"Do not be too sure of that, Lao Cöatfrec; while there is life there is hope for an hour or so the lad may give way to despair, but after that he will say to himself that he cannot make matters worse by speaking to Annik, and he may make them better. To tell you the truth, I have fancied the girl likes him. Yes, yes, if the tide does not carry him off, my friend, he will come back and try his chance." Then," Lao spoke coolly, but in a determined voice, "he must not come back to Kérion." There was silence after this. Presently Guérik spoke, and Lao answered, but in such low voices that Annik could not distinguish words; it seemed to her, from the dull, continued murmurs, that the two men were carrying on the talk in whispers. Annik rose up softly from the floor; she felt strangely calm and alert: one thought ruled her—to leave the house as quickly and silently as she could, and to warn Silvertik of coming danger. She dared not go down-stairs; she could not open the heavy house - door, which she had heard her uncle close, without risk of noise; she dared not even undraw the bolt of her room. But she saw her only way clearly, and at once she set to work to reach it. Her room was only half the size of that below-half being boarded off and used as a receptacle for fodder; there was a square opening in this partition, with a bit of canvas nailed across to screen off the draught which came through a window in the hay-loft open to the air. Annik cautiously dressed herself, and then with a pair of scissors she cut open the canvas screen that divided her from the hay-loft. Once more she listened, but the dull murmur of voices had not ceased; there was more light from the outer opening in the loft than had come through Annik's window, though a chestnut-tree stood close to the house on this side also, but the nearest branch had been scathed by lightning and was leafless. With her shoes in her hand, Annik got through the opening from her room into the loft. Slowly and softly, step by step, feeling her way as she went on, she groped across the hay and bean-stalks till she reached the outer opening. She leaned forward and stretched out her hand till it touched the long, scathed branch that reached across the back of the house. It was no new experience to Annik to descend by the chestnut-tree. Often, when her uncle's rude words had made her run up-stairs in anger, she had got out of the house by this means; and now she soon found her way to the branch, and quickly reached the soft ground below-for the rain had made mire of the yard behind the house. She paused and listened: she could only hear the movement of the cows within the house; she slipped on her shoes, and started off in the darkness toward Trégunc. VIII. HEAVY-FOOTED, for the mud clung in lumps to her shoes-tired, yet too overwrought to be sensible of fatigue-Annik at last reached the road beside which stood the Rocking-Stone, and before long the vast, mysterious stone loomed in the darkness. She looked round her. The dull sound of lapping waves told that the sea was near, and southward the lightness of the horizon pointed out its whereabouts. The dull sadness of the sound recalled Lao's ominous words. terror. "Silvertik! Silvertik!" she cried in an agony of "Where art thou? It is Annik who calls." From across the road came a voice she knew well-the voice of the good curé. "Who goes there? If you are Christian, man or woman, in the name of God come and help a dying man!" A thrill of terror passed through Annik. "I come! I come!" she cried. And she went in the direction of the voice, slipping and tumbling over the uneven ground; and soon in the darkness she saw the priest bending over some one who lay outstretched at his feet. Then she too seemed to lose consciousness of all but the presence of Silvertik. She flung herself down beside the senseless body, and chafed the cold hands, till at last she fancied they moved within her own. The curé spoke, and she answered; but it seemed to Annik that she was some one else, and that she heard her own voice, telling the good father to beware of Lao and of Guérik, for they were bent on murdering Silvertik. And then came footsteps, and some one brought a light, and she heard the voice of Lao, and then the curé spoke sternly, and bade those who had come go and fetch a cart to take herself and Silvertik to Kérion. She heard all this as in a dream, and then she knew no more. Annik opened her eyes, and wondered as she looked round her. Aha!" a cheery voice said, from the chair beside the bed. "You have slept well, my poor Annik. You must rise now, for Monsieur le Curé wants a talk with you." Jeamston, the curé's old housekeeper, patted the girl's cheek, and handed her a cup of coffee. But Annik could not drink-she sat up gazing in the cheery old face with eager, straining eyes; she feared to ask the question that hung on her lips. The old woman seemed to understand the questioning look. "Silvertik is all right," she said. "It is well to be young," she went on, and she shook her head reproachfully; "Monsieur le Curé permits much to young people, or I would ask what you and Silvertik Kergröes had been about when the good father found you and brought you both home half dead last night." "And he?" cried Annik, at last, with a burst of sobs. "He!" Jeamston shrugged her shoulders-" he is in the parlor with monsieur, but he is a fright, I can tell you, with his bandaged head and broken arm, poor fellow! You seem to have come off