“Time flies, Jenny. Go, my good girl, and I will wait below.” “In the parlor, if you please, Captain Bruges. It is to let now. It is more than a mouth since the doctor left us. That was a loss, for, as long as the doctor was here, he always had some one to speak with.” So Captain Bruges entered the little dining-room with its mahogany table, and half a dozen chairs, and cellaret, and over the fireplace a portrait of Garibaldi, which had been left as a legacy to the landlady by her late lodger, Dr. Tresorio. The captain threw a quick glance at the print, and then, falling into reverie, with his hands crossed behind him, paced the little chamber, and was soon lost in thoughts which made him unconscious how long had elapsed when the maiden summoned him. Following her, and ascending the stair-case, he was ushered into the front room of the first floor, and there came forward to meet him a man rather below the middle height, but of a symmetrical and imposing mien. His face was grave, not to say sad; thought, not time, had partially silvered the clustering of his raven hair; but intellectual power reigned in his wide brow, while determination was the character of the rest of his countenance, under great control, yet apparently, from the dark flashing of his eye, not incompatible with fanaticism. “General,” he exclaimed, “your presence always reanimates me. I shall at least have some news on which I rely. Your visit is sudden—sudden things are often happy ones. Is there any thing stirring in the promised land? Speak, speak! You have a thousand things to say, and I have a thousand ears.” “My dear Mirandola,” replied the visitor, “I will take leave to call into council a friend whose presence is always profitable.” So saying, he took out a cigar-case, and offered it to his companion. “We have smoked together in palaces,” said Mirandola, accepting the proffer with a delicate white hand. “But not these cigars,” replied the general. “They are superb, my only reward for all my transatlantic work, and sometimes I think a sufficient one.” “And Jenny shall give us a capital cup of coffee,” said Mirandola; “it is the only hospitality that I can offer my friends. Give me a light, my general; and now, how are things?” “Well, at the first glance, very bad; the French have left Rome, and we are not in it.”