Emilia a considerable time, but no improvement in her health was apparent; on the contrary, her debility fearfully increased, and other symptoms seemed to declare that death was near.

Graham was deeply interested in the case of the unhappy girl; and, unknown to himself, a tenderer sentiment than pity had sprung up in his bosom, while he was equally ignorant that the sweet and dying singer had conceived for him a passion that increased in depth and energy in proportion as the body grew feeble.

It was nearly morning, and the young physician was in his study, having spent the night in an anxious endeavour to discover some means, or devise some system of treatment, that might save his patient. His spirits had been greatly depressed, but now his eyes brightened, his cheek was flushed, and before the day had well dawned he hurried to the house of an eminent brother practitioner, with whom, on previous occasions, he had held consultations.

"Ingenious-may possibly have the effect you imagine," said the elder physician; "but," added he, shaking his head, "a desperate remedy at the best, for, believe me, if the preparation do not cure her, she must sink in a few hours."

"Doctor, you are aware that everything yet tried has failed, and you must agree with me that, unless something speedily is done, the lady will die."

"I am of that opinion."

"Then under the circumstances you consider I am justified in having recourse to this remedy."

“I think—I believe you are; though, to speak the truth, I would rather not be understood as acting with you in the affair."

"Very well, doctor; then the responsibility shall rest solely with

me."

Graham was ascending the stairs of the house occupied by his patient. His usual calmness and self-possession for a moment forsook him, and he paused as if he had forgotten something. The nurse chanced to open the door of the room above, and then he heard-low indeed but seraphically sweet-the voice of the renowned singer; Emilia was chanting a fragment from Mozart, and, as she poured that clear mellifluous stream of melody, she might have seemed to fancy, like the fabled swan, singing its own requiem ere it dies.

Graham stood by the bed some minutes before Emilia became aware of his presence, but, seeing him, she stopped abruptly, and a deep blush

suffused her face.

"I had forgotten myself, doctor, but I believe I was half in a dream, for I fancied I was again on the stage. The stage! never more shall I appear there, for mine henceforth must be the stage where spirits shall stand before their Maker, and the theatre the vast abyss that shall endure for eternity."

"God grant," exclaimed Graham, fervently, yet rise from this bed of sickness !"

"that we may see you

"Never, never—the hand of death is on me; and yet I desire to live-not for the stage, not for popular applause-I am weary of that. Oh! doctor! doctor! my notions have changed with regard to our duties on earth, and the true source and spring of human happiness; but my doom is fixed, and you cannot save me. I thank for you your unremitting attention and your great kindness; would it were in my power to

reward you as I ought! but money cannot do that. Will you, stay near me-be with me-when-I die ?"

doctor,

The lovely invalid fixed on him those eyes where a tender melancholy beamed--eyes of the sunny south, but now losing their radiance, for they were fast filling with tears.

Graham did not speak, remaining for a few minutes motionless, overcome by his feelings; but, presently whispering to the nurse, he produced the medicine on which so much depended; in it was life or death-it was administered.

"She sleeps now," whispered Graham to the nurse; "she may continue in this state for some hours. Watch her, but be perfectly still; I will remain at the foot of the bed."

At that instant the door was half opened, and old Donzelli, thrusting in his forbidding whiskered face, beckoned to Graham; the latter crept towards him on tiptoe.

"Doctor, has my daughter passed the crisis you named?" Graham placed his finger on his lip in token of silence. "I have told you already of the great importance of my daughter's life-immense importance to me and to the world. But ah! even if you restore her to health, one month only remains of the season-one poor month! Doctor, if she dies I am a beggar-nay, I cannot help speaking: I say I shall be a beggar. I'll not leave the room; you should have some respect for a father's feelings. My friend, if I lose her-her services-I'll bring an action against you-I'll indict you for manslaughter."

Graham was acquainted with Donzelli's character, and knew how to pacify him; it was not, however, without considerable trouble that he prevailed upon him at length to quit the chamber.

We have only to record that the physician's mode of treatment, desperate though it might be, proved successful. Emilia lay insensible for many hours; but the crisis came-it passed, and the disease took a favourable turn. In a word, the beautiful singer's life for the time was saved.

It might have been a month after the scene just described, that Emilia, restored to comparative health, was seated in her drawing-room. Her father, with his little account-book in his hand, and his empty cash-box under his arm, exhibiting these, it would seem, to give greater weight to his arguments, had planted himself before her. He was pressing his daughter to appear once more in public, but Emilia had said farewell to the stage, and nothing availed to move her.

