counsellor Calderino to plead for us on the day of trial.

He is gen

erous, and will listen to the unfortunate. But, if he will not, go from door to door; Monaldi cannot refuse us. Make haste, my child; but remember the chapel as you pass by it. out a prayer."

Nothing prospers with

Alas, she went, but in vain. These were retained against them; those demanded more than they had to give; and all bade them despair. What was to be done? No advocate, and the cause to come on to-morrow!

Now Gianetta had a lover; and he was a student of the law, a young man of great promise, Lorenzo Martelli. He had studied long and diligently under that learned lawyer, Giovanni Andreas,' who, though little of stature, was great in renown, and by his contemporaries was called the Arch-doctor, the Rabbi of Doctors, the Light of the World. Under him he had studied, sitting on the same bench with Petrarch; and also under his daughter Novella, who would often lecture to the scholars, when her father was otherwise engaged, placing herself behind a small curtain, lest her beauty should divert their thoughts; a precaution in this instance at least unnecessary, Lorenzo having lost his heart to another.

To him she flies in her necessity; but of what assistance can he be? He has just taken his place at the bar, but he has never spoken; and how stand up alone, unpractised and unprepared as he is, against an array that would alarm the most experienced ?-" Were I as mighty as I am weak," said he, "my fears for you would make me as nothing. But I will be there, Gianetta; and may the Friend of the Friendless give me strength in that hour! Even now my heart fails me; but, come what will, while I have a loaf to share, you and your mother shall never want. I will beg through the world for you."

The day arrives and the court assembles. The claim is stated, and the evidence given. And now the defence is called for-but none is made; not a syllable is uttered; and after a pause and a consultation of some minutes, the Judges are proceeding to give judgment, silence having been proclaimed in the court, when Lorenzo rises and thus addresses them.

"Reverend Signors. Young as I am, may I venture to speak before you? I would speak in behalf of one who has none else to help her; and I will not keep you long. Much has been said; much on the sacred nature of the obligation—and we acknowledge it in its full force. Let it be fulfilled, and to the last letter. It is what we solicit, what we require. But to whom is the bag of gold to be delivered? What says the bond? Not to one-not to two-but to the three. Let the three stand forth and claim it."

From that day (for who can doubt the issue?) none were sought, none employed, but the subtle, the eloquent Lorenzo. Wealth followed fame; nor need I say how soon he sat at his marriage-feast, or who sat beside him.

R

THE BRIGHTON COACH.*

BY THEODORE HOOK.

I was once placed in a situation of peculiar embarrassment; the event made a strong impression on me at the time-an impression indeed, which has lasted ever since.

Those who know as well as 1 do, and have known as long as I have known, that once muddy, shabby, dirty fishing-town on the Sussex coast, which has grown, under the smiles and patronage of our late beloved king, into splendour and opulence, called Brighton, will be aware, that there run to it and from it, divers and sundry most admirable public conveyances in the shape of stage coaches; that the rapid improvements in that sort of travelling have during late years interfered with, and greatly injured the trade of posting; and that people of the first respectability think it no shame to pack themselves up in a Brighton coach, and step out of it at Charingcross exactly five hours after they have stepped into it, in Castlesquare.

The gallant gay Stevenson, with his prancing greys under perfect command, used to attract a crowd to see him start; and now, although he, poor fellow, is gone that journey whence no traveller returns, Goodman still survives, and the "Times" still flourishes; in that, is the principal scene of my embarrassment laid; and to that admirable, neat, and expeditious equipage must I endeavour to attract your attention for some ten minutes.

It was one day in the autumn of 1829, just as the pavilion clock was striking three, that I stepped into Mr Goodman's coach. In it I found already a thin stripling enveloped in a fur pelisse, the only distinguishing mark of whose sex was a tuft of mustachio on his upper lip. He wore a travelling cap on his head girt with a golden band, and eyed me and his other fellow-traveller as though we had been of a different race of beings from himself. That other fellow traveller I took to be a small attorney. He was habited in a drab great coat, which matched his round, fat face in colour; his hair, too, was drab, and his hat was drab; his features were those of a young pig: and his recreation through the day was sucking barleysugar, to which he perpetually kept helping himself from a neat white paper parcel of the luscious commodity, which he had placed in the pocket of the coach window.