best, mademoiselle," she added, crossly. But Annik flung her arms round the old woman's neck, laughing, and crying, and sobbing, all at once, in a most incoherent manner-conduct which, as Jeamston afterward told her master, was quite unsuited to a presbytery. But, for all that, Annik staid on at the curé's house till the chestnut-leaves grew brown and began to fall slowly from their branches; and then, one fine, clear morning, Silvertik and Annik were wedded in the little village church of Kérion, and went home to Nizon to live at the mill. Lao Cöatfrec never came back to Kérion, though Mathurin Guérik still lived on in the old farm-house, but Annik never crossed its threshold again after her marriage. REMINISCENCES. (GATHERINGS FROM AN ARTIST'S PORTFOLIO.) BY JAMES E. FREEMAN. III. OF ous. Whatever Lariccia may have been, it is now but an insignificant place of less than two thousand human souls, most of them pitifully poor and ignorant; yet, miserable, degraded, and without cultivation as they are, they assume a contempt for the strangers who come among them, calling all nations indiscriminately, as a rule, Inglese and barbarians. It boasts a church, a palace, and an inn; then its other dwellings dwindle, with few exceptions, into small, poverty-invested habitations, unwholesome, and crowded with a ragged and suffering population. Fortunately, the sea is not so far off but that its breezes, wafted above the malarious Campagna, come bringing to these wretched people good air and health. F the many small towns in the vicinity of Rome, | friends of other lands whose vocations were art, and Lariccia is considered one of the most salubri- who, like ourselves, came to spend the malarious When the season warned us that it was pru- months among the Albin hills. dent to quit the "Eternal City," we were in the habit of going up to that small town of the Albin range to pass three or four months. It was formerly one of the most powerful cities of the Latin confederation: the Appian Way in the old Roman days passed beneath it at its base, and its immediate surroundings and itself teem with historical associations, traditions, and possibly pagan fictions; it is quite certain that it once boasted a grand, strong citadel, and was warlike, but not quite certain whether its inhabitants did or did not worship the goddess Diana. It was near here that, certain historians contend, Æneas married his second wife, Lavinia, daughter of King Latinus, which having done he built a town near by, called Lavinium, or, as some write it, Lanuvium: if the first is correct, we may suppose that he named it after his cara sposa. To Lariccia, Orestes and Iphigenia, by lovers of tradition, are made to flee for refuge. It is, however, more to be depended upon that the mother of Augustus was born here, and more to be credited that the son of Porsenna attacked his father's retreating army here, was killed, and found a curious tomb under the town, long supposed to be the sepulchre | of the Horatii and Curatii. Horace found hospitality here the first night on his way to Brundusium. Tarquin the Proud found, in a citizen of Lariccia, his most dangerous enemy and conspirator. 1849 the King of Naples (“Il Re Bomba") proceeded as far as Lariccia to attack the Roman republic; was in sight of the dome of St. Peter's when he was obliged to recede, with Garibaldi at his heels, to hasten his ignominious flight over the confines. In Finding a place in which to paint or model in these towns is always a serious difficulty. I was lucky enough to prevail upon a padre rettore to give me a room in his nearly-empty convent (as there were only three brothers besides himself under its roof). It was a very old and dilapidated monastery, and looked as if any day it might fall and bury the venerable frate and the painter, leaving houseless and homeless, also, a great many rats and bats. The principal bakery of the village was in the basement of the structure and directly under me, so that I was constantly inhaling the odor of fresh-baked bread on one side; on the other, one (not so grateful) coming from the vacant cells of defunct monks, or from their narrow cells, still deeper, where they lie buried. Old, worm-eaten frames hung in the dark, narrow hall given over to dust and cobwebs ; the pictures in them, swaying loose from their rotten stretchers to and fro by the current of air, gave furtive glimpses of grim saints and roasting martyrs. These and a number of other interesting incidents connected with its middle-age annals hover mistily In this not too cheerful studio I set up my easel. around this now squalid little place, inhabited by The next thing for my line of art was a model. I some of the most indigent of God's creatures. It walked about the village, seeing upon many broken embraces an extensive view of the sea, coast, and door-steps subjects for my pencil; lots of grandplain; a valley lies at its feet, which reasonable spec- mothers with the never-absent distaff in their hands, ulation decides is an extinct volcano, and was so some of them good models for aged sibyls, or witches, long before Æneas wooed and won King Latinus's just as one chose to consider them; brown, sundaughter. We, myself and wife, spent two or three burned mothers, with fresh, chubby babies at their summers there. About us, in other similar towns breasts; pretty, black-eyed maidens, both shy and close by, were many of my artistic compatriots, and mischievous, whose forms and features, well put on One