women, and spoke in broken Italian when she purchased a piece of ripe melon, to quench her thirst of travel. The two strange men of metal who hammer out the hour on the face of the great clock made her start as they stepped forward to their work, and the paintings on the fronts of the houses, with their curious stories told in half brilliant, half-blotted colors, had a fascination for her as she leaned against a wall and enjoyed her refreshment. The market was going on at the time. Carts rolled about, voices sang and shouted, the yellow curtains fluttered out from the black shadows of the little shops at the side of the street, figures of young girls, of mothers with children, appeared among the fire-flowers in the balconies and nodded down to other people who were gazing up from below. A stone pierced the girl's shoe, which was worn with walking, and she sat down on the steps of a church and examined it ruefully. There was an ugly hole: the owner made a little wry face as she looked at it, then laughed, and put it on again. "I shall earn a pair of strong ones before long," she said to herself, though not in Italian. "I must pick my steps until then." The shoe was certainly not a peasant's shoe, yet the girl was dressed like a peasant. Her brown skirt, black bodice, and white chemisette were of the coarsest materials. Bare and sunburnt were her pretty, round arms and delicate hands; a scarlet sash hung round her waist, and scarlet ribbons tied up her hair - silky dark hair, a little bronzed at the edges. Her face was plump, dimpled, and exquisitely moulded; her eyes were dark, luminous, and full of humor. A white coif sheltered the eyes at present, and threw a transparent, flickering shadow all round the face. After the accident to her shoe the young stranger walked cautiously and with a little limp through the streets of Brescia, and the people looked after her as she went.

In a street which descends a hill five cobblers were sitting in the open air, busily engaged with their work. They sat on five wooden stools, which were close together in a line, and each man supported his feet on the rail of the seat of his neighbor. It almost seemed as if they all rode a single wooden horse down the brow of the hill, in so close and straight a file had they ranged themselves. First in the row was a very old man, with white hair and a placid countenance, who waxed his thread often, and was slow at his work; next, his sons, two elderly men, singularly like each other, except that the expression of the one was morose and abstracted, while that of the other was nervous and fierce; fourthly, a good-looking young man, with lively eyes and a confident air, who gazed about the street between every two of his stitches; and, last of all, a second young man, with an earnest, intelligent face, who seemed to give all his attention to his work. As our limping maiden came down the street she caught sight of this group, and, hastening up to them, pointed to her broken shoe.

"Ciabattini?" she asked eagerly.

Yes, they were cobblers, answered the men, raising their five heads and gazing in surprise at the liveliness and beauty of her face. Ubaldo, the old man, looked at her kindly; Trifonius, the morose, and Grifone, the fiery, regarded her with grudging admiration; while the two young men, Prisco, the son of Trifonius, and Silvio, the apprentice, gazed round at her over their shoulders with the liveliest interest and delight. As they all stared, with their thread suspended, the young stranger suddenly broke into a peal of the most deliciously mirthful laughter, which shook in the air like the song of a lark, and made the five cobblers also laugh, though they did not know what they were laughing at.

"You all look so funny!" cried the girl, drawing forth a fine white handkerchief and wiping the tears of merriment from her eyes.

"This is not business!" growled Trifonius.

pay?"

"We do not work for nothing," said Grifone.

"Can you

"I have no money at present," said the girl; "but I

mean to pay you afterwards."

"It will not do," said Trifonius.

"You can go elsewhere," said Grifone. "Trust her, my sons!" said Ubaldo.

ger."

"She is a stras

The girl looked up and down the street, bending broken shoe back and forwards in her hands, and then she glanced wistfully at the row of men who refused to help her, "If I had a needle and thread I could do it myself," she said. "Give it to

"That you could not!" cried the old man. me!" And he turned it over and over on his knees. It was a dainty little thing, made of finest leather, embroi dered in colored silks. "Pretty, very pretty!" said Ubaldo; "but not like what a peasant maiden wears. The work is too fine for my trembling fingers."

And he handed it on to Trifonius, who surveyed it sus piciously.

