one, though it has worn rather a petrifying look | with a look of patient resignation, which was his toward me."

But when it was felt that the show was ended - when the twelve prisoners released in honor of the day, and the very barberi, or race-horses, with the arms of their owners embroidered on their cloths, had followed up the Signoria, and been duly consecrated to San Giovanni, and every one was moving from the window-Nello, whose Florentine curiosity was of that lively canine sort which thinks no trifle too despicable for investigation, put his hand on Tito's shoul--which acted as other impulses do, without any der, and said,

:

face like the light in a semi-transparent lamp; tian such as was desired for him by the friends the transient pink flush on Romola's face and who wished him to be taught a little propriety neck, which subtracted nothing from her majes- and humility. Scala was far from being the ty, but only gave it the exquisite charm of wo- only friend of this class, and he found several manly sensitiveness, heightened still more by who, if they were not among those thirsty adwhat seemed the paradoxical, boy-like frankness mirers of mediocrity that were glad to be reof her look and smile. They were the best com- freshed with his verses in hot weather, were yet rades in the world during the hours they passed quite willing to join him in doing that moral together round the blind man's chair: she was service to Politian. It was finally agreed that constantly appealing to Tito, and he was inform- Tito should be supported in a Greek chair, as ing her, yet he felt himself strangely in subjec- Demetrio Calcondila had been by Lorenzo himtion to Romola with that majestic simplicity of self, who, being at the same time the affectionhers he felt for the first time, without defining ate patron of Politian, had shown by precedent it to himself, that loving awe in the presence of that there was nothing invidious in such a measnoble womanhood which is, perhaps, something ure, but only a zeal for true learning and the inlike the worship paid of old to a great nature-struction of the Florentine youth. goddess, who was not all-knowing, but whose Tito was thus sailing under the fairest breeze, life and power were something deeper and more and besides convincing fair judges that his talprimordial than knowledge. They had never ents squared with his good fortune, he wore that been alone together, and he could frame to him- fortune so easily and unpretentiously that no self no probable image of love-scenes between one had yet been offended by it. He was not them: he could only fancy and wish wildly-unlikely to get into the best Florentine society: what he knew was impossible-that Romola would some day tell him that she loved him. One day in Greece, as he was leaning over a wall in the sunshine, a little black-eyed peasant girl, who had rested her water-pot on the wall, crept gradually nearer and nearer to him, and at last shyly asked him to kiss her, putting up her round olive cheek very innocently. Tito was used to love that came in this unsought fashion. But Romola's love would never come in that way-would it ever come at all? and yet it was that topmost apple on which he had set his mind. He was in his fresh youth-not pas-sics amiable to the sons of great houses. sionate, but impressible: it was as inevitable that he should feel lovingly toward Romola as that the white irises should be reflected in the clear sunlit stream; but he had no coxcombry, and he had an intimate sense that Romola was something very much above him. Many men have felt the same before a large-eyed, simple child.

Nevertheless Tito had had the rapid success which would have made some men presuming, or would have warranted him in thinking that there would be no great presumption in entertaining an agreeable confidence that he might one day be the husband of Romola-nay, that her father himself was not without a vision of such a future for him. His first auspicious interview with Bartolommeo Scala had proved the commencement of a growing favor on the Secretary's part, and had led to an issue which would have been enough to make Tito decide on Florence as the place in which to establish himself, even if it had held no other magnet. Politian was professor of Greek as well as Latin at Florence, professorial chairs being maintained there, although the university had been removed to Pisa; but for a long time Demetrio Calcondila, one of the most eminent and respectable among the emigrant Greeks, had also held a Greek chair, simultaneously with the too predominant Italian. Calcondila was now gone to Milan, and there was no counterpoise or rival to Poli

society where there was much more plate than the circle of enameled silver in the centre of the brass dishes, and where it was not forbidden by the Signory to wear the richest brocade. For where could a handsome young scholar not be welcome when he could touch the lute and troll a gay song? That bright face, that easy smile, that liquid voice, seemed to give life a holiday aspect; just as a strain of gay music and the hoisting of colors make the work-worn and the sad rather ashamed of showing themselves. Here was a professor likely to render the Greek clas

And that was not the whole of Tito's good fortune; for he had sold all his jewels, except the ring he did not choose to part with, and he was master of full five hundred gold florins.