or two incidents occurred that summer not out of place in this sketch. Chapman (ingenious in many things) instructed me in the secret of boiling canvas, would have made a picture to challenge admiration. Seeing these, still undecided in my choice, I rambled farther, as one will, puzzled where to choose, when, turning up a more than usually pover-drying - oil. He had kindly written down for me ty-infested passage, I came upon a ruined doorway, surpassing all the others in picturesque untidiness. On the door-sill sat the venerable nonna whirling the spool of flaxen thread with her right hand; with her left, from the distaff she pulled the unspun material to feed the twisting process. A grade beneath, her daughter nursed a sickly infant on her lap; still below, her children, of various ages, with scant, torn costumes, laughed, romped, and screeched. One of these was a lovely girl with golden hair and lightblue eyes (that rare peculiarity seen in Southern Italy), reminding me of some sweet English and American children I have seen. She was a wild, uncombed little beauty, and I made up my mind at once that I must paint her. I told the thin, starved- | faced mother so, and the haggard-looking grandmother as well, but both shook their heads and said: "It is thought a bad sign among us contadini to have our pictures painted. There is a belief that death follows soon after." It was not the first time I had encountered this superstition and had vanquished it; the offer of one paul an hour conquered it now, and pretty Checca was to be my model. The day after the nonna brought the girl to my studio and left her, I began my outline, while the blue eyes grew larger and larger, with tiny, glittering drops along their lower lids; after a few minutes I had occasion to leave the studio for a moment; when I came back she was gone. Looking into the hall, I saw her flying down the stairs, her face turned up in fright, gazing at a canvas hanging near where Michael and the devil were terribly represented. I was resolved not to lose my new model, and, hatless, rushed after her. The chase, through the narrow, winding streets, was a lively one: she went like the wind, her yellow hair streaming behind her; her feet were too fleet for me, and I was just in time to see her dart up the steps of her house and disappear. I followed, and entered, just as the mother was pulling her by her feet from under the bed, where she had fled to hide herself. She was about to beat the child, when I interfered. "Don't beat her, she has only been scared-first at the artist, then at the painted devil," I exclaimed; "she will get reconciled to both. She thinks there are wicked things in that old monastery, and we must have patience with her." "Dio mio! cosa dice, signore? Spiriti !" "No, nonna; only some strange pictures, and possibly the fierce-looking artist with the odd instruments about him. I'll bet a soldo, now, that she took the resting-rod for a stick to whip her with, and the pallet-knife (with which I mix my colors) for a blade with which I might cut off her head." I read in Checca's face that I had guessed aright the reason why she ran away, but it was some time before she could be coaxed to return to the dreaded hall where the demon was, and, when she did come, half the family were obliged to accompany her. the ingredients, their just proportions, and all about Marterelli, the keeper of the inn, was the gonfaloniere of the paese. Staying at his modest hotel were many artists of various countries, among them Toermor, a noted Saxon painter, and a particular friend of ours; he was a little man of Æsopian deformity, but very clever and witty. From him I had the relation of a certain humorous attack and defense of the town. "The other evening," said he, "near bedtime, thundering blows were heard outside the gate (the one close beside the hotel). The report spread instantly that the Gensanese had made an attack upon it, and were trying to break it down. Determined to resist, the Mayor of Lariccia, our warlike host, called upon his lodgers, myself among the rest, to assist in keeping out the infected besiegers. We all responded to the call, and I, the doughtiest champion, was named his aid. We looked about us for arms. Having exhausted the billiard-cues, we flew to the kitchen; one seized a shovel, another the poker, and I the longest spit I could find, and took my place near the heroic landlord. The villagers had gathered quickly and in formidable numbers before the inn, and our valiant chief made them a speech. It ran thus: Fellow-citizens, the infected enemy is upon us! They have come to poison the sweet air, and bring pestilence and misery upon us. Let us show the assailants that we are worthy descendants of our immortal forefathers. Strike as if every blow would save a hundred precious lives from the horrible plague ; strike for your wives, your children, and yourselves! Forward, my braves, and follow me!' We pushed on with defiant hearts, brandishing our weapons, among which were a dozen rusty muskets (more dangerous to the bearers than to the enemy). In two minutes we were under the arch and close to the ponderous and dilapidated doors which barred the town from the intruders. We listened breathlessly for a repetition of the threatening blows we had heard, when thump-thump! bang-bang! came others, which blanched the cheeks of Lariccia's defenders. We expected momentarily to see some part of the old gate tumbling upon our heads. We listened to