, scot-free; not looked after! We need not look far!"

The last words, significantly spoken, jarred on Mr. Ravensworth's ears. "Have you any suspicion ?" he asked.

"I can put two and two together, sir, and find they make four. The windows were fast; the doors were fast; there was no noise, no disturbance, no robbery; well then, what deduction have we to fall back upon, but that the villain, he or she, was an inmate of the house?"

Mr. Ravensworth's pulses beat a shade quicker. Was she going to be publicly denounced? "Whom do you suspect?" he boldly inquired, fully prepared to combat the answer: but the answer was not what he anticipated.

"One of the servants, of course."

"But the servants are faithful and respectable. They are not suspected."

"Maybe not, in-doors; but they are, out. The whole neighbourhood, sir, is in commotion over it: and how Drewitt and his sister can let these London servants be at large, is the talk of the place. The most singular thing is, that Lady Level should have slept through it, when the assassin must have gone into her chamber to deposit the knife upon the floor. It was found close to her dressing-table. Look here," he added, opening the door leading to Lady Level's room, "there's where the knife was found, half way down it: and yet her ladyship protests she slept through the visit !"

It may have been flung in."

"No; it was carried; for the blood had dripped from it all along." "Has the knife been recognised?"

The surgeon had turned again towards Lord Level, and did not hear the question. In the shadow of the door stood the steward: he stealthily touched Mr. Ravensworth's arm, and beckoned him into the dark corridor.

"Sir," he whispered, "my lady told Mrs. Edwards that you were a firm friend of hers, a sure friend ?"

"I trust I am.'

"Then let it drop, sir; it was no common robber: let it drop, for her sake and my lord's."

Mr. Ravensworth went down stairs, painfully perplexed. Those few words, spoken by the faithful old steward, were more fraught with suspicion against Lady Level than any other circumstances he had yet

heard.

Lady Level was sitting where he had left her, before the fire. He thought he must be going. "I have been of no assistance to you," he observed, "but should anything further arise in which I can be, send for me."

"What do you expect to arise?" she hastily inquired.

"Nay, I expect nothing."

"Did Lord" Lady Level suddenly stopped and turned her head. Inside the room stood two policemen. She rose with a startled movement, and shrank close to Mr. Ravensworth, as if for protection. "Arnold! Arnold!"

"Do not agitate yourself," he whispered. "I will speak to them. What is it that you want?" he demanded, moving forward.

"We have come about this attack on Lord Level, sir."

"Who sent for you?"

"Don't know anything about that, sir. Our superior ordered us here, and he's coming on himself. We must examine the fastenings of this window, sir, by the lady's leave."

They passed up the room, and Lady Level left it, followed by Mr. Ravensworth. Outside stood Deborah, all aghast, peeping after the policemen.

"They have been here this hour, my lady," she whispered.

"Who have?"

"Them police people. They have had us all before 'em in the

kitchen, my lady, a questioning of us separate: Mr. Sanders first, and Mrs. Timms next, and me last. I never was questioned so close, my lady, in my life. And now they are going round the house to look at it, and see to the fastenings."

The men came out again and moved away, Deborah followed slowly in their wake. She appeared to regard them, now they were inside a house, with somewhat of the curiosity we give to a wild animal. Lady Level returned to her place by the fire, and Mr. Ravensworth looked at his watch. "It is time for me to go," he observed.

"To go! Now?" uttered Lady Level.

"I shall barely reach the station for the up-train."

"Arnold, if you go, and leave me with those men in the house, I will never forgive it!" she passionately exclaimed.

He looked at her in surprise. "I thought you wished for the presence of the police: you said you should regard them as a protection.'

"Did you send for them?" she breathlessly exclaimed, the thought striking her.

"Certainly not."

She sank into a reverie, a deep, unpleasant reverie that compressed her lips and contracted her brow. Suddenly she lifted her head. "He is my husband, after all, Arnold.”

"To be sure he is."

"And therefore-and therefore-there had better be no investigation."

"Why?" asked Mr. Ravensworth, scarcely above his breath.

"Because he does not wish it," she answered, bending her face downwards. "He forbade me to call in aid, or to suffer it to be called in: and, as I say, he is my husband. Will you stop those men from searching, and send them away?"

I do not think I have the power."

"You can forbid them in Lord Level's name. I give you full authority as he would do, were he capable of acting. Arnold, I will have

them out of the house; I will."

"What is it that you fear from them ?"

"That they will question me."

"And if they do?-you can but repeat to them what you told me." "No, it must not be," she shivered. "I could not parry their searching questions."

Mr. Ravensworth paused. "Blanche," he said, in a low tone, "did me all ?"

you

tell

'Perhaps !'

"There! I hear those men up-stairs, and you stand talking idly here! Order them away in Lord Level's name."

As Mr. Ravensworth went up the stairs, the steward met him, pale and agitated, urging him to the same step that Lady Level had done. "It must not be looked into by the police," he whispered; "sir, it must not."

Mr. Ravensworth moved as one in a dream, so perplexed was he. He found the two men in the room where Lady Level had slept, examining the situation of that, and of Lord Level's, and whispering together. They must not leave the house, they said, in reply to Mr. Ravensworth, but

they were willing to retire to the kitchen and there wait for their superior. Accordingly they went down and talked freely with the servants; or rather, perhaps, encouraged the servants to talk freely to them. Mr. Ravensworth remained some little time in Lord Level's room, and then he went down. In one of the passages he met Lady Level, running against her, indeed, in the dark. She appeared to be deeply agitated, and ran from him into the first open door she came to. It was an unfurnished room, and there was no light, save what came from the large bay-window. He followed her in, for she was panting and sobbing hysterically. "Whatever is the matter?" he exclaimed.

She had rushed up to the window, and stood against its frame. "Give me air, give me air! I shall faint: I shall die."

With some trouble he undid the bolt of the window and threw up its middle compartment: then he turned and held her. A ring at that moment came to the outer gate, and she shook as she leaned against him.

"Blanche, let me be your friend; tell me all: let it be what it will, I promise to stand by you."

"They are saying in the kitchen that it was I attacked Lord Level," she uttered, the words breaking from her by jerks, in her agitation.

"Make a friend of me," he continued to urge, his voice full of earnest sympathy; "you shall never have a truer.”

But she only shook as she stood, and grasped his arm.

"Blanche !-did-you-do-it?"

"No," she answered, with a low burst of hysterical sobs, "I only saw it done."

ITALY IN 1848.*

NAPOLEON III. has declared war against Austria from no motives of personal aggrandisement-at any rate he says so: he is prepared to sacrifice the lives of thousands of his soldiers, perchance risk his crown, for the noble motive of liberating priest and soldier ridden Italy. It is a glorious mission, worthy the self-devotion, even immolation, of an empire. How could Frenchmen, themselves revelling in liberty, but hasten to impart the same blessing to the whole world? Is it not the destiny of the Napoleonides to found the great universal republic of Christian fraternity, in which the lion will lie down with the lamb, the Austrian hold the Gaul in brotherly affection?

Unfortunately, however, nations are so perverse, that they cannot be induced to accept what is good for them without some coercion-just as naughty children will not swallow their draught without sundry monitory slaps from the nurse. The Austrians do not yet appreciate the blessings the French offer them; the consequence is, they must be compelled

La Guerre de l'Indépendance Italienne en 1848 et 1849. Par le Général Ulloa. Two Vols. Paris: Hachette et Cie.