"The friend of whom I spoke. Welcome him now for my sake, ever after for his own;" and then, scarcely allowing time for the Countess's elegant and gracious response, he drew Leonard toward Helen. "Children," said he, with a touching voice, that thrilled through the hearts of both, "go and seat yourselves yonder, and talk together of the past. Signorina, I invite you to renewed discussion upon the abstruse metaphysical subject you have started; let us see if we can not find gentler sources for pity and admiration than war and warriors." He took Violante aside to the window. "You remember that Leonard, in telling you his history last night, spoke, you thought, rather too briefly of the little girl who had been his companion in the rudest time of his trials. When you would have questioned more, I interrupted you, and said 'You should see her shortly, and question her yourself.' And now what think you of Helen Digby? Hush, speak low. But her ears are not so sharp as mine." VIOLANTE.--"Ah! that is the fair creature whom Leonard called his child-angel? What a lovely innocent face!--the angel is there still." HARLEY (pleased both at the praise and with her who gave it).--"You think so, and you are right. Helen is not communicative. But fine natures are like fine poems--a glance at the first two lines suffices for a guess into the beauty that waits you, if you read on." Violante gazed on Leonard and Helen as they sat apart. Leonard was the speaker, Helen the listener; and though the former had, in his narrative the night before, been indeed brief as to the episode in his life connected with the orphan, enough had been said to interest Violante in the pathos of their former position toward each other, and in the happiness they must feel in their meeting again--separated for years on the wide sea of life, now both saved from the storm and shipwreck. The tears came into her eyes. "True," she said very softly, "there is more here to move pity and admiration than in--" She paused. HARLEY.--"Complete the sentence. Are you ashamed to retract? Fie on your pride and obstinacy." VIOLANTE.--"No; but even here there have been war and heroism--the war of genius with adversity, and heroism in the comforter who shared it and consoled. Ah! wherever pity and admiration are both felt, something nobler than mere sorrow must have gone before: the heroic must exist." "Helen does not know what the word heroic means," said Harley, rather sadly; "you must teach her." Is it possible, thought he as he spoke, that a Randal Leslie could have charmed this grand creature? No heroic, surely, in that sleek young place-man. "Your father," he said aloud, and fixing his eyes on her face, "sees much, he tells me, of a young man, about Leonard's age, as to date; but I never estimate the age of men by the parish register; and I should speak of that so-called young man as a contemporary of my great-grandfather;--I mean Mr. Randal Leslie. Do you like him?"