Yet the moment when he first had this sum in his possession was the crisis of the first serious struggle his facile, good-humored nature had known. An importunate thought, of which he had till now refused to see more than the shadow as it dogged his footsteps, at last rushed upon him and grasped him he was obliged to pause and decide whether he would surrender and obey, or whether he would give the refusal that must carry irrevocable consequences. It was in the room above Nello's shop, which Tito had now hired as a lodging, that the elder Cennini handed him the last quota of the sum on behalf of Bernardo Rucellai, the purchaser of the Cleopatra.

"Ecco, giovane mio!" said the respectable printer and goldsmith, "you have now a pretty little fortune; and if you will take my advice, you will let me place your florins in a safe quarter, where they may increase and multiply, instead of slipping through your fingers for banquets and other follies which are rife among our Florentine youth. And it has been too much the fashion of scholars, especially when, like our Pietro Crinito, they think their scholarship needs to be scented and broidered, to squander with one hand till they have been fain to beg with

the other.

I have brought you the money, and you are free to make a wise choice or an unwise: I shall see on which side the balance dips. We Florentines hold no man a member of an Art till he has shown his skill and been matriculated; and no man is matriculated to the art of life till he has been well tempted. If you make up your mind to put your florins out to usury, you can let me know to-morrow. A scholar may marry, and should have something in readiness for the morgen-cap.* Addio."

As Cennini closed the door behind him Tito turned round with the smile dying out of his face, and fixed his eyes on the table where the florins lay. He made no other movement, but stood with his thumbs in his belt, looking down, in that transfixed state which accompanies the concentration of consciousness on some inward image.

of the possible moment when he might find his father again, and carry him deliverance. It would surely be an unfairness that he, in his full ripe youth, to whom life had hitherto had some of the stint and subjection of a school, should turn his back on promised love and distinction, and perhaps never be visited by that promise again. "And yet," he said to himself, "if I were certain—yes, if I were certain that Baldassarre Calvo was alive, and that I could free him, by whatever exertions or perils, I would go now-now I have the money: it was useless to debate the matter before. I would go now to Bardo and Bartolommeo Scala and tell them the whole truth." Tito did not say to himself so distinctly that if those two men had known the whole truth he was aware there would have been no alternative for him but to go in search of his benefactor, who, if alive, was the rightful "A man's ransom!"-who was it that had owner of the gems, and whom he had always said five hundred florins was more than a man's equivocally spoken of as "lost;" he did not say ransom? If now, under this mid-day sun, on to himself, what he was not ignorant of, that some hot coast far away, a man somewhat strick- Greeks of distinction had made sacrifices, taken en in years—a man not without high thoughts voyages again and again, and sought help from and with the most passionate heart-a man who crowned and mitred heads for the sake of freelong years ago had rescued a little boy from a |ing relatives from slavery to the Turks. Publife of beggary, filth, and cruel wrong, had rear- lic opinion did not regard that as an exceptional ed him tenderly, and been to him as a father- | virtue. if that man were now under this summer sun This was his first real colloquy with himself: toiling as a slave, hewing wood and drawing he had gone on following the impulses of the water, perhaps being smitten and buffeted be- moment, and one of those impulses had been to cause he was not deft and active? If he were conceal half the fact: he had never considered saying to himself, "Tito will find me: he had this part of his conduct long enough to face the but to carry our manuscripts and gems to Ven- consciousness of his motives for the concealment. ice; he will have raised money, and will never What was the use of telling the whole? It was rest till he finds me out?" If that were certain, true, the thought had crossed his mind several could he, Tito, see the price of the gems lying times since he had quitted Nauplia that, after before him, and say, "I will stay at Florence, all, it was a great relief to be quit of Baldassarre, where I am fanned by soft airs of promised love and he would have liked to know who it was and prosperity: I will not risk myself for his that had fallen overboard. But such thoughts sake?" No, surely not, if it were certain. But spring inevitably out of a relation that is irknothing could be farther from certainty. The some. Baldassarre was exacting, and had got galley had been taken by a Turkish vessel on its stranger as he got older: he was constantly scruway to Delos: that was known by the report of tinizing Tito's mind to see whether it answered the companion galley, which had escaped. But to his own exaggerated expectations; and age there had been resistance, and probable blood--the age of a thick-set, heavy-browed, bald shed; a man had been seen falling overboard: man beyond sixty, whose intensity and eagerwho were the survivors, and what had befallen ness in the grasp of ideas have long taken the them among all the multitude of possibilities? character of monotony and repetition, may be Had not he, Tito, suffered shipwreck, and nar-looked at from many points of view without rowly escaped drowning? He had good cause for feeling the omnipresence of casualties that threatened all projects with futility. The rumor that there were pirates who had a settlement in Delos was not to be depended on, or inight be nothing to the purpose. What, probably enough, would be the result if he were to quit Florence and go to Venice; get authoritative letters-yes, he knew that might be done and set out for the Archipelago? Why, that he should be himself seized, and spend all his florins on preliminaries, and be again a destitute wanderer-with no more gems to sell.

