been piling up money in the East, persuaded her to quit the stage when she had but just started in her grand career.  All the musical world in Rome were vexed with him for preventing her re-engagement.  As for Fitzgerald, I believe he would have shot him if he could have found him.  It was a purely musical disappointment, for he was never introduced to the fascinating Senorita; but he fairly pined upon it.  I told him the best way to drive off the blue devils would be to go with me and a few friends to the Grotta Azzura.  So off we started to Naples, and thence to Capri.  The grotto was one of the few novelties remaining for me in Italy.  I had heard much of it, but the reality exceeded all descriptions.  We seemed to be actually under the sea in a palace of gems.  Our boat glided over a lake of glowing sapphire, and our oars dropped rubies.  High above our heads were great rocks of sapphire, deepening to lapis-lazuli at the base, with here and there a streak of malachite.”

“It seems like Aladdin’s Cave,” remarked Flora.

“Yes,” replied Mr. Green; “only it was Aladdin’s Cave undergoing a wondrous ‘sea change.’  A poetess, who writes for the papers under the name of Melissa Mayflower, had fastened herself upon our party in some way; and I suppose she felt bound to sustain the reputation of the quill.  She said the Nereids must have built that marine palace, and decorated it for a visit from fairies of the rainbow.”

“That was a pretty thought,” said Flora.  “It sounds like ’Lalla Rookh.’”

“It was a pretty thought,” rejoined the gentleman, “but can give you no idea of the unearthly splendor.  I thought how you would have been delighted if you had been with our party.  I regretted your absence almost as much as I did at the opera.  But the Blue Grotto, wonderful as it was, didn’t quite drive away Fitzgerald’s blue devils, though it made him forget his vexations for the time.  The fact is, just as we started he received a letter from his agent, informing him of the escape of a negro woman and her two children; and he spent most of the way back to Naples swearing at the Abolitionists.”

Flora, the side of whose face was toward him, gave Mrs. Delano a furtive glance full of fun; but he saw nothing of the mischief in her expressive face, except a little whirlpool of a dimple, which played about her mouth for an instant, and then subsided.  A very broad smile was on Mr. Percival’s face, as he sat examining some magnificent illustrations of the Alhambra.  Mr. Green, quite unconscious of the by-play in their thoughts, went on to say, “It is really becoming a serious evil that Southern gentlemen have so little security for that species of property.”

“Then you consider women and children property?” inquired Mr. Percival, looking up from his book.

Mr. Green bowed with a sort of mock deference, and replied:  “Pardon me, Mr. Percival, it is so unusual for gentlemen of your birth and position to belong to the Abolition troop of rough-riders, that I may be excused for not recollecting it.”