selves Count and Countess of Albany, and lived at Siena. They had no children, and Charles gradually fell back into his old habits, and showed himself ill-tempered, exacting, and tyrannical. Louisa became interested in the Italian poet, Vittorio Alfieri, who loved her passionately, after the example of Petrarch, but not so purely. Charles became jealous, and actually beat her. She fled to a convent, and put herself undert he protection of the Grand Duke of Tuscany. Prince Henry, now a cardinal, tried to make peace, but in vain, and they were finally divorced, while she and Alfieri remained devoted to one another.

Charles had in his early years loved Clementina Walkinshaw, but had cast her off, but not till she had borne a daughter, whom he sent for, when deserted by his wife, and who treated him with affection and authority.

Once, when an Englishman was with him, he talked of the '45, and grew animated over it; his eyes brightened, and he became full of energy; but when he came to speak of the succeeding cruelties, his voice died away, and he sank on the floor convulsed.

The only royal function he ever exercised was touching for the King's Evil. He grew weaker and more imbecile, and finally died in January 1788-a perfect wreck!

His brother Henry, commonly called Cardinal York, was a good, decorous man, but so dull, that Pope Pius VI., after a long interview with him, was heard to say that he did not wonder at the English for driving the Stewarts away. Yet the Pontiff had soon to be greatly obliged to the Cardinal, who, when Pius was mulcted by Napoleon in 1796, reduced himself to absolute poverty to make up the amount. In 1798, the poor old man at seventy-five was driven absolutely in want from his home at Frascati, by the French, and remained in the greatest distress till the case was made known to Sir John Hippesley, who sent an account of it to England, upon which George III. granted the Cardinal a pension of £4000 a year. The succour, as the old man wrote, 'could not be more timely, for without it, it would have been impossible for him to subsist.' On this he lived till he was eighty-two years of age, when, at his death, he sent to George III. the jewel of the Garter, the same which Charles I. gave on the scaffold to Bishop Juxon, and which James II. had carried with him in his flight. In 1819, when Rome had been freed from the French, a marble tomb with likenesses carved by Canova, was erected by

the Prince Regent under the dome of St. Peter's, bearing the inscription

'Jacobo III., Jacobi Magn. Brit. Regis filio

Carolo Eduardo et Henrico decano
Patrum Cardinalium, Jacobi III. filiis,
Regia Stirpis Stuardiæ Postremis,
Anno MDCCCXIX.

Beati Mortui qui in Domino Moriuntur.'

It was only after this that, among the staunchest Jacobites, coughing ceased at the mention of King George in the Prayers, and the charming songs could no longer be sung with more than a dreamy sense of loyalty.

The direct heirship of the elder line of Stewarts passed through Henrietta, Duchess of Orleans, to her daughter, the Duchess of Savoy, and thence, through several Dukes, to the House of Modena. The wife of the Prince Regent of Bavaria at present represents the Stewart dynasty.

STROLLING PLAYERS.

A HARMONY OF CONTRASTS.

BY CHARLOTTE M. YONGE AND CHRISTABEL R. COLERIDGE.

'It takes all sorts to make a world.'

CHAPTER XXIX.

TOUCH AND GO.

DR. WEBB having only arrived after Alaric had gone to the theatre, and then come out of the town to attend a critical case, had no message about Rigg; and on the next morning Miss Anne walked off to her G. F. S. friend to ask about the hospital, heard splendid compliments about Monday and Tuesday's performances, and found that she had happily hit on the day for admission of patients, and that the good lady could give a recommendation, wherewith she set forth, and, meeting the Major, asked him to escort her to obtain of the poor young man such particulars of name, age, and employment as were required.

The Major was looking annoyed. 'What do you think that ass, Buckley, has been doing?' he said. 'He wants me to back him in getting Lewis to have a benefit for him when he is to be Captain Absolute!'

'A benefit!'

'I told him it was all rot. If we once began that way, Farquharson and all the rest might be after it—and there would be no end to it, and then he growled and said we made him a mere drudge, and treated him like the dirt under our feet-didn't introduce him to the swells, nor get invitations for him. I declare if I hadn't said a line of the multiplication table to meself, as my poor old mother begged me, I should have told him it was

because he was such an intolerable snob-or something worse. And he couldn't get Willingham to pay him, he said, not till the end of this business, when he balances accounts. What should he want with pay, I asked, when Willingham boards and lodges him; but all the answer I got was asking me to lend him five pounds.'