Tito had a clearer vision of that result than A sum given by the bridegroom to the bride the day after the marriage (Morgengabe).

being found attractive. Such a man, stranded among new acquaintances, unless he had the philosopher's stone, would hardly find rank, youth, and beauty at his feet. The feelings that gather fervor from novelty will be of little help toward making the world a home for dimmed and faded human beings; and if there is any love of which they are not widowed, it must be the love that is rooted in memories and distills perpetually the sweet balms of fidelity and forbearing tenderness.

But surely such memories were not absent from Tito's mind? Far in the backward vista of his remembered life, when he was only seven years old, Baldassarre had rescued him from blows, had taken him to a home that seemed

like opened paradise, where there was sweet food | Hitherto Tito had left in vague indecision the and soothing caresses, all had on Baldassarre's question whether, with the means in his power, knee; and from that time till the hour they had he would not return, and ascertain his father's parted Tito had been the one centre of Baldas- fate; he had now made a definite excuse to himsarre's fatherly cares. self for not taking that course; he had avowed to himself a choice which he would have been ashamed to avow to others, and which would have made him ashamed in the resurgent presence of his father. But the inward shame, the reflex of that outward law which the great heart of mankind makes for every individual man, a reflex which will exist even in the absence of the sympathetic impulses that need no law, but rush to the deed of fidelity and pity as inevitably as the brute mother shields her young from the attack of the hereditary enemy-that inward shame was showing its blushes in Tito's determined assertion to himself that his father was dead, or that at least search was hopeless.

Well, he had been docile, pliable, quick of apprehension, ready to acquire: a very bright, lovely boy; a youth of even splendid grace, who seemed quite without vices, as if that beautiful form represented a vitality so exquisitely poised and balanced that it could know no uneasy desires, no unrest—a radiant presence for a lonely man to have won for himself. If he were silent when his father expected some response, still he did not look moody; if he declined some labor --why, he flung himself down with such a charming, half-smiling, half-pleading air, that the pleasure of looking at him made amends to one who had watched his growth with a sense of claim and possession: the curves of Tito's mouth had ineffable good-humor in them. And then the quick talent, to which every thing came readily, from philosophic systems to the rhymes of a strect ballad caught up at a hearing! Would any one have said that Tito had not made due return to his benefactor, or that his gratitude and affection would fail on any great demand? He did not admit that his gratitude had failed; but it was not certain that Baldassarre was in slavery, not certain that he was living.

