with whom revenge is virtue;" and here was a case in which the indulgence of that passion was more the effect of spiritboiling temperament, of veins effervescent of liquid fire, than the cold-blooded and calculating instance given by the dramatist, whose sentence I quoted.

The first object that caught Lord Ormsby's glance, when, roused by the noise, he turned suddenly round, was this infuriated being, in the act of rushing forward, the deadly weapon in his hand, as, newly polished, it glittered in the sun, but yielded in brilliancy to the flash of his fiery eye. Already had he seized his victim, and a single second would have closed for ever Sir James's earthly career, when the arm which was in the act of descending was suddenly checked with a strong shock, and fell powerless beneath Ormsby's vigorous

grasp.

The ruffian immediately closed with his new antagonist; and, as Ormsby was collecting his strength to hurl him indignantly away, the assassin changed his hand, shortened his hold of the weapon, and twice stabbed him in the side. Our hero grasped him convulsively for a moment, and then as involuntarily relaxing his hold, tottered and fell without a groan on the floor, which was soon flooded with his blood.

Whilst the first impulse of Sir James was of course to rush towards Lord Ormsby, the ruffian took advantage of that opportunity to escape.

Our hero's case seemed desperate. From a faint struggle at respiration it was evident that he still breathed; but it seemed impossible but that life must issue in the stream which continued to flow in torrents from his wounds. At

this moment the courier, whose knife had been used as the murderous instrument, happened to enter the shop to reclaim it, and being recognised by Sir James as our friend Pierre, he was eagerly applied to for assistance by the Baronet; whose presence of mind had completely abandoned him in this sudden crisis.

Pierre possessing that sort of smattering of surgery which many of his profession have, succeeded to a certain degree in staunching for a moment the wounds; when he suggested the propriety of removing him if possible at once, and even before the arrival of the surgeon. To carry him home to the Piazza di Spagna was impossible, from the distance. "To my house, to my house next door," said Sir James; and leaving the courier to superintend the removal, he determined at once to set

off to the police to give the information that might be necessary for the apprehension of the culprit, without its ever occurring to him, that it might be as well first to prepare Lady Matilda for the unexpected shock of seeing a dying man brought to her house.

Matilda had risen that morning, internally satisfied with her own conduct, yet in spite of herself gratified at the certainty of seeing Ormsby. Notwithstanding all her cause for care, her natural buoyancy of spirit played upon her sunshiny countenance, as she lightly bounded down one of two parallel flights of the marble stairs, which, divided by a wall, led from her apartments to the court below. At that moment the melancholy procession, headed by Pierre, was ascending the lower flight, with their apparently lifeless burthen; and on reaching the central landing-place,

such was the heart-rending revulsive shock Matilda was fated to receive.

No words can describe the peculiar and protracted sound of her agonizing scream. Even the base rabble who assisted in bearing the body, groaned in sympathy as they felt it thrill through their veins. It had the power, too,(far beyond the utmost effort of surgical skill, or physical art,) to dispel for a moment the death-like lethargy of its bleeding object. His livid lips faintly quivered, and for an instant he half unclosed his glassy eye, as Matilda sunk senseless by his side.

When the surgeon who had been sent for had dressed Lord Ormsby's wounds, and went to Matilda to intimate that all hope was not completely lost, he found her gradually recovering the shock she had received; but there was still such wildness in her manner, as

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