"If you mean," said Lady Ursula, "whether I accounted to mamma for your conduct as I do to myself— in other words, whether I betrayed your secret-I have carefully refrained from discussing the subject with her. Fortunately, after dinner at the Nolands' last night, Broadbrim told me that he had seen you, and that you were coming here to-day, so I assured mamma that she would hear from you the true state of the case; though, of course, I felt myself bound to let her understand that, owing to a fact which I was unable to explain, she had been completely misled by you."

"And what did Lady Broadbrim say?" I asked.

"She said that had it not been for a meeting she was obliged to attend this morning, she would have waited to see you to-day, but that she was sure I laboured under some strange delusion, and that a few words of explanation from you would smooth everything."

"Will you allow me to tell you what those few words are?" said I. "Lady Broadbrim little imagines the real state of the case, because she knows what you do not know, that I am engaged in clearing off her own pecuniary liabilities, and making arrangements by which the old-standing claims on the Broadbrim estates may be met.

You may never have heard how seriously the family is embarrassed, and how unlucky all Lady Broadbrim's attempts to retrieve its fortunes by speculation have been. I could only account to her for the pecuniary sacrifices she knows I am making by allowing her to suppose that I was incurring them for your sake." I could not resist letting a certain tone of pique penetrate this speech, and the puzzled and pained expression of Lady Ursula's face afforded me a sense of momentary gratification, of which I speedily repented. As she looked at me earnestly, her large blue eyes filled slowly with tears. "Is she crying because this

or

last speech of mine proves me hopelessly mad?" thought I; does she feel herself in a pecuniary trap, and is she crying because she does not see her way out of it?” and I felt the old sensation coming over me, and my head beginning to swim. Why, oh why, am I denied that method in my madness which it must be such a comfort to possess? It is just at the critical moment that my osseous matter invariably plays me a trick. I seemed groping for light and strength, and mechanically put out my hand; the soft touch of one placed gently in it thrilled through my nerves with an indescribable current, and instantaneously the horrid feeling left me, and I emerged from the momentary torpor into which I had fallen. don't think Ursula remarked it, for she said, and her eyes were now overflowing, in a voice of surpassing sweetness, "Lord Frank, I have discovered your real secret; it is no longer possible for you to conceal the noble motives which have actuated you under your pretended

I

"Hush!" I said, interrupting her; "what I did, whether rightly or wrongly, I did for the best. Now I will be guided by your wishes. What am I to do?"

"Allow no worldly consideration, however unselfish, either for myself or those dearest to me, to induce you to swerve from the course which truth and honour distinctly point out. Whatever may seem to be the consequences, we are both bound to follow this, and we have but to feel that, if need be, we are ready to make great sacrifices to receive the requisite faith and strength. Believe me," she concluded, and her voice trembled slightly, "whatever happens, I shall feel that you have given me proofs of a friendship upon which I may depend."

I pressed the hand I still held, and I felt the touch was sacred. Ah, thought I, as I left the room,

and was conscious that the gentle influence of her I had parted from was still resting upon me, "that is the right kind of spirit-medium. There is a magnetism in that slender finger which supports and purifies." O my hardened and material readers, don't suppose that because I know you will laugh at the idea of a purifying or invigorating magnetism I shall hesitate to write exactly what I feel on such matters. If I refrain from saying a great deal more, it is not because I shrink from your ridicule, but from your ignorance; you may not believe that the pearls exist; I honestly admit that they are not yet in my possession, but I have seen those who own them, and, unfortunately, also I have seen the animals before whom they have been cast. And you, my dear young ladies, do not ignore the responsibility which the influence you are able to exercise over young men imposes upon you. You need not call it magnetism unless you like, but be sure that there is that conveyed in a touch or a glance which elevates or degrades him upon whom it is bestowed, according as you preserve the purity and simplicity of your inmost natures. If you would only regard yourselves in the light of female missionaries to that benighted tribe of lavender-gloved young gentlemen who flutter about you like moths round a candle, you would send them away glowing and happy, instead of singeing their wings. If, when these butterflies come to sip, you would give them honey instead of poison, they would not forsake you as they do now for the gaudy flowers which are too near you. I know what you have to contend against-the scheming mothers who bring you up to the "Daughticultural Show," labelled and decorated, and put up to competition as likely prize-winners who deliberately expose you to the first rush of your first seasons, and mercilessly watch you as you are swept along by the tearing stream

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who see you without compunction cast away on sandbanks of worldliness, where you remain till you become as "hard" and as fast those you find stranded there before you. Here your minds become properly, or rather improperly, opened. You hear, for the first time, to your astonishment, young men talked of by their Christian or nicknames

their domestic life canvassed, their eligibility discussed, and the varied personal experiences through which your "hard and fast" friends have passed, related.