"Do I not owe something to myself?" said Tito, inwardly, with a slight movement of his shoulders, the first he had made since he had turned to look down at the florins. "Before I quit every thing, and incur again all the risks of which I am even now weary, I must at least have a reasonable hope. Am I to spend my life in a wandering search? I believe he is dead. Cennini was right about my florins: I will place them in his hands to-morrow."

When, the next morning, Tito put this determination into act he had chosen his color in the game, and had given an inevitable bent to his wishes. He had made it impossible that he should not from henceforth desire it to be the truth that his father was dead; impossible that he should not be tempted to baseness rather than that the precise facts of his conduct should not remain forever concealed.

Under every guilty secret there is hidden a brood of guilty wishes, whose unwholesome infecting life is cherished by the darkness. The contaminating effect of deeds often lies less in the commission than in the consequent adjustment of our desires-the enlistment of our selfinterest on the side of falsity; as, on the other hand, the purifying influence of public confession springs from the fact that by it the hope in lies is forever swept away, and the soul recovers the noble attitude of simplicity.

CHAPTER X.

UNDER THE PLANE-TREE.

On the day of San Giovanni it was already three weeks ago that Tito had handed his florins to Cennini, and we have seen that as he set out toward the Via de' Bardi he showed all the outward signs of a mind at ease. How should it be otherwise? He never jarred with what was immediately around him, and his nature was too joyous, too unapprehensive, for the hidden and the distant to grasp him in the shape of a dread. As he turned out of the hot sunshine into the shelter of a narrow street, took off the black cloth berretta, or simple cap with upturned lappet, which just crowned his brown curls, pushing his hair and tossing his head backward to court the cooler air, there was no brand of duplicity on his brow, neither was there any stamp of candor: it was simply a finely formed, square, smooth young brow; and the slow absent glance he cast round at the upper windows of the houses had neither more dissimulation in it, nor more ingenuousness, than belongs to a youthful wellopened eyelid with its unwearied breadth of gaze; to perfectly pellucid lenses; to the undimmed dark of a rich brown iris; and to a pure cerulean-tinted angle of whiteness streaked with the delicate shadows of long eyelashes. Was it that Tito's face attracted or repelled according to the mental attitude of the observer? Was it a cipher with more than one key? The strong, unmistakable expression in his whole air and person was a negative one, and it was perfectly veracious; it declared the absence of any uneasy claim, any restless vanity, and it made the admiration that followed him as he passed among the troop of holiday-makers a thoroughly willing tribute.

Besides, in this first distinct colloquy with himself the ideas which had previously been For by this time the stir of the Festa was felt scattered and interrupted had now concentrated even in the narrowest side streets; the throng themselves: the little rills of selfishness had which had at one time been concentrated in the united and made a channel, so that they could lines through which the procession had to pass never again meet with the same resistance. I was now streaming out in all directions in pur

A general laugh among the by-standers ac

probably, by the look of relief and confidence with which Tessa clung to Tito's arm, as he drew it from her waist and placed her hand within it. She only cared about the laugh as she might have cared about the roar of wild beasts from which she was escaping, not attaching any meaning to it; but Tito, who had no sooner got her on his arm than he foresaw some embarrassment in the situation, hastened to get clear of observers, who, having been despoiled of an expected amusement, were sure to re-establish the balance by jests.

