beauty though so strangely betrayed. A cluster of brilliants that blazed on one of the fingers, and the rich drapery that lay in a picturesque heap over her whole person, conveyed hopes of rich plunder, and many a covetous eye twinkled with expectation that when the crowd were drawn to a distance she might be left helpless and exposed to their rapacity. At last an artisan or mechanic of the lowest order ascended the steps where she had sought refuge, and, apparently heedless of her presence, sat down on the opposite side of the pillar, so near that his dusty leathern jerkin almost touched the arm still wound immovably around it. He now uncovered his head and wiped the perspiration from a low and disagreeable forehead with the sleeve of his jerkin, pushed back a mass of coarse hair that had fallen over his eyes, and was about replacing his cap, when a flash of sunshine fell upon the cluster of brilliants which gemmed one of the fingers just in a range with his eye. A look of coarse delight came to his repulsive features, a cunning avaricious joy disagreeable beyond description. He cast an eager look upon the throng, which was still great, and toyed with his cap, waving it up and down with both hands carelessly as if to cool his face when any person seemed especially regarding him. At last, when the general attention was drawn another way by a party of horsemen coming at a hard gallop down the street, he, as if by accident, held his cap so as to conceal his face from the multitude, and drew back slowly till the pillar half concealed him, then, softly removing the hand from its clasp on the stone, he drew the ring away quick as lightning, and grasping it in his rough palm allowed the little hand to fall down cold and lifeless upon the step. “Plunder from the dead is free to the first comer,” he muttered, replacing his cap, “a woman completely killed or in a swoon is the same thing, and one or the other state belongs to this dainty lady, I take it.” As he muttered these words, the plunderer sauntered with a heavy idle swagger down the steps, and would have mingled with the crowd, but at that moment an elderly man, evidently the servitor of some noble family, paused by the steps, glanced at the recumbent figure, and hastily inquired who the person was, and why no assistance had been rendered. The artisan, to whom he addressed himself as the nearest person, was suddenly taken with a decided and absorbing interest in the struggle that still raged farther down the street, and, when the question had been thrice repeated, only withdrew his attention long enough to declare that he was quite ignorant regarding the lady so strangely situated, and, in truth, had observed her for the first time when pointed out by the worshipful questioner.