"Is it then come to this ?" cried old Donzelli. "The golden harvest waves, and my idle child, when it is in her power, will not reap it down. Miserable girl! better I had buried you, for twenty pounds would have done that; and what we have saved, the paltry five thousand, would not daily melt away, as now will be the case, for, though we give up this house, I calculate you will cost me yearly-But I will bend you, stubborn one, yet," added Donzelli, shaking his fist at her. "I'll force you on the stage-you shall sing whether you will or not. Why, the doctor says you are pretty well recovered now; and 'pretty well' with medical men always means 'quite.' I say you are quite recovered."

"Not exactly, dear father; I still feel very weak, and the exertion of singing in public-"

"Nonsense!" cried Donzelli, cutting her short; "permit me to know best. I repeat you are equal to it, and there is nothing now to prevent

you from resuming your professional duties, and recruiting our exhausted funds, but your own obstinacy. However, you are like your mother before you, self-willed, the very plague of my life, and I often wonder I bore with her so patiently, and that I continue to humour you so long. Ah!" added the good man, looking on the ground, "my disposition must be very excellent, or I should never preserve my temper as I do."

He turned his back on Emilia, and left the room, slamming the door after him; but five minutes had not elapsed before Donzelli again made his appearance; to say truth, his manner had considerably softened, his face was covered with smiles, and a stranger might, indeed, have pronounced him, as he himself had averred, a gentleman of a very amiable disposition.

"Emilia, my dear," he began, coaxingly; "come, come, you know I love you, and I hope you love me. Please your father now-oblige me, my love; say you will sing twice-just twice; to tell you a little secret, I had an interview yesterday with the manager."

"And what of that, father?"

"He says, if you will consent to reappear on the boards, you shall have

5001. for-for-"

"Well! there, father, since you desire it so ardently, I consent." "Thank you!" cried the delighted parent, throwing his arms around his child's neck; "that's a good girl. 500l. for twice did I say? -pshaw! 'tis just the same thing,-for singing four nights-yes, yes, only four nights. There," he added, smothering her with kisses, we won't say anything more just now; I'll off to the manager, and arrange all about it. Good bye!-ah! ah! we shall get on after all."

66

And Emilia, yielding to the importunities of her father, did appear once more in her favourite characters. Her return to the stage was hailed with rapture, and, borne onwards by her former enthusiasm, the prima donna gave herself up to the ardour of the hour, exerted all her splendid overwhelming powers, and even surpassed herself.

But it was not to be. Emilia went through her arduous duties for three nights; on the fourth she failed; nature's over-taxed energies gave way, and she was conveyed from the theatre to her home in an insensible state, and more like a corpse than a living being. The result was, that her old disease returned upon her with double violence, and now for the vocalist there existed indeed little hope.

"I tell you she is not going to die, doctor. I'll not have it-I'll not hear of it; you are her murderer, if you cannot cure her-mind that. Half of her illness is obstinacy, because she is too idle to exercise her talents-her talents, which I consider my property, for she wants some months yet of twenty-one. Consumption?-last stage?-'tis no such thing; she wants rousing. I will go to her room and do it. Nay, don't hold me back; she is my child, I suppose, not yours? Oh, yes! you may accompany me, if you like. Mild? I'll speak to her mildly, of course; I'll not frighten her, be assured. I suppose I have cause to grieve more than you, for her death will scarcely render you a ruined man?"

She lay in beauty, pale as marble, yet lovely and innocent-looking as a dreaming child. Her large Italian eyes opened as the physician and her father approached the bed, and a sweet smile expressive of resignation to her fate stole over her faded features. Ah! what so interesting, what so holy, yet what so sad, as the death-bed of the gifted, the beautiful, and young?

The master-passion was strong even now in Emilia's bosom, for, without addressing any one in particular, she whispered audibly

"Will there be sweet sounds in the land of spirits?—will there be singing in heaven ?"

66

My love," said Donzelli, in as kind a tone as he was able to speak, "do not talk of that; we are going to keep you among us, of course we are. Ah! Emilia, 'twas rather unfortunate, though, that you broke down before the completion of the engagement, for the manager, in consequence, declares he will not pay me more than two-thirds of the stipulated sum. However, my love, I shall bring an action against him for the full amount of 500l., and I think the law is on our side. There, don't speak. Nurse, I'll trouble you for that orange; cut it first. Here, my child, 'twill

refresh you."

"Father, father, do not regard the money so much. You will not want when I am gone."

