There was no one in the drawingroom, of course, and Amy made her way up-stairs, wondering where her new aunt was, wondering what sort of person she was, and what she had to do with it. She had red eyes, but that was with crying; and her nose was red, and her whole person limp; but then her voice and touch were kind. The door of the west room was closed when she approached, but Stevens just then came out with a tray."

"Is the lady, is-my aunt there?" "La! bless us, Miss, is she your aunt?" said Stevens, and went downstairs nodding her head, and refusing further comment.

Amy paused a long time at the door. Should she go in and make acquaintance with the stranger? Should she encounter her mother

there, with that changed face? With a little timid reluctance to take any decisive step, she ran to her own room first to collect herself. Amy's room communicated with her mother's. Mrs Scudamore had been glad to have her child so near, to be able to call her at any hour; but the first thing Amy saw on entering the room was that the door of communication was closed. She gave a little sharp cry involuntarily. That separation hurt her, and appalled her.

"Why should she shut me out?" Amy cried to herself "me?" She felt the door, it was locked; she listened even in the great perturbation of her thoughts, but nothing was audible. It was more than Amy could bear.

"Mamma, mamma!" she cried, beating on the door.

There was no answer. Amy had something of the Scudamore temper, too, and could be hasty, and even violent, when she was thwarted. She lost patience.

"I will come in," she cried; "I will not be shut out. Mamma, you have no right to shut me out; open the door-open the door!"

All at once the door opened wide, as if by magic, Amy thought, though it was solely the hurry of her own agitation, the tingling in her ears, the sound she was herself making, which prevented her from hearing the withdrawing of the bolt.

Her mother stood very severe and grave before her, reproving-"What is the meaning of this, Amy?" she said, coldly, and Amy's heart sank.

"Oh, mamma! don't go away; don't shut yourself up—at least don't shut me out-me, mamma! There may be things you cannot talk of to the rest, but, mamma, me!" cried Amy, in a transport of love and pain.

Mrs Scudamore made a violent effort of self-control. Her whole soul was full of passionate irritation. Her impulse was to thrust her daughter away from her to shut out all the world; but that unreasoning cry went to her heart. Oh, if the child but knew! Tell it to her! The same thought that had moved her enemy came with a great swell and throb of pain over Mrs Scudamore's heart.

"Amy," she said, hoarsely, “child, go away. There is nothing the matter with me, or if there is any thing, it is my own business alone. Go away, I cannot be disturbed

now

Amy crept to her mother's feet and clasped her knees. "Only me," she said, laying her soft cheek against the harsh blackness of the crape.

Amy shrank away with a strange look of awe. She looked wistfully into her mother's face; she acknowledged the difference. These words, which Mrs Scudamore loathed to speak, were absolutely effectual. She rose from the ground, and put her arms round her mother's neck, and clung to her, silently hiding her face. "Is it very bad?" she whispered softly, kissing her neck and her dress. Amy's whole soul was lost in pity.

"It is very bad," said the poor woman, with a groan; and she held her child close to her heart, which broke over her with a very tempest of love and anguish. Oh, if Amy but knew!-but she should never know- never, if it were at the

cost of the mother's life-the peril of her soul.

When Amy had been thus dismissed, calmed down, and composed in the most magical way-for, after all, the dead father's secrets, whatever they might be, were nothing in comparison to what the very lightest veil of mystery on the part of the mother would have been-Mrs Scudamore once more closed the door. She did it very softly, that no one might hear; she drew the curtain that no one might see; and then she gave way to a misery which was beyond control. Was there any sorrow like her sorrow?-she cried to herself in her anguish. She took her dead husband's miniature out of its frame, and threw it on the ground, and crushed it to fragments. She cursed him in her heart. He had done this wantonly, cruelly, like the coward he was: he had known it all along: he had died knowing it, with his children by his bedside. O God! reward him, since man could not-the coward and villain! These were the only prayers she could say in the bitterness of her heart.