"Stolen !" he said, and flung it to Grifone, who tossed it to Prisco.

"Gentlemen," cried the girl, "if you will not help me do not hurt me. I will go farther and find kinder fellow creatures."

"Not so fast, little one!" said Prisco. "It is a pretty shoe, and deserves to be mended."

And he fell to work upon it clumsily. He was not at all skilful, and tore the delicate leather with his handling. "A curse on it!" he cried. "It is too nice for me!" "Give it to Il Garzone!" said Ubaldo.

And Silvio, the other young man, took the vexations shoe in his hands, smiled at its neatness, chose a fine bit of leather, and put a delicate little patch upon the rent. Then he presented it with a look of simple good-will to the stranger maiden, who drew it on her foot and clapped her hands with delight to see how strongly it was mended. "I will repay-I will repay! Will you trust me?" she cried, fixing her eyes upon Silvio.

"That I will," he said, earnestly.

"It is nothing to him," said Prisco, quickly. "He is only our apprentice. Without our permission he could not have put a stitch in it."

"I thank every one," said the girl; "but him the most. Ah! now I can walk farther and look for work."

"Are you looking for work?" cried Prisco. "What can you do? Can you mend my boots?"

"No; but I can scrub a floor, cook a dinner, dance, sing, and tell the truth."

"She is a lively creature," whispered Prisco to his uncle Grifone. 66 Why not hire her at once to supply our need?" "Well thought on!" said Grifone. "So friendless and poor, she would work for next to nothing.”

"And we can send her away without notice, if she of fends," growled Trifonius.

"It were a charitable act," said Ubaldo; "but here comes La Mugnaia, returning from her search."

A tall, meagre looking woman came up the street and joined the group. La Mugnaia was gaunt and sallow, with a square, wrinkled face, white teeth, and large brown eyes; her head completely bound up in a yellow handkerchief. She looked stern and wary, like an old soldier; but when she smiled, her fine brown eyes softened, and a surprising sunshine warmed up the weather-beaten countenance.

66

Well, Orsola!" said Trifonius, "have you succeeded in finding us a maid to take care of our house?" "No, indeed," said Orsola.

"There is a young girl here who is seeking for work," said Ubaldo. "Question her."

"

"What can you do?" asked the woman of the girl. "Put me in a house and try me." "What payment do you expect?' "Food and shelter, and anything you like. I have to work up the price of mending my shoe."

"I will take her with me to Verona," said La Mugnais, "and there I will prove her. If you see her coming back you may hire her.""

"It is a great deal of trouble for nothing," grumbled

Prisco.

“La Mugnaia is a sensible woman," said Ubaldo. "Let her manage our affairs.”

have you with me. I have been out in the vineyards, where they are gathering the grapes. I have been haunted by a picture of La Scarpetta with a basket of grapes on her head. That is how you ought to live, playing about in the beautiful open country, instead of being shut up in this vulgar town."

"How odd you are, Silvio! Imagine any of my other masters taking the fancy to put a basket of grapes on my head! Where do you get these pictures, I wonder, being but a cobbler? I see them shining behind your eyes, sometimes, when you do not give them forth."

"Being but the apprentice of a cobbler, and not even one of your masters, you might say. Well, I would rather be your fellow-servant than the finest master-cobbler in Brescia. As for the pictures, I suppose they come from my father, who was a famous artist, and through whose fault I am now where I stand. I am too proud to speak of this to the vulgar; but I feel no pride towards my little fellow-servant. I was brought up by relations in bitter dependence, and I left them to learn a trade. With the help of that lowly trade I shall place myself where I like."

"And you have learned it well; for I notice that they give you all the delicate work. But, Silvio, will you read for me what is printed on this bill upon the wall?”

"It is an advertisement for the capture of a young girl who has hidden herself - either from justice, her friends, or her enemies. A reward is offered for her discovery. She has a beautiful face, and is supposed to have crossed the Alps all alone Scarpetta!"

The girl had turned white as death, and caught at his arm to keep herself from falling.

"Silvio, Silvio ! where shall I hide myself?" Silvio supported her to the fountain and dipped her little ice-cold hands in the water.

