he heard of the courage and energy exhibited at the moment of the wreck by the young soldier, as to invite him to accompany him back to Santa Chiara.

"Did you ever hear any thing so preposterous!" cried one of the Lieutenant Browns, that day at mess, to one of the Ensign Smiths; "the general actually invited Seton at parade this morning to go back with him for a few days to Santa Chiara!"

"I suppose he brought letters to the Harcourts?"

"Not he! If he did, all his papers went to the bottom. But he told me himself, yesterday, he had no introduction to any officer in the garrison."

"Well, they will all be glad enough to know him if the governor takes him by the hand. He was a hero before he landed, and by the time he comes from the Santa Chiara there will be no living in the same barracks with him!" cried Ensign Smith, who cherished an unhappy passion for the governor's youngest daughter.

"But who talked about his coming back? He is not gone yet!— he is not even going. He excused himself to Sir George Harcourt with the air of a grandee of Spain !"

"Seton declined an invitation to Santa Chiara ?"

"Why not? He has never seen, and perhaps never heard of, the real attractions of the place. So he pleaded want of clothes,-or want of spirits, or want of inclination,-or want of something or other-"

"And Sir George, I suppose, took it all in his usual good part! Where the old fellow takes a fancy his indulgence is quite absurd! I should like to see you or I refuse an invitation to his country-house!"

"I should be quite content to hear it given," replied the other, good humouredly. "However I dined at the government-house four times last winter, which is more than I had a right to expect; and as to Santa Chiara, all the music and sketching, and reading aloud, which they say goes on there from morning till night, would bore me to death. My cigar and game at billiards here at suit me a cursed deal

better!"

That Sir George Harcourt took in good part the refusal of the new lieutenant to join his family circle was more than true. He was, in fact, most agreeably impressed by Seton's grave and graceful deportment, and spoke of him on his return to the villa, in terms so favourable, that even Aunt Martha began to feel interested in the hero of the wreck.

"If my brother had not described him as so young and goodlooking," said she, "I should have felt inclined to propose our devoting our needles to replace a portion of the wardrobe lost by his humane exertions in behalf of others. But so unusually handsome as this Captain Seton is said to be, my dears, our motives might possibly be misinterpreted."

"More likely," observed Sophia, "our offering might be as ungraciously rejected as that of poor Captain Orde! All we hear of this

new comer is his aptitude in saying 'no.'"

"Sophy is always thinking of the ayes' and 'noes," was the sly rejoinder of her sister Emma.

"On the contrary, I was thinking only that respect for my father

ought to have insured acceptance of his invitation," replied Miss Harcourt, haughtily; and already she appeared to have conceived a prejudice against the new comer.

They had soon an opportunity of judging for themselves of his attractions.

During the frequent absences of Sir George from Santa Chiara for the execution of his official duties, the two girls were in the habit of enjoying very early or very late rides, either before sunrise or after sunset, escorted by an old English groom, who had been twenty years in the service of Sir George; and almost a week after the period in question they were tempted by the beauty and freshness of a fine morning after a long continuance of rain, to pursue their ride as far as some mineral springs at the distance of half-a-dozen miles from the villa, situated in the gorge of the lovely valley of Bocchetta, which had already more than once afforded a subject for their pencil.

"The myrtles at Bocchetta will look so green and beautiful after the rain!" said Emma, while persuading her sister to prolong their ramble, and having reached the cliffs, richly thicketted with evergreens, which afforded so pleasant a relief to the dingy olive plantations surrounding Santa Chiara, they prepared to dismount, as they had often done before, at a goatherd's cottage adjoining the springs, to obtain water for their horses, and refreshment for themselves.

To their great embarrassment the little house was already occupied. A stranger was stretched asleep on its wooden bench, whom a wallet placed beside him on the ground, and the geological specimens scattered upon the rude table on which they had intended to breakfast, pointed out as a tourist, and before the two girls could accomplish their purpose of escaping without disturbing the sleeper, the shout of joy with which the governor's daughters were recognised by the goatherd's wife, who was plying her spindle in the corner, caused the stranger to start to his feet.