"See, see, little one! here is your hood," said the conjuror, throwing the bit of white drapery over Tessa's head. "Orsù, bear me no malice; come back to me when Messere can spare you."

suit of a new object. Such intervals of a Festa are precisely the moments when the vaguely act-companied these last words of the conjuror, raised, ive animal spirits of a crowd are likely to be the most petulant and most ready to sacrifice a stray individual to the greater happiness of the greater number. As Tito entered the neighborhood of San Martino, he found the throng rather denser; and near the hostelry of the Bertucce, or Baboons, there was evidently some object which was arresting the passengers and forming them into a knot. It needed nothing of great interest to draw aside passengers unfreighted with a purpose, and Tito was preparing to turn aside into an adjoining street, when, amidst the loud laughter, his ear discerned a distressed childish voice crying, "Loose me! Holy Virgin, help me!" which at once determined him to push his way into the knot of gazers. He had just had time to perceive that the distressed voice came from a young contadina, whose white hood had fallen off in the struggle to get her hands free from the grasp of a man in the parti-colored dress of a cerretano, or conjuror, who was making laughing attempts to soothe and cajole her, evidently carrying with him the amused sympathy of the spectators, who by a persuasive variety of words, signifying simpleton, for which the Florentine dialect is rich in equivalents, seemed to be arguing with the contadina against her obstinacy. At the first moment the girl's face was turned away, and he saw only her lightbrown hair plaited and fastened with a long silver pin; but in the next, the struggle brought her face opposite to Tito's, and he saw the baby features of Tessa, her blue eyes filled with tears, and her under-lip quivering. Tessa, too, saw him, and through the mist of her swelling tears there beamed a sudden hope, like that in the face of a little child, when, held by a stranger against its will, it sees a familiar hand stretched

out.

In an instant Tito had pushed his way through the barrier of by-standers, whose curiosity made them ready to turn aside at the sudden interference of this handsome young signor, had grasped Tessa's waist, and had said, "Loose this maiden! What right have you to hold her against her will ?"

"Ah! Maestro Vaiano, she'll come back presently, as the toad said to the harrow," called out one of the spectators, seeing how Tessa started and shrank at the action of the conjuror.

Tito pushed his way vigorously toward the corner of a side street, a little vexed at this delay in his progress to the Via de' Bardi, and intending to get rid of the poor little contadina as soon as possible. The next street, too, had its passengers inclined to make holiday remarks at so unusual a pair; but they had no sooner entered it than he said, in a kind but hurried manner, "Now, little one, where were you going? Are you come by yourself to the Festa ?"

"Ah no!" said Tessa, looking frightened and distressed again; "I have lost my mother in the crowd-her and my father-in-law. They will be angry—he will beat me. It was in the crowd in San Pulinari-somebody pushed me along and I couldn't stop myself, so I got away from them. Oh, I don't know where they're gone! Please, don't leave me!"

Her eyes had been swelling with tears again, and she ended with a sob.

Tito hurried along again: the Church of the Badia was not far off. They could enter it by the cloister that opened at the back, and in the church he could talk to Tessa-perhaps leave her. No! it was an hour at which the church was not open; but they paused under the shelter of the cloister, and he said, "Have you no cousin or friend in Florence, my little Tessa, whose house you could find; or are you afraid of walking by yourself since you have been frightened by the conjuror? I am in a hurry to get to Oltrarno, but if I could take you any where

The conjuror—a man with one of those faces in which the angles of the eyes and eyebrows, of the nostrils, mouth, and sharply-defined jaw, all tend upward-showed his small regular teeth in an impish but not ill-natured grin, as he let go Tessa's hands, and stretched out his own backward, shrugging his shoulders, and bending them forward a little in a half-apologetic, half-near-" protesting manner.

"I meant the ragazza no evil in the world, Messere: ask this respectable company. I was only going to show them a few samples of my skill, in which this little damsel might have helped me the better because of her kitten face, which would have assured them of open dealing; and I had promised her a lapful of confetti as a reward. But what then? Messer has doubtless better confetti at hand, and she knows it."

"Oh, I am frightened: he was the devil-I know he was. And I don't know where to goI have nobody: and my mother meant to have her dinner somewhere, and I don't know where. Holy Madonna! I shall be beaten."

The corners of the pouting mouth went down piteously, and the poor little bosom with the beads on it above the green serge gamurra heaved so that there was no longer any help for it: a loud sob would come, and the big tears fell as