Then, better prepared for the rest of the voyage, you start again, and venture a little on your own account. What bold swimmers you are becoming now! How you laugh at and defy the rocks and reefs upon which you are ultimately destined to split! Already you look back with surprise to the time when almost everything you heard shocked you. What an immense amount of unnecessary knowledge you have acquired since then, and how recklessly you display it! Do you think it has softened and elevated you? Do you think the moral contact which should be life-giving to those who know you, benefits them?

It is not true, because young men behave heartlessly, that you must flirt "in self-defence," as you call it. When a warfare of this kind once begins, it is difficult to fix the responsibility; but if one side left off, the occupation of the other would be gone. If you want to revenge yourselves on these fickle youthsstrike! as they do in the manufacturing districts. Conceive the wholesome panic you would cause, if every girl in London bound herself not to flirt for the entire season!

Unless you do something of this kind soon, you will reverse the whole system of nature. The men will be the candles, and you the moths. They will be the flowers, and you the butterflies. If all the brothers in London persist in trying to imitate their sisters, and all the

sisters ape their brothers, what a nice confusion we shall arrive at. The reason I preach to you and not to them now, is, because I think I have a better chance with the mind of a masculine young woman than a feminine young man. If you only knew what a comfort it would be to talk sense instead of that incessant chaff, you would read a little more. I don't object to your riding in the Park-the abominable constitution of society makes it almost the only opportunity of seeing and talking to those you like without being talked about; but you need not rush off for a drive in the carriage immediately after lunch, just because you are too restless to stay at home.

First, the Park and young men, then lunch, then Marshall and Snelgrove, then tea and young men again, then dinner, drums, and balls, and young men to three A.M. That is the tread-wheel you have chosen to turn without the smallest

profit to yourself or any one else. If I seem to speak strongly, it is because my heart yearns over you. I belonged once to the lavendergloved tribe myself, and though I have long since abandoned the hunting-grounds of my youth, I would give the world to see them happy and innocent. Moreover, I know you too well to imagine that I have written a word which will offend you. Far from it. We shall be warmer and closer friends ever after; but I am strongly afraid Mamma will disapprove. She will call 'Piccadilly' "highly improper," and say that it is a book she has not allowed any of "her girls" to read. I don't want to preach disobedience; but there are modes well known to my fair young friends of reading books which Mamma forbids, and I trust that they will never read one against her wish which may leave a more injurious impression upon their minds than 'Piccadilly.'

THESE are days of sorrow and mourning in the ancient capital of the warlike subalpine kingdom. Turin veils her face and casts ashes on her head, for her glory is about to go forth from her gates without prospect of return. Other cities have had misfortunes grievous to endure; plague and pestilence have depopulated them, barbarians have sacked and burned, waters have overwhelmed, and earthquakes have overthrown them; but from disasters and ruin they rose again, prouder and more stately than before, and past misfortune was soon forgotten in the vigour of revival and the sunshine of success. Turin has no such hope to console her desolation. Harder to bear than the greatest of those calamities is the fate that now befalls her. After being the head of the corner, it is doubly cruel to be cast down and rejected by the builder. After having been for centuries the chosen of kings and courts and senates, it is grievous to dwindle into the insignificant residence of a provincial aristocracy. All these losses, all this humiliation, incurred by no fault, but due to merit, the ungracious guerdon of loyalty, valour, and self-sacrifice. It is because Piedmont has been ever loyal to its kings, valiant in the field, stout-hearted in adversity, and persevering in its enterprises, that Turin now finds itself on the eve of decapitalisation. Virtue, says the moralist, is its own reward; and amongst men such may be the case, but here is a flagrant proof that it is not always so with cities.