hear the voices of the pestiferous assailants outside. We waited some time, when we were all startled by the vociferous braying of an ass! and all was still again. It was then resolved by the council of war that a long ladder should be put against the wall, and that one of the bravest of our little band of heroes should climb up and reconnoitre the force and quality of the foe. I volunteered to undertake this perilous reconnaissance, first saying to my friends, Remember, if I fall, my name is Toermor!' I clambered up, not knowing what might be my fate; stole a glance, expecting Heaven knows how many balls hissing by my head; looked-every nerve in my body trembling-looked, and-and saw three donkeys standing quietly by the gate! The poor beasts had been turned out into the woods to browse; returning instinctively to go to their stables, and finding themselves barred out, they had been kicking for admittance. This is the one siege of Lariccia for many centuries." The humble inn kept by Marterelli, the mayor, has often had for its guests Vernet, Cornelius, Gibson, and other celebrated artists. I have seen traces of the genius of some of these eminent men in rough sketches upon the walls of the bedrooms where they slept. There was one room in particular famous for some remarkable caricatures, but which whitewashing and bluewashing have recently buried out of sight. The proposed limits of this chapter will not allow me to stay much longer in Lariccia, fruitful as I might make it in relations of distinguished individuals in painting and sculpture, and I may add of poets and writers. Byron, Keats, and Shelley, loved the spot and surroundings, and so did Hans Christian Andersen. We had our picnics on the banks of the Nemi; our donkey-rides to Monte Cavo; our wanderings through the thick wood that now covers the ground where ancient Alba Longa stood; from this elevation we could see a line of coast reaching from the Circean Promontory to Porto d'Anzio (ancient Antium); from there we could trace the sea-line to the mouth of the Tiber and fifty miles farther north to Cività Vecchia; back from the grand stretch of coast sweeps the Roman Campagna-Soracteus, its western boundary, looking like a gigantic wave which has been suddenly petrified in its roll. On the east rise in misty grandeur the Sabine Mountains; nearer, to the south, the Volscian and Albin ranges were seen around us; the Vallericcia below us, once a region of volcanic fires, now a verdant plain of fields and vineyards. The City of the Caesars reposed in a dreamy mist some fifteen miles distant; spotting the sad Campagna one saw those desolate remains of aqueducts, towers, and temples, lone sentinels pointing to the mighty past! Under our eyes could be embraced most of the territory where Virgil's hero fought, married, and disappeared so mysteriously. Directly at our feet lay sleeping, deep down under wood, bramble, and vine-covered rocks and cliffs, the blue lake of Albano. Upon the other side the thick, stunted shrubbery extends and pitches itself down to the border of the lovely Nemi. Amid these scenes of beauty, related to such events of remote times, we roamed together-we students from far-off lands-that summer of twenty years since, and, meeting now (those of us still living), speak of it as a period full of pleasant hours. In many varied pastimes we spent that long-past season, not easily forgotten, and waited for the first great rain, which was the sign that we might return to Rome with safety. It came, and we were once more at the Eternal City in our studios. My picture of Checca was on my easel, and I was dissatisfied with it, and sighed to have more sittings from the model. The next year, when the hot July days warned us away from Rome's unhealthy air, my wife and self directed our outing toward the Sabine and Latin highlands. We went to Subiaco, fifty miles distant, with the intention of going to Avezzano, near the lake of Fucina, in the wild Abruzzi; but the way lay over mountains rough and perilous, and it was only to be done on mules and donkeys: so we gave it up and staid at Subiaco. J. B. Pyne, a distinguished English landscapepainter, was in Italy at this period, and we were stopping with him and his family at the Pernici Hotel, the principal if not only locanda of the place. He was one of the most genial companions we could desire-intelligent, and very instructive, and eloquent when talking about his art. He was a sharp, clever critic, and his hits against what was unsatisfactory to him went straight from his shoulder, and told tremendously. He was a personal friend and admirer of Turner's, and has been by some called his imitator; but this I could not see in his works, which were poetical and beautiful—the productions of an original and independent spirit. He was a strikingly fine, elderly man, with a long, white, flowing beard-a thorough type of an Englishman in its best signification, both in manner and appearance, free from insular prejudices, with all a Briton's pride of country. He had a nice sense of humor where wit kept itself within decent limits; a hearty appreciation of all that might be called æsthetical; a genuine and a charming sympathy for the pleasures of social life. We roamed together often over the heights and through the deep gorges which characterized Subiaco. In one of our strolls he told me the anecdotes for which I shall find room here, trusting to my memory for his own phraseology. “After our annual dinner at our rooms