Mutual apologies were exchanged; for as the girls stood with their habits gathered up for a hasty retreat, and the young stranger colouring to the temples, appeared transfixed by sudden idiotism, they mutually recognised each other as English by this instinctive shyness. Foreigners of almost any other nation would have been prompted by an encounter in that secluded spot to instant association. Scarcely, however, had the Miss Harcourts crossed the threshold of the hovel for departure, when the recollection that it was the province of their father's daughters to fulfil the duties of hospitality towards their country people visiting the island, induced them to return and inquire whether the stranger were aware that better accommodation was to be procured at a village, a mile or two nearer the coast, than among the scattered hovels of Bocchetta?

"I slept last night at Pietrone," was his embarrassed reply. "This excursion having simply a scientific object, I am not difficult as to my accommodations. These hospitable people have afforded me the best shelter and refreshments at their disposal, and I am quite content."

The constrained manners of the stranger rendered it difficult for Miss Harcourt to pursue towards him her hospitable intentions. From the deferential manner in which he stood uncovered to answer her, she entertained little doubt that they were recognised, and she was again

about to withdraw from the conference, when Emma, who had suspicions of her own concerning the identity of the stranger, frankly interposed.

"You cannot have been long on the island, or you would have visited Bocchetta before," said she, "for every one who comes to

hastens hither. Bocchetta is always the first object of travellers. I suspect, therefore, that we have the pleasure of addressing Captain Seton ?"

An air of awkward surprise accompanied the affirmative bow of the stranger; and when Miss Harcourt some time afterwards reproved her sister for the abruptness of her apostrophe, she did not fail to add that he looked far more amazed than gratified by the recognition.

"I trust the difficulties which prevented our having the pleasure of seeing you last week at Santa Chiara, are so far removed," added Emma Harcourt, "that you will not be so near us without favouring my father with a visit? He has been surveying the new Cape road. But we expect him home this evening."

"It would mortify him much to know that you had visited Bocchetta without extending your tour to his villa," added Miss Harcourt, more formally; and though the young Englishman persisted that his travelling knapsack contained only a change of linen, and that to present himself at the governor's, was impossible; by the time the Miss Harcourts had done the honours of the springs, received his instructions on the stratification of Bocchetta, shared with him the bread and salt of the goatherd's cottage, and wandered among the myrtle thickets, while old Robert eased the girths of their ponies in the shade, he had become a convert to their opinion that, with the aid of the habiliments always left by Captain Orde at the villa, he might permit himself to accept their offered hospitality.

"If you would not mind accompanying us on foot as far as Pietrone," was Emma Harcourt's amendment on the motion, "you might mount Robert's horse back to Santa Chiara, and he could borrow the miller's mule."

Even this friendly proposal, though at first declined, was eventually accepted; and the mild, gentlemanly manners of Arthur Seton soon placed them so thoroughly at ease, that the pleasure they had at first experienced from merely meeting a countryman in the wilderness, and having their native language spoken among the myrtle groves of Bocchetta, gave way to the higher satisfaction of having made a most agreeable acquaintance.

It was not till they discerned at a turning of the road, the lofty cypresses overtopping the white walls of Santa Chiara, it occurred at the same moment to Emma and Sophia, that their unceremonious invitation, and the appearance in their company of a strange young man in a fustian shooting-jacket, might produce a frown on the demure face of

Aunt Martha !

To their great relief, the first person who accosted them on entering the gateway, was the jocular aide-de-camp! The general, he informed them, had stolen a march upon them, and was already arrived. Leaving, therefore, to Captain Orde the task of welcoming the stranger within their gates, they hurried with their explanations to their father;

and it was by the hand of Sir George that Arthur Seton was conducted into the presence of their more formal aunt.

Still, though rendered presentable at the dinner-table by the friendly aid of Bob Orde, and encouraged by the general with all the soldierly cordiality of his nature, the young guest was evidently ill at ease. Notwithstanding the fragrant freshness of those lovely gardens,-notwithstanding all the English comfort of the well-furnished villa, it was clear that he would have preferred his barrack-room at goatherd's hovel at Bocchetta !

or the

"The young man knows his place," was the comment of Aunt Martha, on finding herself alone with her nieces. "He is probably aware that he has no right to find himself in the circle of the governor's family."

"I cannot agree with you," cried Emma. "His tone is that of the best society. He has had a first-rate education. It is probably because he feels himself superior to the rest of the garrison at that he remains so secluded."

"Captain Seton is, I admit, a fine musician," observed Aunt Martha. "He took his part in those trios of Donizzetti's at sight, in a style that surprised me. But perhaps he may have been brought up for the musical profession."