"Yes, but I shall want. I shall be unable to turn my hand to anything. I shall have no income-I shall be a beggar. Gone?where are you going? Doctor, you put these notions into the child's head. Now I'm not speaking loud-I see you are all against me, and want to rob me of my daughter's services; but I'll instantly fetch another physician to restore the girl, if I have to fee him with twenty pounds!"

The father was about to leave the room, but the faint voice of Emilia called him back.

"Dear father, I want no other physician than the kind friend who stands here. Pray remain by me, for I may not have long to speak to you."

The nurse supported her head, for she was sinking; Graham chafed her poor hand and bathed her temples. In a few minutes she was a little revived.

Why, this is dreadful!" exclaimed Donzelli, looking in real alarm at the physician. "I am beginning to think I shall lose my child after all. My love," he continued, in soft accents, stooping over her, "do rouse yourself, and don't give way. Live, if it is only for my sake, for think how utterly destitute-I mean desolate-I shall be. I promise-faithfully promise that when you are one-and-twenty, and this will be in a few months, all you gain shall be your own-that is, I shall expect only a small portion: so you see you have every reason to wish to live."

"Farewell, dear father-may you be happy! I go to my mother." "Ah! I lost an annuity of a hundred scudi a-year when she died,” exclaimed the monetary calculator; "and now I shall lose-oh! I was born to ill-fortune, wronged and wretched man that I am!"

He stepped back a few paces from the bed, clenching his hands and gazing wildly, half angrily, on his expiring child. The physician was shocked at the man's conduct, but felt it his duty rather to direct his attention to his poor patient. And Emilia's hand lay in his, her eyes were fixed on him, her lips murmured her thanks faintly and more faintly, and so she died.

When Donzelli saw that the companion of his old age, the sweet child of song, the star of beauty, the worshipped of an applauding crowd, was no more, he did not bend or weep; but with that hardness and selfishness which had distinguished his character through life, he turned away from the bed, and muttered, "I am a ruined man!"

ZIG-ZAG TO PARIS, AND STRAIGHT HOME;

OR,

A THOUSAND MILES AND FOURTEEN DAYS FOR FOURTEEN POUNDS.

A JOURNAL OF A TOUR IN FRANCE, IN DECEMBER, 1848. 1848, Saturday, Dec. 9th.-This afternoon, at 3.50, I left a town in the Midland Counties, which it is unnecessary to name, proposing to myself a visit to France, there to spend ten days or a fortnight, and as little money as possible. My cousin, who, being an architect, needs no better name than T. Square,-initials are odious,-had agreed to travel with me. A fixed point was, that on Friday, the 15th, we should meet another relative, henceforth Joseph-and my French friend of long acquaintance, Daniel for the nonce, at Abbeville. Daniel, who is government architect to the Department of the Somme, had business in the neighbourhood, and it had been arranged that we should all four excurse awhile in Picardy. Our plan was otherwise utterly indefinite.

In London, I quartered myself, according to previous arrangement, at a friend's house, which I mention, because the circumstance had a trifling influence upon the cost of this journey, of which more hereafter in detail.

Sunday, Dec. 10th.-Square and I discussed our plan, and, as it appeared he had made an engagement not easy to renounce, for the next day, viz., for an architectural excursion to Stanmore, it was arranged with him and his friends that I should be of the party; that we should leave town for Stanmore at half-past ten in the morning, previously sending our baggage down to the South-Eastern Railway Station, whence we were to depart for Folkestone by the 5.30 P.M. train if possible, and if not by that, by the 8.30 P.M. mail fast train. These particulars are not otherwise important than as they account for our travelling, as we eventually did, by the mail train and Folkestone steamer, a comparatively expensive route and mode of travel, instead of by cheaper means,-steamer, for instance, direct from London-bridge. And I shall note facts bearing thus upon our expenditure, intending to subjoin some sort of synopsis of it and of other "facts and figures," and to illustrate altogether the feasibility of cheap, and yet decent, comfortable, pleasant, and instructive travel.

Monday, Dec. 11th.-We spent an exceedingly agreeable day at Stanmore, looking over a new house in the Collegiate, Gothic, or University Lodge style, which is there being completed and elaborated under Square's superintendence.

This Stanmore fact, by the way, is not by any means to be disregarded, seeing it to be this peculiar one, viz., that at three o'clock one fine afternoon we were dawdling about in the winter sunshine, and leisurely discussing architectural this, that, and the other, twelve miles north of London, and at midnight were afloat in the Channel, half way across to France.

We returned to town too late for the 5.30. train, and proceeded citywards, to take the one at 8.30. Passing by the office of the SouthEastern and Continental Steam Navigation Company, in the Regent's