Madame Floriani was very kind to her old friends. She took them everywhere, and fêted and petted them beyond measure. Their soft, pretty English faces, with their bright cheeks and long fair ringlets, made a sensation among the dark eyes and raven locks at Rome. The Miss Winters were decidedly the belles of their society--which is a woman’s state of paradise. Madame Floriani with her foreign notions set about marrying her young ladies. A task not very difficult; for foreigners like English wives; because they can trust them so much; and English women like foreign husbands, because they are more polite than their own countrymen. So Madame Rosa married them both--one to a count and the other to a baron. And when they went back to Langthwaite, which they did for their wedding trip, the people called them my lord and my lady, and treated them like queens. Even Mrs. Bentley yielded the past, which was a marvellous distinction, and made up for a great deal of the past. After all, then, Rosa had not entirely lost; the days of her teaching survived in her disciples, for Laura Winter settled at Langthwaite, and remodelled society there after the Floriani system. And now that Mr. Bentley was married, of course his influence was lessened; and all the young ladies who had tried to touch his heart by their austerity, now thought more of Laura’s foreign friends who came to see her, and who thought life without innocent laughter not worth the living. MURMURS. Why wilt thou make bright music Give forth a sound of pain? Why wilt thou weave fair flowers Into a weary chain? Why turn each cool grey shadow Into a world of fears? Why think the winds are wailing? Why call the dewdrops tears? Voices of happy Nature, And Heaven’s sunny gleam, Reprove thy sick heart’s fancies, Upbraid thy foolish dream. Listen! I will tell thee The song Creation sings, From humming bees in heather, To fluttering angels’ wings: Not alone did angels sing it To the poor shepherds’ ear, But the spherèd Heavens chant it, And listening Ages hear. Above thy poor complaining Rises that holy lay; When the starry night grows silent, Then speaks the sunny day. O, leave thy sick heart’s fancies, And lend thy little voice To the silver song of Glory, That bids the World rejoice! OUR WICKED MIS-STATEMENTS.