'I hope you did not.'

'Well-you see-I don't know how it slipped out! I never meant man or mother's son to know.'

'You don't mean that you did!' said Miss Anne, not remarking that he had not transgressed this resolution.

'Only on condition that he wasn't to go bothering Lewis any more about benefits or such-like absurdity.'

'Oh! Major. As if it would hold him-the wretched boy. Oh! I wish you hadn't!'

'You see, I want someone to take care of me, and look after me. I say, Anne, won't you be the one to take me in hand?' I? Major, what are you thinking about?'

'Of what I have been thinking ever since we set off on this scheme together,' said the Major, and I've got to see so much more of you. Come now, Anne, you know I'm not like a young

lad, with the first freshness and sweetness to offer. That was all buried long ago in my poor darling's grave; but there's love enough and abounding for all that, and now I know what you are—I don't think you would repent it if you would come and be the light of my little home.'

'Oh dear! Oh dear! What will Minnie say?' but she did not withdraw her hand.

'She has all the rest of them, and she will see you every day. There, you've as good as consented, and there's not a man in the place-no, nor in the three kingdoms-that's happier than Brian O'Connor !'

'But don't-don't be telling all these young folks while all this is going on,' Anne entreated.

'Will they be laughing at us, the spalpeens?'

'Oh! Minnie must know first. Besides, I couldn't-couldn't look those girls in the face. Don't let them guess?

Nevertheless Miss Anne coloured as red as a peony, and fairly jumped to the other side of the pavement when they encountered Ernley Armytage striding along at full speed.

'Holloa, Major! Do you know where Buckley is?' 'I haven't seen him since just after breakfast.'

'Rehearsal at two for Burnet's substitute from London, and now there's another scene shaky'

'The less he sees to a scene the better, I should say,' returned Miss Anne, who had collected herself.

'So should I; but they are at a dead-lock. Willingham is ready to tear his hair. Lambourne's no good to-day, evidently. I believe we are all coming to grief together! Where can he be?' 'Ha! Dolph,' as the boy was seen rushing up the street with a big folding screen on his back-looking like a print of Samson with the gates of Gaza. 'Did Mr. Buckley send that?'

'No, sir. Sir Lewis thought it might come in, and I fetched it from the cottage,' said the breathless Dolph, pausing in his course. I saw Mr. Buckley getting into a waggonette for the races with a lot of fellows, and says he, "You tell Sir Lewis that I'm up in this part, you imp," says he. Those were his words, ma'am, not civil unless it was theatrical, and so-Exeunt. I went to poor Mr. Rigg to ask what we could do, and he says belike if we went cap-in-hand, so to speak, to Mr. Terry, and told him Mr. Buckley was not in the theatre, maybe he would condescend to serve our turn. So I was going to tell Sir Lewis

'That's right, Dolph! Old Belville knew what he was about to nail that boy!' said the Major. But oh! that idiot, that pigheaded idiot. If ever you catch me lending him five pound again, I'll give you leave to call me black-hearted traitor!'

'It was a great mistake to let him get mixed up with us,' said Miss Anne. This sort of thing brings out whether a man has the instincts of a gentleman.'

'The instincts of a dirty little scorpion,' returned the Major. The boy was in such breathless haste that they had not stopped him to ask after his patient, whom Miss Dorset saw for the first time. He was in a wretched attic of a house that had once seen better days, in an atmosphere of sour stuffiness, where he lay in a grimy-looking bed, with nothing tolerable about it but a cup. of cold tea, and a peach in a saucer, peeled and divided neatly-no doubt Dolph's work The poor fellow was in great pain, and was less communicative than the Major had found him the night before, especially about his name, age, and domicile.

'There's something wrong about him,' said the Major, as the two emerged into the fresher air of the street. I don't believe that was his real name.'

'I am afraid not,' sighed Miss Anne, 'but that he is terribly ill is quite certain.'