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you had better see the young women, who are all this while shivering in the snow, and they will explain all about Mr. Duff.'

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"Well, bring them up,' said I, rather amused and interested; and, meanwhile, I got out of bed, gave the fire an additional poke, just to produce a fine blaze, put my night-lamp on the table, and, wrapping myself in a warm dressing-gown, with a thick nightcap on my head, stood prepared to receive my strange visitors.

"Presently the door opened, and in came two timid girls, pushing two greyhounds before them, as if by way of protection; and, simultaneously, as they entered, both exclaimed

"Monsieur Duff est mort.'

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"Who knows,' said he, that they are not the accomplices of robbers, sent here to entice you forth, that they may rob and murder you, and throw your body into some hollow, where it may lie caked in snow till next spring, by which time they will have escaped, and baffled all suspicion?'

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man, and accompanied us sorrowfully to the gate of the chateau, lighted by two lanterns, which, I ought to have observed before, the girls carried in their hands. As the gate of the chateau closed behind us, I own I felt rather uncomfortable. The snow, already above our knees, was still falling thick; and the lanterns, as the girls scrambled on before me, looked like two huge glowworms traversing the vapory tail of a steam-engine. Noiseless were our footsteps, and slow our progress. The trees on either hand looked chill and ghostlike, as they swung to and fro, and struggled with the snow-storm, groaning sadly, through all their boughs, as though lamenting my coming fate. Of course there was no trace of road, or path, or mark of any kind by which to steer our course. Young women,' cried I, at length, do you know your way at all; and are you quite sure we are going towards Morges?'

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"Perfectly,' replied both of them; and then they muttered in chorus, Monsieur Duff est nort.' "Scarcely had they advanced ten paces further, when both made a strange somersault, the lanterns disappeared, and, throwing up their heels, the girls sprang into the air, and plunged forward into an abyss of snow.

"I hope the practice is peculiar to me of swearing on such occasions. Other people, most likely, utter pious ejaculations. For myself, the habits of the camp come over me, and prove too strong for every better feeling. After indulging myself with the luxury of a few oaths, which did not, so far as I could perceive, tend in the slightest degree to mend the matter, I thought it would not be amiss to grope in the snow for my lost guides. To my extreme surprise, I found, on making the experiment with my stick, that the soft snow in front of me was of enormous depth, or at least appeared so. In a second or two I heard a struggling, and a murmuring; and the words issued from the snow—' Help me, oh help!' It was as dark as pitch, and the cold was intense.

"Where are you, old girl?' cried I, addressing the speaker.

"Here, monsieur, here,' answered she; and then a lump of snow seemed to get into her mouth and stop her utterance.

"Just at that moment I had the pleasure to perceive one of the lanterns emerge from the snow about two yards in front, and the bearer after it. What had become of the other girl and the greyhounds, seemed a mystery. However, in due time the second lantern made its appearance; and then, turning a little to the right, I saw the two dogs standing on what was evidently a narrow bridge, which the young women had just contrived to miss. By following the track of the greyhounds, I easily found my way across; and on we went. Of course, I had long ago dismissed from my mind all idea of robbers and foul play of any kind, for the two girls were obviously as innocent as lambs, and had no fault but that of extreme "Francois shrugged his shoulders, and said no silliness. Presently we got into a road, as we more, but evidently looked upon me as a doomed discovered from the hedges and trees on both sides;

'Well, Francois,' said I, 'that is a serious consideration. The idea of being disposed of that way all the winter is unpleasant, especially as nobody will be hanged for it; no, nor even sent to the maison de force, which is much the same thing. However, I am not much afraid of these wenches and their greyhounds, and so shall go along with them to see all about Monsieur Duff's death, and the lady he has left behind.'

but had not walked on it long before we were startled by an infernal noise behind. I had been in the East, and fancied it could be nothing else than a troop of jackals sweeping over the desert after a gazelle. Every moment the frantic yells came closer and closer. It was clearly a chase of some kind-of dogs or devils. We stood aside to let it pass; and, by lantern-light, caught a glimpse of some large animal darting through the snow, and several others in pursuit of it.