There was one other passenger to take up, and I began wondering what it would be like, and whether it would be male or female,

From The Keepsake,' for 1831,

old or young, handsome or ugly, when my speculations were speedily terminated by the arrival of an extremely delicate pretty wo man, attended by her maid. The lady was dressed in the extreme of plainness, and yielded the palm of gaiety to her soubrette, who mounted by the side of Mr Goodman, at the moment that her mistress placed herself next my pig-faced friend and opposite to me.

It does not require half a second of time to see and know and understand what sort of woman it is, who is thus brought in juxtaposition with one. The turn of her mind may be ascertained by the way she seats herself in her corner; her disposition by the look she gives to her companions; and her character-but perhaps that may require a minute or two more. The lady in question cast a hasty glance round her, merely as it should seem, to ascertain if she were personally acquainted with any of her companions. She evidently was not; and her eyes sank from the inquiring gaze round the party upon a black silk bag which lay on her lap. She was about four or five-and-twenty; her eyes were blue and her hair fair; it hung carelessly over her forehead, and the whole of her costume gave evidence of a want of attention to what is called "setting one's self off to the best advantage." She was tallthin-pale; and there was a sweet expression in her countenance which I shall never forget; it was mild and gentle, and seemed to be formed to its plaintive cast by suffering-and yet why should one so lovely be unhappy?

As the clock struck we started. The sudden turn of the team round the corner of North-street and Church-street brought a flush of colour into her cheeks; she was conscious of the glow which I was watching; she seemed ashamed of her own timidity. She looked up to see if she was observed; she saw she was and looked down again. All this happened in the first hundred and seventy yards of a journey of fifty-two miles and a half.

My pig-faced friend, who sucked his barley-sugar sonorously, paid little attention to any body, or any thing, except himself; and, in pursuance of that amiable tenderness, pulled up the window at his side. The lady, like the beau in the fur coat, laid her delicate head back in the corner of the coach, and slept or seemed to sleep. The horror I felt lest my pig-faced friend should consider it necessary to join in any conversation which I might venture to originate with my unknown beauty opposite, kept me quiet; and I "ever and anon" looked anxiously towards his vacant features, in hopes to see the two grey unmeaning things which served him for eyes, closed in a sweet and satisfactory slumber. But no, although he spoke not, and if one may judge by countenances, thought not, still

he kept awake, and ready, as it should seem, to join in a conversation which he had not courage to begin.

And so we travelled on, and not one syllable was exchanged until we reached Crawley. There my heart was much relieved. At Hands-cross we had dropped the cornet with the tufts; horses were ready to convey him to some man's house to dinner; and when we were quitting Crawley, I saw my excellent demolisher of barley sugar mount a regular Sussex buggy, and export himself to some town or village out of the line of our road.

I here made a small effort at ice-breaking with my delicate companion, who consorted with her maid at one end of the room, while 1 with one or two more sensualists from the outside, was refreshing myself with some cold fowl and salad. I ventured to ask her whether she would allow me to offer her some wine and water. Hang it! thought I, if we stand upon gentility in a stage-coach journey, smart as the things are, we shall never part sociably. She seemed somewhat of the same opinion, for she smiled. I shall never forget it it seemed on her placid countenance like sunshine amidst showers-she accepted my proffered draught. "I rather think,” said I, "we shall travel alone for the rest of the journey-our communicative friends have left us." She made no answer; but from the sort of expression which passed over her features, I was very sorry I had made the remark. I was in the greatest possible alarm lest she should require the presence of her maid to play propriety; but no, she had no such notion.

A summons from Mr Goodman soon put the party in motion, and in a few minutes we were again on our journey-the dear interesting creature and myself tete-a-tete. "Have you been long at Brighton ?" said 1. "Some time," replied the lady-" Some months, indeed." Here came a pause. "You reside in London, I presume?" said I. "In the neighbourhood," replied the lady; at

the same time drawing off the glove of her left hand (which by the way was as white as snow), to smooth one of her eyebrows, as it appeared by what she actually did with it, but as I thought, to exhibit to my sight, the golden badge of union which encircled its third finger. "And," said I, "have you been living alone at Brighton so long?" "Oh, no!" said the stranger; "my husband has only left me during the last few weeks, and has now summoned me home, being unable to rejoin me on the coast." Happy man!" said I, "to expect such a wife,"

"

Now, there did not seem much in this common-place bit of folly, for I meant it for little else than jest, to summon up a thousand feelings, and excite a thousand passions-to raise a storm, and cause a flood of tears. But so it was my companion held down her