"Poor child, poor child!" he said, in amazement. "And this is your story?"

"Hide me, my friend!"

"That would be madness, poverina!" said Silvio. "You are safer at your work as the cobblers' servant, than you would be in the cunningest hiding-place. You must stay indoors as much as possible for a while, and I will watch for you all I can."

"You do not ask me why I am so terrified, and what I have done."

"You shall tell me what you please, and when you please. I cannot love you more than I do, and I will not love you less. You have forbidden me to speak to you like

this

"Ah, it was so good to be at peace." "I will not spoil your peace. Let me be your friend in this difficulty.'

"Heaven bless you, my friend. Now, Silvio, go, and let me get home in my own fashion."

Left alone once more, the young girl lifted her pitcher and took her way bravely, though with pale cheeks, through the streets, which, late a refuge, had now grown a terror to her. She shrank a little at sight of every bill posted on a wall, and fancied that the people gazed strangely at her as she passed along the path. When she returned to the cobblers' dwelling she found Prisco alone in the house, leaning dejectedly against the doorway, and reflecting how hard it was that his position in the world would not allow him to bestow his hand on La Scarpetta.

"Here she comes, looking as pale as a ghost. Never was a girl so changed. I can no longer have any doubt that she frets at my coldness; yet I dare not tell my elders that she is in love with me. Ah! why am I so delightful? would not have her sent out on the world because of the warmth of her heart!"

Prisco sighed as the young girl set down her pitcher and silently began her accustomed occupations. It had been too painful to this self-loving youth to believe that La Scarpetta preferred Silvio, and he had gradually endowed her with an imaginary devotion to himself. He found it pleasant to dwell on the fancy that he had tenderly rejected her. This idea, at first a plain fallacy, had imperceptibly become a delusion of his mind; for, when we will what to believe,

we can believe what we will. The appeal of his uncle father, their earnest request that he would not marry Scarpetta, had given a reality, as of proof, to his faith. he watched the young girl, who had forgotten his presence she sighed bitterly; and he sprang to her side. "Have courage, ma bella!" he said. "It is, indeed hard fate; but time will cure this wound." "What do you mean?" asked Scarpetta, turning whit than before, and thinking that the secret of her identit was discovered.

"I am grieved that I cannot offer you my hand. I not for want of affection that I swear to you; but the world requires some sacrifice of our feelings."

The girl stared at him at the self-complacent, sent mental look on his face- and catching the full absurdity of his meaning, broke into a fit of such merry laughter brought the color to her cheeks again, and transformed her for a moment into the old Scarpetta once more. was delightful to her to hear the sound of her own laugh ter again; and she laughed and laughed to the echo, with the most exquisite sense of fun and enjoyment of Prisco discomfiture, who blushed, and frowned, and at last stamped with his feet, and walked away to the door. He saw through the fury of his confusion a horseman riding up to the door, while Scarpetta's irritating laughter was dying away in gasps of ecstasy over his shoulder; and then there came suddenly a quick, sharp cry of anguish from within, snapping the music of those mirthful sighs followed by a crash of something breaking. Prisco turned his head in astonishment. The dish that Scarpetta had been holding was smashed upon the floor, and she had vanished.

"Diavolo!" cried Prisco, "the girl is a witch!" and then he saw the strange horseman beckoning, and went out to the street to speak to him.

La Scarpetta was on her knees in an upper chamber, peeping with one eye from behind the window-curtain. The strange horseman was richly dressed and of haughty bearing, with a dark, harsh countenance and a sottish complexion.

"It is he! it is he!" wailed the girl, quailing as his eye roved over the house; and she retreated, wringing her hands, into the darkest corner of the room.

"Ah!" she moaned, "what folly, what ill-luck is mine! Were I Silvio's wife, I need not suffer this anguish of fear. Oh, now indeed I know that I love him, since this agony is upon me; but I have made him afraid of me, and I am given up to my fate!"

At the same moment the evil-looking horseman was pointing with his finger to the pretty little embroidered shoes, which had been taken from La Scarpetta, and hung up as a sign of their trade in the window of the cobblers.