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'I loved Monsieur Duff.'
'And-'

"Was not his wife! I met him in Paris.
We came to

"This short, sad recital was interrupted every moment by sobs and tears; and at the conclusion she took the letter from her bosom, and gave it me to read. The mystery was solved in a moment. It was from Monsieur Duff's wife, who, in the most gentle and loving manner, reproached him for having deserted her and her children. There was not a single word of bitterness from beginning to end-nothing but expressions of the most tender love and unshaken fidelity. It pierced the hardened and corrupt heart of her husband, who had not, however, the courage to face the woman he

Ils sont les loups, monsieur !' cried the girls. "The greyhounds hid themselves, trembling, behind the ample petticoats of their mistresses; He persuaded me to fly with him. and we all three, I fancy, felt extremely uncom- Switzerland; and here, in this house, he took to fortable. At all events, I can answer for myself. | drinking brandy, and never paused till he died. The wolves had driven Monsieur Duff out of the Nothing I could say had any influence over him. heads of the girls, who repeated, again and again, Every day he plunged deeper and deeper into inThey are wolves, sir.' We listened atten- toxication. Yesterday morning the post brought tively. The yelling swept on, grew fainter and him an English letter, which I have here in my fainter, and at length ceased to be heard. We bosom, though I cannot read it. He glanced over then pushed on, and, in a short time, had the satis- its contents, and, drunk as he was, turned pale faction to see a few lights twinkling in the windows and trembling. He then drew a little miniature of Morges. I had swallowed a great deal of from his bosom, which he kissed several times, snow, which, every time I opened my mouth, blew after which he called for a bottle of brandy, and, into it; and was now longing for a sip of eau de drinking off a large tumbler of it, fell back in his vie, to melt my inner man, and set my blood in chair, stiff dead.' motion. This I promised myself as soon as we should enter the town, whatever might become of Monsieur Duff; but, to my extreme disgust, I found, what I ought in all reason to have expected, that every door was close shut, and every soul in the town asleep, save some few lone watchers, who sat by the bed of sickness or death. Presently we arrived at the house in which lay the remains of the unfortunate Monsieur Duff; and a very strange appearance it presented. A narrow staircase, sheltered by vast projecting eaves, led up to the entrance of the first floor; and on every step was a candle burning in a horn lantern. The had wronged. He preferred taking refuge in girls mounted, and I followed them. By this time, we were thickly crusted with snow, which had frozen to our dress, and given us the appearance of three bears just rolled out of their den in the mountains. When I reached the door of Monsieur Duff's apartment, I saw a lady sitting by a bed at the further extremity, and on either side a row of women, each with a candle in her hand; and as we entered they all rose simultaneously, and muttered, in a sepulchral voice, 'Monsieur Duff est mort!' For the moment, I almost fancied myself present at some melodrama in a theatre, so wild and fantastic did the whole scene appear. However, I marched forward towards the bed, where I hoped to obtain an explanation of the mystery. There, as I said, sat a lady, crying bitterly, with her right hand supporting her head, and her left arm grasped by the hand of a corpse, dressed in military uniform, and with a long pipe in its mouth. At first I was rather puzzled to determine whether I ought to laugh, which I felt strongly inclined to do, or to be sympathetic and sentimental. I decided in favor of the latter, and, addressing the lady in French, inquired whether I could do anything for her.

death. And there he now lay before me, a fine, tall, handsome figure; he had evidently not passed the prime of life.

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And why,' I inquired, is Monsieur Duff's body laid out in this preposterous manner?'

"Is it not the way,' she inquired, in which all Englishmen are laid out after death? There is an old Swiss officer here, in Morges, who has been in the English service, and says it is always customary; and so I would not deprive poor Monsieur Duff's body of the honor due to an Englishman.'

"That old officer is an ass,' I exclaimed, a fool-a dolt! No Englishman's body is ever thus travestied after death.'

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"What,' cried she, is it not in England the practice to put a pipe in the mouth of the corpse?'

Far from it,' I replied. 'We treat death seriously in England; and this is making a farce of it.'

“I then ordered the pipe to be removed; the lady disengaged her arm from the grasp of the dead man, and I had Monsieur Duff decently laid out. On the rest of the story I need not insist.

I furnished the lady with the necessary money to return to Paris, where, as I found, she had respectable friends. I buried Monsieur Duff; and, the day after the funeral, met in the street an old officer with whom I was acquainted. He came up to me in a stiff and stately manner, and complained of my having called him a fool and an ass, for which he ought, he said, to demand satisfaction. "My dear sir,' I exclaimed, it is a mistake; I never spoke disrespectfully of you in my life.' "What,' inquired he, did you not tell Monsieur Duff's lady that the man who had given her advice--'

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'Ah, monsieur!' cried I, interrupting him, say no more of that. Had I known it was you, I would not have objected had they put fifty pipes in his mouth. But come, who told you that such was the practice in England?'