ALTHOUGH Louis Napoleon was not a thoroughgoing friend of the Pope, his downfall has been a serious blow to the Holy Father. The Italians had long waited for a moment of confusion in France to hurry down to Rome, and they took the opportunity when the world was thinking of anything rather than the Vatican. It is very hard to persuade priests of any sect that laymen are not more vitally interested about Church questions than any others that come before them. It is almost impossible to make them believe that the whole world

of daily life does not revolve around dogmas and theologies.

In the mighty convulsion of Europe, in the enormous development of Germany, and in the downfall, almost the disruption, of France, the Cardinals had no thought for anything but how these changes were to react on Rome, what influence they were to exercise on the prospects of the Church, how they were to affect the power of the Holy See.

Antonelli long foresaw what amount of dependence might be placed on the Emperor. He knew well that Louis Napoleon's Popery was less a choice than a necessity; that a certain affectation of regard for the Church was the tie that bound the Legitimists to his cause, and served as the reason for such men as the Grammonts and the Latours and D'Auvergnes for seeking office under him. No very brilliant accessions, it is true, in point of ability and capacity; but men used to high positions, and with the habits and manners of lofty station, cannot easily be re

placed by others less conversant with the modes and ways of the polite world. The new Empire without the Legitimist element would have been totally destitute of these. The First Napoleon had none of them, but he did not want them; he had so revolutionised the whole of Europe, that the epaulette of a general sufficed for all prestige; and the vulgar manner, the rude speech, or the ungrammatical despatch, could not mar the diplomacy whose conquests had been carried by strong battalions. Our era, however, needed a different order of men; and, if possible, it required men who should, by their habits and manners, conceal the parvenu origin of the Court they repre sented, and, at least, look like the servants of a good house.

once

To the extent of employing these people the Emperor was a Papist, but not much further. There was a story of some special gratitude he owed Pio Nono for having saved his life in a Carbonari con spiracy at Rome; but supposing it to be all true, there is reason to be lieve that his political line would not have been much under the sway of his gratitude. The Catholic religion was amongst the claims to the throne, and Louis Napoleon could not afford to omit one of them.

There is, however, much reason to believe that the cause of the Popedom in France was anything but a gainer by the adhesion of the Emperor to its interests ;-so strongly are Frenchmen disposed to resist the dictation of the Throne, or resent opinions which they can per suade themselves to fancy are imposed upon them.

The little real regard the French people had for the Papacy did not prevent them feeling deeply offended by the Italian occupation of Rome. Sooner or later Rome must have fallen to them; it was, then, less the fact than the mode of acquisition that gave offence. It was done at an inopportune moment-a moment of extreme distress and confusion: it was as if a friend had put in his claim for gold when there was a run on the bank; and, to say the least, there was scant delicacy in the

move.

The various Cabinets of Europe received the news with a certain satisfaction, for what had been done, had been done by a regular Government, without the fear of revolutionary excesses; all they asked was that the Quirinal should not be carried by the Garibaldians. Enough for them if his Holiness had been ejected by some process that assumed to be law at least he had not been thrown out of the window.

It is this same fiction of legality that makes the Pope's case so difficult. Had there been violence, it would have been better for him. Besides, all Ministries like the fait accompli, whatever it be. The thing really to be dreaded nowadays is the suit in litigation the issue that may take different endings. Had the Pope been expelled by a revolution, it would only have been the beginning; and the beginning of what? Next to the Pope and the Cardinals, the people who are most dissatisfied with what has happened are the "rouge" and the Garibaldians. To them, it is a great subject of national appeal lost for ever-a grievance which they could always lay at the door of any regular Government, and an appeal which they could pretend, at least, specially demanded the answer from themselves. One of the favourite theories of this party was, that they alone could deal with

the Papacy; that they alone had taken a due measure of the iniquities, the treacheries, and the corruptions of the Church; and that, unless redressed by them, all the crimes of the priesthood would be dealt with inadequately, if not collusively.

