avenged to his mind, a better spirit possessed him, for, if baffled at first, the aggriever had need to do as Bruce did, lose his trail in a running water. I like to gossip confidentially now and then about matters which indirectly affect my characters, and so don’t mind mentioning a circumstance or two occurring in the early acquaintance of Capt. Carlo and Señor De Ladron, not noticed by historians of the time. The captain, it seems, after relinquishing in a highly praiseworthy manner, his annuity drawn from the unconscious countess, when no longer able to retain it, betook himself to the capital, where, falling in with the señor, the two soon came to understand each other’s projects, so far as it was good for either to do. Hilo made no secret of his hate for Doña Viola, whom he regarded as an incumbrance and interloper, but for whom he would long since have received an estate of more doubloons’ worth than he had ever possessed cobrès. The joint sagacity of the fathers and their notaries having been exhausted in drawing up a contract so stringent that nothing short of total forfeiture of the twin estates to the benefit of one of the infant parties, could release the other. No one knew what bond of union existed between the worse than dissolute half-brother of Sir Pedro, and so honorable a knight as Inique, but the contract stood fast on parchment, and the admirable wisdom of its conditions was shown in due season, when Viola, living at ease in her father’s house, grew up with a love amounting to mania for the handsome cavalier she regarded as her rightful husband, and whose vices she knew little of, until any thing like a just estimate of their enormity had become impossible to her biased mind. On the other side, Hilo, cursing in his heart Inique and his worthy father as founders of the scheme which his magnificent pride prevented his profiting by, even with the temptation of a twofold fortune attached, because it took the form of compulsory action in an affair it suited his humor to decide for himself, ransacked his brain to drive into outraged vindication of her woman’s dignity the innocent girl who stood between him and his claim. The poor little thing, without proper guidance or information in her own concerns, surmised nothing of the true state of the case, but affectionate and trustful to a fault, continued to love the young roué, long after his dislike found stronger expression than in words, with a docile patience and hopefulness for his reform, capable of touching any heart less villainous at the core. For the girl was no fool, I would have it clearly understood, weak as her affection for this Hilo might argue her; error in judgment, to which we are all subject, not necessarily indicating habitual silliness, least of all in one circumstanced as Doña Viola. This helpless child our worthy pair found it to their mutual interest to persecute, or fancied it so, and played very readily into each other’s hands; for Capt.