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An officer of the Indian army.'

towards the plain below; on the other with a mat-
ted wood, where the interspaces were carpeted
with fallen leaves-red, brown, yellow, of every
variety of shade and tint. Above and below us,
on all sides, were chateaux, villages, farm-houses,
convents, and churches, bathed in that delicious
light which the dawn diffuses over the earth. The
breeze was busy among the trees over our heads,
and birds without number chirped and carolled as
the growing light awakened them.
In the east,
streaks of clouds, extending in long bands one over
the other, were already beginning to be flushed
below with crimson, while their dark upper rims
appeared to support so many layers of clear blue
sky. Then a flood of rich saffron seemed to surge
up into the firmament, mingling with the crimson
below and the bright amethyst above.

"Oh!" exclaimed Carlotta, "what would this earth be without clouds? They are the very craSee how they

"Ah! he was a wag. He meant no harm; dle and birth-place of poetry. but it was a mere joke.'

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Come,' said I, dine with me to-day at the chateau; there are several questions I wish to ask you about the deceased Monsieur Duff. I am desirous of writing to his unhappy wife, and should be glad to be able to say anything calculated to mitigate her sorrow.' It was the first time he heard that the Frenchwoman was not his wife. My inquiries proved unavailing. Monsieur Duff had done nothing during his residence at Morges but drink, swear, and smoke; so I made the best I could of the matter. I erected a tomb over his remains, on which you may read these words, 'Ici git Monsieur Duff.''

CHAPTER XVIII.-THE APENNINES.

deck her countenance with the ornaments of a bride. How she blushes as they stretch and nestle over her like a nuptial veil. What infinite beauty! What sublimity! Ah my friend, would it not be the extreme of happiness to live forever in these mountains, apart from the world, and cradled in delicious dreams born of the imagination ?"

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'What," exclaimed I, "when you was displaying the wonders of your voice, and surrounded by admirers!"

"To be admired," she replied, "is not to be happy. But look; the sun is kindling the whole east, and the Apennines are literally flaming with the reflection of heaven. Tell me, tell me! is earth not a paradise ?”

"You would make it so, Carlotta," I replied, “if it had nothing but one barren moor stretching interminably round its whole circumference."

We had stood still in an open space between the trees to admire the view, and were now joined by Madame B——, with the English officer and his family. The landscape had rendered them all poetical. They remembered and recited scraps of poetry, English, and Italian; and we went on thus together in perfect good humor with the world and ourselves. Here and there, small clear streams, gushing from the rocks, were sparkling and flashing across the road; and anon we came to a cottage, whose inmates were still sleeping, and gathering strength to encounter the toils of the day.

Spenser, in his " Faery Queen," presents us with numerous pictures of sunrise, which are all beautiful, fresh, and cool, like the lovely hour they describe; and I should like to borrow his pen, in order to convey some idea of the dawn I beheld amidst the scenery of the Apennines. One of the greatest delights of travelling is the early rising it necessitates, and the rapturous sensations inspired by the fresh face of nature. We left Nove before it was quite light, and quitted the level of the plain for the ascent of the mountains. Here, as soon as the presence of the day began to make itself felt, we got out to walk; and Carlotta, as usual, joining me and taking my arm, we preceded the rest of the party, as we both habitually walked very fast. We usually talked very fast, also; but on the present occasion there was something so delicious in the air, so serene and beautiful in earth and sky, that we were almost silent. Perhaps -I wish to put the matter sceptically—perhaps Madame B- was a widow; our new miliCarlotta's loveliness extended itself to the scene tary friend had acknowledged himself to be a widaround, and imparted to it a charm it might not ower. Why could they not join their fortunes, otherwise have possessed-I mean, for me. Yet, and face the troubles of the world together? I in itself, it was sufficiently fascinating. Immense saw that this idea had taken possession of Madame old chestnut trees, covered with ripe fruit, stretched | B- -'s mind, for she always, when speaking to here and there in arches over the road, which was him, threw an additional sweetness into her voice, bordered on one side with soft grass, sloping away and smiled and sighed alternately, just as she fan

cied him to be sentimental or otherwise.