"These shoes are stolen goods," he was saying. "I command you to give them up to me, and to tell me how you came by them."

"You are under a mistake, Signor," said Ubaldo, who had come up, and was holding the stranger's horse by the head, merely as a mark of attention, for the poor animal looked too tired to have any wish to run away. "We came by the shoes honestly; but if the Signor buy them".

cares to

You bought them, perhaps, from a young woman who came travelling through the town. You have seen the walls placarded with inquiries regarding her. Tell me where to find her, and you shall be handsomely rewarded."

"It is many weeks since she called on us here, and got a strong pair of shoes in exchange for these," said Ubaldo. "She was in a hurry to be off, and inquired about the road to Milan."

It is dreadful to think of an old man telling falsehoods like this. Let us pray that Heaven forgave him. Prisco, with Scarpetta's irritating laughter still ringing in his ears, had a sterner regard for the truth, and called after the stranger as he rode away,·

"I advise you not to leave the town without searching it well." He was not wicked enough to give her up on the spot to her foe, but he was pleased to avenge himself by

T

"It is of our poor Scarpetta that these bills are posted wer the town," cried Ubaldo. "Can it all be for the tealing of a pair of shoes?"

"Poor, indeed!" cried Trifonius. "How pitiful you re, my father! A thief harbored in our house! And here is Prisco, who might have married her if he had not Deen a miracle of wisdom."

"We must get her out of this," said Grifone. "How nicely we may be shamed before the town."

"Harbor her a little while, my sons," said Ubaldo. She is such a young creature, and you do not even know what her fault is."

"It is plain that she is escaping from justice. Not another hour shall she stay in our house." Scarpetta did not ask what charge was against her, but took up her small wages and went into the street. Ubaldo dropped tears in the corner; but he was only a weak old man, with no power in the house of his sons. All the heart that Prisco had was aching, but he liked his re

venge.

"The Garzone will protect her," muttered Ubaldo to bimself.

Scarpetta, afraid of the town, fled to the country; then the sun set, a thunder-storm came down, and the terrified girl ran frantically back into Brescia. Lifting the curtain that hung before the entrance of a queer little church, she saw that a dim light shone out of the place, which was filled with people, who seemed to the frightened girl to have taken refuge there in terror like herself. They were singing a shrill, wild litany, one verse taken up by the men, and the next by the women, a weird, monotonous chant that filled the ear at intervals, and was lost again in the roar of the thunder. La Scarpetta cowered on her knees in a corner of the church, the thunder cracked over her head; and with her hands clasped over her closed eyelids she seemed to see plainly the harsh-looking horseman, his piercing gaze fixed on her and his finger pointing cruelly to her unlucky little shoes in the cobblers' window. Every time the curtain stirred in the doorway she started, expecting to see him enter to drag her forth. The people at last departed; the fugitive crouched farther into the shelter of the shadow of a confessional; and, looking up with a wild glance, she saw Silvio, the Garzone, who was standing beside her.

"Have they found me, Silvio? Are they coming to take me?"

Nobody has found you but me; and I am coming to take you if you will let me."

Take me where?"

"Over the mountains — out of this trouble." "And your work, Silvio? and your masters?" "I have broken with my masters, and I have my work at my finger-ends. Be my wife at once, and we will seek our fortune together."

"Yet you do not know whom you are taking for a

wife."

"Kneel down with me here, Scarpetta, and put your hand in mine. Say, Silvio, I am an honest woman.' You dare not, if it were untrue."

"Silvio, I am an honest woman." They remained kneeling hand-in-hand, like two children, praying in the Loneliness and darkness of the church. The one dim red lamp burned, the thunder ceased, the deathlike hour of the night went past, dawn peered through the half-vested for mass, opened the sacristy door and looked nude-painted windows, and an old, white-haired priest,

into the church.

This old priest stopped muttering his prayers when he saw the two pale-faced young people standing before him. "Marry us, holy father!" said Silvio. "We are going a long journey, and must get away betimes." "This is the girl who is flying from justice," said the priest sternly.