The Piedmontese have been called the English of Italy, and they have certainly long been greatly in advance of the rest of the country,

VOL. XCVII.—NO. DXCVI.

thanks to freedom, religious and civil, and to its natural consequence, unrestricted and profitable intercourse with nations more advanced in civilisation. The refuge, after 1848, of many of the most enlightened and intelligent men of other parts of Italy, Turin's increase in size and prosperity has also borne testimony to the benefits of constitutional government. Whilst deploring the disastrous change now impending over her, one cannot but wonder at the persistent conviction the Turinese have cherished, that their city would continue to be the capital of Italy whole and united. This might have been possible, had the peninsula accrued to the house of Savoy by right of conquest. Considering the way in which the kingdom of Italy has been formed, it was unreasonable to expect that its numerous famous cities should be content, one and all, to waive their claims and doff their bonnets before a traditionless town in a remote corner of the kingdom, with inhabitants only semi-Italian, and whose habitual discourse is in a harsh and barbarous patois. Such an expectation could hardly, one would think, survive calm reflection. Before Rome, it is true, Turin bowed her head and declared her readiness to resign her supremacy.

But the transfer to the Capitol was a remote contingency; who could tell what time would elapse ere the tricolor should wave over the city of the Cæsars? Turin has been called upon for an earlier sacrifice, and, great though it be, it is not to be denied that some compensation has already been afforded. It is no small glory to have been the armed hand, civilised and liberating, which has

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drawn together the severed portions of the fairest of European lands, which has combined into one state Tuscany and the Sicilies, Lombardy and the Romagna, extending to them all the benefits of example, and inspiring even the ignorant and degraded Neapolitan with a sense of his inferiority and a desire for improvement. One of .the most striking features of the change that has taken place in Southern Italy is the progress of education-many schools now open and well attended, where lately scarcely one was to be found. This is satisfactory to reflect upon, but still, for Piedmont, and especially for Turin, the change of capital is hard to bear, the more so as it was decided only two years ago that, until Rome should be acquired, Turin was the most fitting seat of government. If Tuscany be renowned in the annals of poetry and art, Piedmont is no less celebrated for the military virtues and exploits of its princes and people. We live in an age of steel and steam, when the sword is more often in request than the lyre and the easel, especially in a country whose very existence is still disputed, and whose nearest neighbour is a powerful foe. It may be urged that the arsenal rather than the picture-gallery claims the presence of a soldiersovereign. Cialdini's arguments in favour of the strategical advantages of Florence find opponents amongst Italian generals not less experienced than himself, and whose military education has been more regular than his. In short, the Piedmontese have much to urge against the change, and it is natural that they should dispute its propriety and justice. The contrivers of the Convention, the Minghetti Ministry, might have found it difficult fully to prepare the minds of the people of this city for the loss of rank about to befall it; but they should at least have endeavoured to break the news to them gently, and to spare

them the shock of a sudden announcement. If they thought themselves justified in concluding a convention of which the change of capital was a condition, without consulting Parliament as to whether that condition were a proper one, they should have taken measures to conciliate public opinion. But nothing of the kind was done-not so much as a newspaper article in any of the numerous journals then subsidised with the funds of the State. It is still a matter of dispute how the news got out. As many believe, the present Secretary of Legation at Paris, a protégé of Cavour's, and who in September last was doing duty at the Italian Foreign Office, communicated it to a friend of his, the editor of a Turin morning paper. The Secretary and the editor are both Jews, and a considerable intimacy existed between them. According to another and more accredited version, Minghetti himself, with characteristic levity and want of foresight, authorised the publication of the change of capital, which was suddenly announced by the halfpenny journal referred to. One morning the Turinese read at every street corner the totally unexpected intelligence that their capital was to be reduced to a provincial town. It is hardly worth while to mention the story circulated at certain Turinese tea-tables, to the effect that the King's favourite, the wellknown Rosina, to whom he is reported to be privately married, taunted an uncivil shopkeeper with the coming change. By whomsoever first betrayed, the news came out abruptly, and the shock was electric. But there was no danger of serious disturbances as its consequence, and it was the fault of the authorities, of the poltroonery of some and the folly of others, that Turin's streets were stained with blood. "Who would have supposed," a member of the late Cabinet was heard to say, "that the Turinese would have risen in