And everything else, with different eyes before and after who has not noticed the infinite mysteries that breakfast. When you are hungry, you are savlurk in the female voice? Who has not felt its age, and nothing pleases you-you outrage earth witcheries? Who has not trembled as it has and sky, and are angry with the breeze for blowing poured around him, operating like a spell for good in your face. But when the hot rolls, coffee, butor evil? Who has not marked some voice, harsh, ter, and honey are before you; when you have perhaps, and untunable to others, grow soft at its eaten a certain quantity; when you have sipped approach, and swell into liquid sweetness, inde- your coffee, your good humor returns, you are scribably fascinating? Generally, throughout Italy, reconciled with the world, and you recline at the women have not pleasant voices in conversa- your ease, and think of happiness and cigars. On tion, especially those who sing most exquisitely. the present occasion, everything around was calIt is in England that the female voice appears to culated to please. Before and below us, the Apacquire perfection for the intercourse of life. No-ennines stretched out their arms into a vast amphiwhere else is this daily household music so de- theatre of mountains, covered with waving woods, licious. In Italy, especially, the women talk loud, | studded thickly with towns and villages, and overand thus perhaps spoil their voices; originally, I suspect, none of the sweetest. It is the same in France, and every other country I have visited, save Turkey. Among the Turkish women you hear voices like those you have heard in Englandsoft, gentle, flexible-full of melody and sweetness. Madame B had not, in this respect, been favored by nature; but, such as her powers were, she determined to exercise them to the utmost upon the heart of our gallant friend the captain. But from his round jolly face I could discover no symptoms that any execution had been done upon his heart. In fact, he was too much in love with himself to have much affection to spare for any one else-except his own family, towards whom he was kindness itself.

There is one quality in mountain air which most persons, I dare say, have noticed—it makes one desperately hungry. This confession will, I dare say, lower me many degrees in the estimation of young ladies. But the truth must be told. In spite of Carlotta's voice, in spite of the landscape, in spite of everything, I found myself in possession of so ravenous an appetite that I scarcely knew how to pacify it till we should arrive at the place where we were to breakfast. Imagine me, then, oh, reader! going up to Carlotta, in one of the most romantic scenes in the world, and saying to her, "Are you not hungry, Carlotta ?"

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canopied by a sky of the most brilliant blue. Close at hand were agreeable faces, and nice, dry, clean turf to recline upon. So as many of us as smoked stretched ourselves on the grass, lighted our cigars, and puffed up clouds of fragrance, which the ladies did not dislike in the open air. The reader will, of course, know what I mean by that drowsy, dreamy state of existence which is induced by smoking after breakfast or dinner. Your whole nervous system is brought into complete harmony. Not a single fibre is too tightly braced, or too relaxed; and, like the opium-eater of Lebanon, you fancy yourself in Paradise, or the Indies. But the happiness of one of our party, at least, was suddenly disturbed by the entrance of a man in military costume, who took a chair, and sat down by himself to breakfast. He wore the Austrian uniform, and appeared to eye us with so much attention that my Milanese friend became alarmed, and turned very pale. He did not doubt that he should be arrested in a few minutes, and marched back towards Milan. His lips, therefore, while they held the cigar, trembled visibly, though he puffed away fiercely in order to hide his agitation. To help him out as far as possible, I talked to him of things indifferent; and, with the aid of my friend the English captain, betrayed him occasionally into a laugh, which, however, was only one of those laughs that pass over the surface of the mind when it is

"Yes, very," was her reply; "but, luckily, I filled with bitterness to the core. The Austrian have got some biscuits here in my bag."

She took some out, and gave me two or three; so we went on chatting and eating, to enable me to keep my temper till we reached the little roadside inn, where we all fully determined to make up for lost time. In the garden of the inn a round table had been placed beneath a spreading chestnut tree, which formed a green roof overhead; not the less pleasant because it was studded with ripe fruit which, while waiting, we picked and ate. Here the Milanese, the Dalmatian, and Semler, once more joined our party, and thus assisted us in keeping off the German Swiss, whose company I literally detested. They, therefore, breakfasted at another table by themselves. It is a sad thing to acknowledge that one looks at a landscape, and

ate on, occasionally playing with the pommel of his sword, but seldom withdrawing his eyes from us, not even while stirring his coffee. When breakfast was over, he also lighted a cigar, and, taking up his chair, he drew near us, politely requesting to be allowed to join our circle. This was the unkindest cut of all; for my friend the Carbonaro now felt sure it was all over with him, and looked incessantly round, with the utmost anxiety, to see in what direction he could best make a bolt of it. The Austrian, meanwhile, took no notice of his perturbation, but smoked and talked in the phlegmatic manner characteristic of his countrymen. Presently he rose to take his leave, and went away without having diminished the number of our circle.

From the Spectator.

