In the anguish of his heart Adam could have cried aloud.  It seemed to him that until now he had never tasted the bitterness of love nor smarted under the sharp tooth of jealousy.  There were lapses when, sending a covert look across the table, those around him faded away and only Eve and Jerrem stood before him, and while he gazed a harsh, discordant laugh would break the spell, and, starting, he would find that it was his own voice which had jarred upon his ear.  His head seemed on fire, his senses confused.  Turning his eyes upon the tumbler of grog which he had poured out, he could hardly credit that it still stood all but untasted before him.  A noisy song with a rollicking chorus was being sung, and for a moment Adam shut his eyes, trying to recollect himself.  All in vain:  everything seemed jumbled and mixed together.

Suddenly, in the midst of the clamor, a noise outside was heard.  The door was burst violently open and as violently shut again by Jonathan, who, throwing himself with all his force against it, cried out, “They’m comin’! they’m after ’ee—­close by—­the sodjers.  You’m trapped!” And, exhausted and overcome by exertion and excitement, his tall form swayed to and fro, and then fell back in a death-like swoon upon the floor.

The Author of “Dorothy Fox."

[TO BE CONTINUED.]

A VILLEGGIATURA IN ASISI.

To most travellers a visit to Asisi is a flying visit.  They drive over from Perugia or up from the railway station, and if, besides San Francesco and Santa Chiara, they see the cathedral and San Damiano, they believe themselves to have exhausted the sights of the town.  The beautiful front of what was once a temple of Minerva can be seen in passing through the piazza in which it stands:  the departing visitors glance back at the city from the plain, and—­“Buona notte, Asisi!”

Yet this town, as well as most Italian paesi, would reward a more lengthened stay, and, unlike many of them, a refined life is possible here.  A person at once studiously and economically inclined might do much worse than commit himself to spend several months in the city of St. Francis.  We did so last year, on the same principle that made us in childhood prefer the cherries that the birds had pecked, finding them the sweetest.  We had heard Asisi abused:  it was out of the world, it was desperately dull and there was nothing to eat.  We therefore sent and engaged an apartment for the summer, and our confidence was not betrayed.

Perhaps the hotels are not good:  we have never tried them.  But the market is excellent for a mountain-city, and in the autumn figs and grapes are cheap and abundant.  There are apartments to be let, and servants to be had who, with a little instruction, soon learn to cook in a civilized manner.