of the Water-Color Society, one year," said he, "I walked home with Turner. During the walk of more than two miles I do not think he spoke a single word. As we reached his own door, he broke the silence with, ‘I say, Pyne, painting's a rum dodge, is'nt it?' Nothing more was said save ‘Good-night.' defiantly up-stairs. Finding the painting-room door at the top, he knocked with vigor, but got no reply; he then pushed it open, and walked into the sanctum. There sat the great painter, wholly absorbed upon a small sketch in water-color, ignoring the presence of his visitor and his blunt 'How do you do, sir?' Waiting a moment to see if the artist would notice him, and meeting with no recognition, he walked about the studio, turning the pictures (which had their faces to the wall) around, and putting them in shocking bad lights, enough to drive a painter frantic. After examining them for some time, he once more tried to attract the artist's attention. 'I say, Turner-that I believe's your name-what's the figure for this picture?' (turning it as if it were a dried codfish toward him). The painter raised his head an instant from his board, and said, very carelessly, 'Four thousand guineas.' 'And this other to the right,' pursued Gillott, 'what's the price of that?' 'Three thousand "You have heard of Gillott, have you not?" pounds,' was the answer. 'And this one on the questioned he―" Gillott, the inventor of steel-pens, left?' Fifteen hundred guineas.' 'I'll take the and who amassed a fortune by them? When he had three,' said Gillott. Then Turner rose and laid acquired wealth, desirous of possessing those objects down his pencils. Who the devil are you,' he said, of art which denote the presence of refinement as 'who take the liberty to intrude into my studio well as money, he went up to London to ask his against my orders? You must be a queer sort of banker what a rich man should do to furnish a grand a beggar, I fancy.' 'You're another queer beghouse, which he had just built, best in accordance gar,' was the reply; I am Gillott, the pen-maker. with good taste. Sitting with his legs under his My banker tells me that you are clever in your busibanker's mahogany, he said, 'Now, what do you ad- ness, and recommends you, and I have come here to vise me to do?' Pictures, statuary, and other ob- buy some of your pictures.' 'By George! you are a jects of virtu, together with a library,' suggested droll fellow, I must say.' 'You're another, I must his host. But I don't know anything about these say.' 'But,' pursued Turner, 'rough-and-ready matters; I wish you would tell me how I am to go though you are, I rather like you. Do you really about it. Now, for pictures, for example: what's up want to purchase the canvases you selected?' 'Yes; in the market?' 'Ah! to what clever artists I can in course I do, or I would not have climbed your recommend you? Well, there are Mulready, Ettie, blessed stairs this morning.' 'Well, Mr. Gillott, I and Leslie, for figure-pieces, and some of the Royal must be frank with you: when I noticed you in my Academicians besides, well enough, in that depart-studio without permission, I thought it a piece of imment; but, if you prefer landscape, I should advise | pertinence, and, when you asked the prices, I thought you to try and secure some of Turner's works. I you did so as many vulgar people do, for mere curithink him superior to Claude himself, even.' 'Well, osity, having no intention of buying, wishing only to well, I can try them both. Will you please to give know what valuation I put upon my works, and I me their addresses?' 'I can give you the address of gave you a price which suited my humor. Two of Turner, but Claude Lorraine's address lies beyond the pictures are already disposed of; the other, the the grave.' 'Oh! I sha'n't try him; but give me first one you spoke of, is at your acceptance for a t'other fellow's whereabouts, and I'll go to him to- thousand pounds.' 'I will take it,' said the princely morrow-him and any other picture-maker you can Gillott; and I want you to make me three or four counsel me to employ.' The pen-maker had a large others at your own price.' Thus the pen-maker and deposit with his banker's, who smiled graciously at the eccentric artist became friends, and warm friends his rough customer's want of refinement, and wrote too." down Turner's address and the usual number of Royal Academicians. The next morning Gillott went off in search of England's famous landscapepainter. He found the house, on the upper story of which the artist had his studio. A female servant was sweeping down the stairs when the square-built, podgy little man presented himself, and asked if the painter-man was at home. 'Yes,' said Peggy, but he don't want to see nobody, and I'm not to allow any one to go up-them's his very words.' 'Stand out of the way, young woman,' said Gillott-' stand out of the way!' and, pushing her aside, stumped | It is but a short time since, when a sale of Gillott's pictures took place. The Turners brought an immense profit upon the money paid for them. In one of our rambles, Pyne told me an amusing anecdote about himself. "I went down," said he, " to the London docks to make a few studies of shipping for a picture I was painting. Finding a convenient spot on the quay in front of one of the large warehouses, I adjusted my sketching-stool and set to work. I observed an elderly, portly-looking party walking backward and forward, with his hands behind him—à la Napoleon |