It was exactly in this bond of enmity to the Church that the Prussian Alliance originally took its root. The very nearest thing in Italian estimation to a heretic was a Lutheran. The Prussian was this, and they made a brother of him. How far M. Bismark had traded on this sentiment before the war of '66 is well known to all conversant with Italian politics at that period, and what pressure he was able to exercise on the Florentine Cabinet by means of the leaders of the Liberal party in Italy. So far were the Garibaldians persuaded of his fidelity to them, that many actually believed Prussia would have aided them to overthrow the dynasty. Good, easy man, he took very little pains to prove how grossly he was misrepresented! Having carried his point by the intimidation of these "red shirts," M. Bismark has no more occasion for them than has a man for his "roughs" or his "lambs" on the day after his election. Indeed he can now even affect some small sympathy for the Pope, and mildly tell his envoy at Rome that he hopes his jailers will treat him with regard to his former station.

There is a sort of good - breeding in politics as in society, which means little but does a great deala species of polite consideration for certain conditions in which revolutionists are totally wanting, and suffer very grave embarrassment in consequence. Prussia at this moment is thinking of anything more than a war for the Pope. The very least of M. Bismark's anxieties is what is to become of the Holy Father; but yet he understands

thoroughly how, without any sacrifice of his influence with the Italian Cabinet, he can insinuate a hopea wish-a desire for certain concessions; a sincere trust in some good intentions somewhere, which he is sure will meet the sanction and approval of the "wise intelligences that rule Italy."

It is easier, however, to tell the Italian Government to treat the Pope with tenderness and consideration, than to say what that tenderness and consideration should be. That they have no intention whatever to restore to him any portion of what they have taken from him-that they mean to leave him as poor and powerless as we see him-is clear enough. As for the courtesy with which the spoliation is effected, possibly his Holiness cares very little.

Some one has well said, that the Italian Government, with reference to the Popedom, is like a man married to a woman with a most unsupportably hysterical temperament, who makes her vapours and her nerves do duty for arguments, and is so perversely unreasoning that it is impossible to deal with her. Her cries, however, are heard over the whole neighbourhood, and the world is convinced she must be most cruelly treated. But the Pope's case is by no means so hopeless as it appears. The very weapon-of constitutional government-by which he has been spoiled and deposed, may, one day, be used to restore him. The battle of the Popedom, as Peel said of the Constitution, is to be fought at the hustings. The only agents who never desert a cause, who never sleep at their post, who never go over to the enemy, are the Priests. The Pope has these in every parish of the kingdom. They are not present merely on the day of the election, and at the battle of the hustings, but throughout the entire year, watching, observing,

counselling, and suggesting, mingling enough with the people to understand their sympathies and their wishes, and standing enough apart to dictate to them from a position of superiority; knowing their inmost wishes as no other man knows them, and making their conduct in this world to be the test of their fate in the next. With these and the women to aid him, who is to say that the cause of the Pope is hopeless?

With the electoral system of Italy such as it is, and with such organisation as the party of the priests could introduce into its working, a most formidable opposition might be fashioned; and if one day universal suffrage should become law, the whole Left of the Chamber would be Papal; and I am by no means sure but that they might become powerful enough to sway the Chamber by their numbers, and seize the reins of government.

We have only to look at Ireland to see with what success priests can employ a mock Liberalism when the profession contributes to the benefit of the Church. Antonelli and his associates are not less crafty than Cardinal Cullen and his friends. When they have once subdued their natural reluctance to the use of this weapon, they will wield it with an address and a vigour that all our free States never attained to.

At all events, if not dominant in Italy, the party of the Pope, for its compactness, its unity, its cohesion, and its fidelity to its opinions, might become such a power in the State that no prudent Minister could af ford to disregard it. We have but to see what an amount of power is wielded by the priests in Ireland over elections in which great wealth is often arrayed against them, to compute what they might do in Italy, where money is not used as an election agent, and territorial influence is almost nil.