wealth, even,” added the poet, with a sad little smile, “even my wife, for it was not my courting, but the Lady Serena’s(52) letter that won her for me. But to go on, I found an honest trader, and bargained with him to bring me here. I had been sickening for some time, and I remember little or nothing from the time of my embarking. There, sir, you have my history carried up to the latest point.” “We will put off the future to another day,” said the Count; “meanwhile you may count on me for anything that I can do.” “Your kindness does much to reconcile me to life,” said the poet, “and now I will retire, for I feel a little tired.” “Ah,” said Carna half to herself, when he had left the room, “now I understand about Proserpine.” “About Proserpine? What do you mean?” asked Ælia. “Why, when he came to himself for the first time I was sitting in the window with a piece of embroidery work in my hand, and I heard him whisper something about Proserpine.” Carna suppressed the flattering epithet. “Don’t you remember that passage where he describes the tapestry which Proserpine was working for her mother, and how we admired it, and thought we would work something of the kind for ourselves, only we could not get any design?” “Yes, I remember,” replied the other, “and you have had a Pluto, too, to carry you off. Luckily he was not so successful as the god.” CHAPTER XXIV. NEWS FROM ITALY. The Count’s difficulties did not seem to diminish as the year advanced. Money grew scarcer and scarcer, till it was only by pledging his personal credit to the merchants of Londinium and other towns in Britain that he was able to find the pay for the crews of his little squadron. His credit happily was still good, a character of twenty years without a single suspicion on his integrity standing him in good stead. Then a disaster happened to one of the few ships that he had retained. After a fierce encounter with a Saxon galley, in which its crew had been much weakened, it had been caught in a storm and driven on the deadly western shore of the island, still dreaded under the name of the Needles by those who navigate the Channel. The ship became a complete wreck and only a small portion of the crew escaped with their lives, all the disabled men being lost.