"I will help her to fly," said Silvio, "for I am satisfied that she is good."

"You are a youth of good birth, and will rise in the world," said the padre. "Remember, I know your story. Will you not afterwards repent of having married a servant-maid?"

"I cannot give her up to her enemies," maintained Silvio.

"No," said La Scarpetta.

The old man's cheeks flushed, and his eyes brightened.

"Be grateful to him, my daughter," he said. "I know your secret, and I will give you to him. May God make you both happy for evermore!"

And the apprentice and the little maid-servant went out into the morning sunlight man and wife.

Silvio was quite surprised to see how, as they went along the streets, his bride seemed to forget her terror, and smiled back at the people who stared at her. She even lingered, here and there, to gaze up at the paintings on the houses, saying she had never seen them look so handsome before.

"But you are still in Brescia, my dearest, and your enemy is close by. Let us hasten and get out of danger." "I am saying farewell to Brescia, Silvio. It has been good to me, since I am leaving it with you. As for my enemy, I no longer fear him."

The young people took the road to Verona, and late one evening they arrived there, going to seek for La Mugnaia in her little mill out in the Adige. They stood on the bridge which carried the town across the river, and saw the dark water rushing and the twinkling lights sliding along through the air, like falling stars, as people passed to or fro on the swinging planks that led out to the little water-bound dwelling. They discovered the mill they were in search of, and, lantern in hand, went riding across the night, as it seemed, on the rickety plank that led to La Mugnaia's door.

The milleress gave them a hearty welcome, but looked extremely grave when she heard the whole of their story. "That is all very pretty," she said, squaring her arms and fixing her wary brown eyes on the little wife, "trust and generosity are good in the right place; but you ought to have told what this cloud is that hangs over you. And you, Silvio, I have known you many years; you are a respectable young man, and ought not to have married a girl who has done anything improper."

"She shall speak when she likes," said Silvio.

"Let her speak now," said La Mugnaia. "If she has done wrong, and is sorry, we will try and shield her; but let there be no secrets between a man and his wife."

La Scarpetta stood twisting the corner of her sash, and glancing shyly from one to another of the faces, on which the lamplight shone, at each side of her; and she said to the miller-woman:

"I will tell my story here, and you shall be my judge. If what I have done has wronged him, he shall put me away. One thing I must set right for you; I have not stolen anything from the horseman who is searching for me, not even the shoes in the window, which were my very own till I gave them to Ubaldo."

I knew that," said Silvio.

by them alone. I was escaping from a living death, and my freedom was delicious to me. You must be filled with curiosity, and I do not make my story plain. My castle is on one of those mighty rocks that overhang the upper Rhine. Heaven help the poor creature there walled up, who pines to escape! Yet I escaped. I was a prisoner there, indeed; for by my father's will all his fine possessions were to be enjoyed by his brother until my marriage; and my uncle was resolved that I should never deprive him of what he chose to call his own. I did not wish to marry. I feared all men, having known none but the harshest of their kind; but I loathed to be within sight and sound of the wicked and riotous living of my uncle and his chosen companions. I longed to be free, like the peasants who walk on the hills; and by the help of a faithful old nurse, I escaped. I dressed myself like a peasant, and crossed the Alps alone. In putting on a strange costume I forgot to change my shoes."

Silvio and the woman of the mill stood gazing at the girl in utter amazement.

"And knowing that you were a noblewoman, you chose to marry a cobbler," said La Mugnaia.

"Heaven never made him to be a cobbler," said La Scarpetta.

"That is true," said La Mugnaia. "Be you what you may, he is good enough for you. Excuse me, lady, but I cannot forget that I gave you lessons in baking bread and sweeping floors."

"Ah, Scarpetta!" said Silvio, "what a wrong you have done yourself—you who ought to have married a noble

man.

"And so I have, Silvio, else I can tell you I should not have married at all. Prisco could never have saved me as you have done; for one great misery is as bad as another. I thank Heaven that by your act of generosity you have unconsciously enriched yourself."