"I should scarcely think so, my dear aunt. He spoke of being slightly acquainted with my cousin,-of having dined at Harcourt Hall."

"Well, my dear, it is only too much the custom in England for people to invite fiddlers and singers to their tables."

"Captain Seton, I am convinced, was never intended for either a singer or a fiddler !" cried Emma, with indignation. "It is rather hard that one of the most gentlemanly officers in the garrison, because he shows less inclination than the rest to toady my father, and intrude into our privacy, should be judged with such severity !"

The consequence of this strenuous defence of the stranger on the part of her youngest niece, was a perseverance in animosity on the part of the demure aunt. Pleased with the retiring manners of his accomplished guest, Sir George persisted that now they had got him at Santa Chiara, he should not be let off so easily; and the wish of a governor being a command, particularly when expressed on the lawn of his own villa, there was nothing for it but to despatch a special messenger to for his clothes, and pass the remainder of the

week at Santa Chiara.

At the end of the week, indeed, Arthur Seton appeared to have lost his eagerness to get away. He was not only an adopted favourite with Sir George, but the two girls felt it so incumbent upon them to atone for the ungraciousness of the spinster aunt, by the kindness of their courtesies, that shy as he was, the young stranger was beginning to feel himself thoroughly at home. Old Robert, bewitched by his noble horsemanship, took care he should be so well mounted, as to put the fat aide-de-camp to the blush; and Emma Harcourt being fully justified in her surmise that Seton had received a superior education, the girls derived from his instructions in botanical and mineralogical science, hints which induced them to pursue their neglected studies in natural history, so as to open a thousand sources of interest in the

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environs of the villa. he must have felt mortified at being so completely eclipsed. Aunt Martha, in short, was the only one of the family who still persisted in classing the hero of the wreck with the billiard-playing Ensign Browns and cigar-divan Lieutenant Smiths: and so efficacious is this sort of irrational opposition in forwarding an intimacy, that Sir George, little accustomed to be thwarted in such matters, became peremptory, and not only gave in her presence a general invitation to Arthur Seton ("a knife and fork always at my table at your service, and a bed under my roof"); but determined to offer him the aide-decampship which the promised promotion of Captain Orde was shortly to leave vacant.

Had not Orde been the best-natured of men,

"The next thing, I make no doubt-the very next thing we shall be having my brother offer him the hand of one of the girls, and her thirty thousand pounds," was the bitter cogitation of Aunt Martha. "A man of whom we know nothing-a man without fortune-without connexion-without-." Alas! there was no authenticated means of calculating his deficiencies!

Among them, however, could not certainly be numbered that charm. of manner, that personal attraction, which is the finest letter of recommendation. Notwithstanding the favour in which he stood at the government-house, Arthur Seton was equally popular in his regiment. Throughout the garrison the hero of the wreck was a favourite.

Under all these circumstances, it was scarcely likely that the two openhearted girls by whom he was admitted to terms of almost cousinly intimacy, should be more fastidious than the rest. But for the framed and glazed influence of Harcourt Hall, and the monthly arrival of the debates, there is no saying to what extent of infidelity Sophia might have been tempted by the agreeable companionship of the new aidede-camp. But the heart of Emma surrendered at discretion; nay, Aunt Martha's prognostications were on a fair way towards being justified, for Sir George, instead of appearing shocked at her undisguised predilection, often made it a subject of bantering during the absence of Seton.

Still the young man himself hung back. The more encouraging towards him the deportment of the Harcourt family, the more diffident his reserve, the graver his deportment; and when it became no longer possible to mistake the intimation of the younger sister in his favour, he withdrew from their society as far as was compatible with the nature of his appointment. At he found such perpetual occupation for his time in duties that appeared to have altogether escaped the notice of his predecessor, as scarcely to leave him a moment's leisure. As to Santa Chiara, he gradually ceased to set foot upon its delicious turf. Those charming shrubberies, combined with the influence of such a climate and such moonlight as perfected the spot, rendered the sojourn too dangerous. The fact was, that it was impossible to maintain the reserve he had imposed upon himself, amid the cordial domestic life of Santa Chiara.

It was, perhaps, on this account that Aunt Martha persisted in prolonging her sojourn there that autumn, till even the general began to find perpetual transit, between his villa and the government-house, bleak and tedious. Mild as are the winters of that genial island, there