GROWTH OF THE METROPOLIS.

same nature as that usually held to portend death or disorder in an individual by too copious a flow of blood to the head. That the living streams which daily flood into the city have become too

numerous and swollen for it to receive-that the

THE Parliamentary Paper No. 614 forcibly calls for reflection on the good and evil likely to ensue from the rapid increase of the capital of the empire. According to this return, which appears under the authority of Mr. Mayne, the Police Commissioner, the following augmentations in metropolitan brain, it is sufficient to witness the houses, streets, and inhabitants, have taken place during the last ten years, within the limits of the Metropolitan Police District; that is, within the limits of a district extending to any place not exceeding in a direct line fifteen miles from Charing

Cross

heart is really not large enough for its great body and outlying members-are facts patent to all observers. For proof of this oppression on the intensity of action in the central confluence of business and traffic at mid-day; or traverse the adjacent approaches to the whirlpool of the Bank, the Exchange, Insurance-offices, Auction Mart, Capel Court, and the other foci of sale, transfer, and negotiation, and see the utter confusion, and Population in 1839, 2,011,056; in 1849, 2,336,960: all but impassable throng of men, horses, and veincrease of inhabitants in ten years, 325,904. hicles, that choke up the thoroughfares. For all Number of new houses built since 1839, 64,058; this pressure and jumble, from Temple Bar to number of new streets formed, 1,642; length of Aldgate Pump, and from Holborn Bars to the Innew streets, 200 miles. Number of houses build-dia House, relief is immediately required; and on ing, July 1849, 3,485. a much wider scale ought provision to be made for future increase. Neither the population nor trade of London is likely to diminish, but largely to augment for years, probably ages, to come. The world is only just entering with unanimity of impulse on the first stages of peaceful development. From the natural growth of the inland trade of the country, from the increase of foreign trade by the progress of industry and capital in the north and east of Europe, in the New World, and in the limitless regions of Australia and the Polynesian Islands, vast accessions must accrue to the crowd and traffic of the capital, for which accommodation must be provided Neither subways below the streets nor atmospheric ways above them would be adequate to meet the contingency; for it is not only that the streets would be too few or too narrow for transit, but the central area of the city itself would be too confined a space for its business transactions; and this difficulty could hardly be more easily met in the city nidus than the insular bounds of Great Britain could be extended.

It may be thought that London cannot grow too big; that it may continue spreading round interminably, like the famed banyan tree of the East, every expansion of whose widening circuit yields grateful shade and shelter; or that, as the empire itself has acquired greatness by adding colony to colony and dependency to dependency, so may its capital progress, eating up hamlet after hamlet, vill after vill, and parish after parish, unstintedly. But this would be a delusive forecast of the destiny of the modern Babylon. Like all great consolidations of power, the British capital contains within itself the germs of disintegration. Already it has ceased to be a unity; it is no longer one and indivisible—a compact burgh, of which his worship the mayor can at night close the gates, raise up the portcullis, and carry home in his pocket the keys of the citizens till next morning. It is more of constellation or cluster of cities, each having its separate district and conditions of existence-physical, moral, and political. The East-end is wholly different from and partly antagonistic to the West-end; on the opposite flanks, separated by the bed of the Thames, are vast masses of population alien to each other in speech, social culture, and occupation; next, at two opposite corners of the vast parallelogram, at the extremities of one diagonal line, are the remote and densely-peopled regions of Bethnal Green and Tothill Fields, while the crossing diagonal has Paddington and St. John's Wood at one end, balanced, and perhaps also partly fed and sustained, by Bermondsey and Rotherhithe at the other end; all these separate locales of inhabitants being nearly as diversely marked and caste as so many distinct nationalities. So that for any oneness of purpose, any concerted action or expression of sentiment or interest, the metropolis has become weaker and less consentaneous in force and outpouring than some of the second-rate or third-rate towns of the kingdom.

A second noticeable element of debility or break-up in the status of the capital, is of the VOL. XXIII. 33

CCXCI.

LIVING AGE.

Therefore this urgency, growing out of the further increase of the trade and population of the metropolis, is likely, by diffusion, to operate a further diversion of its central energies. The precise course the relief needed will take, it may not be easy to foresee. Possibly a new London adjacent to the old may spring up for the aid of its parent; possibly Smithfield or Islington may become the site of a new Bank of England, new Royal Exchange, new India House, or new Jones Loyd and Co., Smith, Payne and Co., or new Colvin and Co., connected with and chiefly managing the trade of the northern and eastern counties; or the foreign commerce of London and navigation of the river may be relieved, as that of Liverpool and the Mersey are likely to be through Birkenhead, by the establishment of an outport nearer to the mouth of the Thames, at Southend, the Naze, or Margate, for which railway communications offer inviting facilities. Whatever direction further progress may necessitate, enough has

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