change, you will not see a family die out to which you are so attached, and that you will receive the greatest consolation from M. le Comte Alfieri." Words which could only mean that when the Pretender died Mme. Alfieri might hope for a daughter-in-law in the writer, and for grand-children through her. But Madame Alfieri did not understand; imagining, perhaps, that Mme. d'Albany was alluding to some project of marriage of her friend M. le Comte Alfieri; and the letter in which the ill-treated wife's aversion to her husband was first openly revealed appears to have acted as a thunder-clap, and to have, at least momentarily, put an end to all correspondence. The Countess of Albany was mistaken in supposing that Charles Edward would die in the arms of mere servants. The very year after her own separation from Alfieri, the Pretender had called to Florence the natural daughter born to him by Miss Walkenshaw, and whom he had left, apparently forgotten for twenty-five years, in the convent at Meaux, where her mother had taken refuge from his brutalities, even as Louise d'Albany had taken refuge from them in the convent of the Bianchette. Partly from a paternal feeling born of the unexpected solitude in which his wife's flight had left him; partly, doubtless, from a desire to spite the Countess; he had solemnly, as King of England, legitimated this daughter, and created her Duchess of Albany: he had made incredible efforts, abandoning drink, going into the world and keeping open house, to attach this young woman to him, and to treat her as well as he had treated his wife ill.