dise, and, with unscaled eyes, shall behold nature and all her powers as she appeared on the first day of creation in her bride-like attire."
While the meek student was thus speaking, Alphonso cast a triumphant glance upon his friend, and Antonio could not help confessing that he was more prepossessed by the discourse and humble demeanour of their new friend, than he had ever been by the ostentatious parade and grandiloquence of the mighty Abano. He now began to think that the wisdom usually deemed supernatural and unlawful, was perfectly compatible with true piety and lowliness of heart.
"Can you tell me what my destiny is to be?" asked Antonio.
"If I knew the year, the day, and the hour of your birth," replied Castalio, "I should then draw your horoscope, and, after comparing it with the lineaments of your countenance and the lines of your hand, I think I could reveal to you something of your future fate."
Antonio handed a pocket-book to the seer, in which his father had put down the precise hour of his birth. Castalio made the young men sit down, and placed wine before them, of which he himself also partook while he was making his calculations. He likewise, from time to time, joined gaily in the conversation; and, in short, went through his work in such an easy off-hand manner, as plainly showed that it by no means required his undivided attention. When about an hour had passed over in this way, Castalio rose, and beckoned Antonio to a window. "I have called you aside," said he, " because I do not know how far your friend is in your confidence." He then, after attentively examining his countenance and the lines upon his hands, related to him, step by step, the history of his parents' misery—his mother's violent death—the guilty passion, and the murder of his father. He then passed on to the events of Antonio's own life—how, while pursuing his father's murderer, he had been detained in Padua by an attachment to the lovely Crescentia. "And it is with the utmost astonishment," he concluded, " that I discover you to be the man who brought to light the hellish practices of the accursed Abano, and delivered that miscreant over to the punishment he so richly deserved. Alas, my young friend, how deeply do I sympathize with your affliction, for twice over had you to sustain the terrible loss of your beloved one!"
Antonio opened his whole soul to his new friend, with as much confidence as if he had been merely speaking to himself. He related to him the adventures of that dreadful night in which he seemed to have discovered a second Crescentia in the cottage of the old witch, whom, he was convinced, he had seen that very day in the streets. "Can you inform me," asked he, with eagerness, "whether what I then beheld was real, and whether there be another Crescentia alive, whom I shall yet have the happiness of restoring to her parents?"
Castalio became more thoughtful than before— "Provided the person you saw to-day," said he "be not the fiend Berecynth disguised as a woman, I have little doubt but that we shall detect the old hag. However, wait patiently till the morning, and in the mean time let us part. Rest assured of this, that the events of that night were no mere fancies bred in your distempered brain; but were actual realities—you and your friends may be perfectly satisfied of that."
The young men bade adieu to Castalio; and Antonio thanked the Spaniard very heartily for having procured him such an agreeable acquaintance.
Chap. XII.
A Chapter on Beauty, and other Matters.
Antonio had not been mistaken. The old woman he had caught a glimpse of in the crowded streets, was really she in whose cottage in the forest he had passed the night. She dwelt in a small hovel, behind some ruined houses near the Lateran church. Persecuted, and in want—hated, feared, and forsaken—her house seemed the very abode of despair. She seldom ventured abroad, but on this occasion had gone out into the town to look for her Crescentia, who was absent without leave. After her return, when sitting up at night, she was greatly surprised to hear a violent knocking at the door, and a confused noise of cries and lamentation. She
