man of the world. Of course it would be indelicate, if not unfeeling, to ask her about it. Meantime the public amuses itself with all sorts of absurd suppositions. First it is a vow; then she has got a pig's face; then her waiting-maid had said that she had once caught her unmasked, and that her face was covered with feathers and had a beak in the middle of it. Then, again, it is a stratagem, to try the man whom she shall marry, and to see if he will love her for something besides her appearance, and on her wedding-day she will take off the mask and disclose features of perfect beauty. All this is of course mere gossip; for nobody knows any thing about these Italians, except that the Marchese is enormously rich, and that his daughter, in spite of her mask, is the most amiable and fascinating of women. Amongst other absurdities, a report was spread that the marquis was no other than the celebrated St Germains, who, as is well known, was himself no other than the Wandering Jew. It is ridiculous to hear the extraordinary things they tell of him. Only the other day it was asserted that he had been met in a distant country, where he passed under another name, and was remarkable for his constant and almost suspicious success in gambling. I should be very curious to trace all these reports to their source. Their inventors can at least have no lack of imagination. The fact is, that there is unquestionably something strange and mysterious about the old man--but what does it amount to after all? He is an old Italian marquis, his foreign manners and appearance, and imposing title, work upon the imagination of us northerns, and at once make us suspect an adventurer in this worthy old nobleman. The mere presence of Natalie (that is his daughter's name) is sufficient to refute such a suspicion. She is the incarnation of all that is pure and beautiful; and I confess to you, my friend, that I am each day becoming more and more the slave of her attractions. If in society she exhibits her varied accomplishments, on the other hand, when we are alone, she is the simple and unsophisticated girl. During our _tête-à-têtes_, however, it has not escaped me that she is frequently melancholy; a something seems at times to weigh upon her spirits; and, although she evidently struggles to hide this, she has been unable to conceal it from my close and interested observation. Yes, my friend, interested, for deeply interested I am in all that concerns Natalie; and, I own to you, that in spite of her mask, in spite of the mystery that surrounds her, nothing would make me so happy as to call her mine.