Whilst they were yet talking, the daylight broke, and looking out of the window, La Mugnaia saw a whole company of strangers on the river-side. They were the four remaining cobblers, with the haughty horseman and his

At this moment the old priest was seen hurrying facross the river, clutching the rope in both hands, as the plank danced under his feet.

"Go away, Signor!" he cried, "and leave this noble youth and his wife in peace. Go across the Alps and make straight your accounts of the moneys and lands which were left in your charge. Your niece and her husband will give you just one month to betake yourself and your fellows from her dwelling. In the name of the church and of the law of the country, I, who married these young people, knowing fully both their histories, command you to begone and to interfere with them no more."

La Mugnaia had the satisfaction of seeing the company of strange visitors departing across the plank, Ubaldo alone being invited to remain with the victorious and happy bride and bridegroom.

PALMISTRY.

WHY do gypsies so often "tell truly"? How are they enabled to reveal the past in such a surprisingly corre manner? Why are their prophecies so often fulfilled! These questions are frequently asked, and among the many solutions that are offered is the following: Because ther are guided in the study of character by laws which an stri tly laid down, laws which are as certain and as cle as any of the maxims of physiognomy (to which we all at tach more or less faith); truer and more significant tha any except the outline-rules of phrenology. That gypsies show an extraordinary clairvoyance is beyond dispute Their successes are too numerous and too well authenti cated to be always explained away as coincidences or a "happy hits." The cases recorded in proof of their un common skill in discerning disposition and natural endow ments are innumerable; and those who know the charac ter of a person are in a position to guess very shrewdly that person's fate. Not that a particular lot attaches by an inevitable fatality to any mental or moral qualities but certain natures seem formed with an aptitude for sur rounding themselves with a certain set of circumstances. "There's a divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them how we will;" but to a great extent we make our own fate, and whoever knows us thoroughly will also know: great deal about our past life, and our future.

Any one wishing to rival the gypsies in the successful study of character has only to master the art of palmistry. M. Desbarrolles has collected and sifted their traditional lore and written records, and all the other materials he could find bearing upon his subject, and he has embodied the chief part of the result of his researches in a book called the Mysteries of the Hand." It was published eleven years ago, and has attracted much attention amongst the general reading public in France, and it is said to have made some little way also with the scientific people. Eight editions of the book came out in the first eight years of its existence. The subject has strong attractions for several classes of minds: amongst them rank first those who aim at being "discerners of spirits,❞— prac tical metaphysicians, if such a term is allowable; and secondly, a much larger number of inquirers, whose motive is a vulgar curiosity with regard to future events. Palmistry will reward both these classes of students, for, as Lavater, in the words of the ancient philosophers, says, "The whole is in every part." The moral nature is complete in outline in the hand, and if the gypsies, and others who prac tise this art, are sometimes at fault, it must be remembered that they are often careless in the application of their rules, and sometimes ignorant of those rules.

M. Desbarrolles devotes a large part of his book to the consideration of chirognomony, - a system invented by a M. d'Arpentigny. Chirognomony helps us to judge of character by the form of the hand, and the shape of the fingers. Palmistry also takes account of the shape of the hand and the fingers, but relies chiefly upon the indications supplied by the lines and the mounts of the palm. M. d'Arpentigny's attention was directed to the subject in a curious manner. He lived near the owners of a handsome country-house, where there was a constant succession of visitors. The hostess delighted in the society of artists, and gathered painters and musicians round her. The host was devoted to the exact sciences, and he sought his friends and acquaintances amongst those who shared his tastes. Mechanicians, mathematicians, and "practical people," were his chosen guests. M. d'Arpentigny, though neither a Raphael nor a Stephenson, was a friend of both the lady and the gentleman, and he had facilities for observing all their visitors. He was struck by the dissimilarity between the hands of "Monsieur's" friends and those of the friends of "Madame." The artists had generally short fingers that tapered to a point. The men of science had squaretopped fingers, with largely developed finger joints. M d'Arpentigny resolved to investigate. He went in search of hands, and found various moral and intellectual charac