“There,” said she, turning over a number of letters with a mere glance at their contents, “these are all trash,--shooting and fox-hunting news, which one reads in the newspapers better, or at least more briefly, narrated, with all that death and marriage intelligence which you English are so fond of parading before the world. But what is this literary gem here? Where did the paper come from? And that wonderful seal, and still more wonderful address?--'To his Worshipful Excellency the Truly Worthy and Right Honorable Sir Horace Upton, Plenipotentiary, Negotiator, and Extraordinary Diplomatist, living at Naples.'” “What can it mean?” said he, languidly. “You shall hear,” said she, breaking the massive seal of green wax, which, to the size of a crown piece, ornamented one side of the epistle. “It is dated Schwats, Tyrol, and begins: 'Venerated and Reverend Excellency, when these unsymmetrically-designed, and not more ingeniously-conceived syllables--' Let us see his name,” said she, stop-ping suddenly, and turning to the last page, read, “'W. T., _vulgo_, Billy Traynor,--a name cognate to your Worshipful Eminence in times past.'” “To be sure, I remember him perfectly,--a strange creature that came out here with that boy you heard me speak of. Pray read on.” “I stopped at 'syllables.' Yes--when these curiously-conceived syllables, then, come under the visionary apertures of your acute understanding, they will disclose to your much-reflecting and nice-discriminating mind as cruel and murderous a deed as ever a miscreant imagination suggested to a diabolically-constructed and nefariously-fashioned organization, showing that Nature in her bland adaptiveness never imposes a mistaken fruit on a genuine arborescence'--Do you understand him?” asked she. “Partly, perhaps,” continued he. “Let us have the subject.” “'Not to weary your exalted and never-enough-to-be-esteemed intelligence, I will proceed, without further ambiguous or circumgyratory evolutions, to the main body of my allegation. It happened in this way: Charley--your venerated worship knows who I mean--Charley, ever deep in marmorial pursuits, and far progressed in sculptorial excellence, with a genius that Phidias, if he did not envy, would esteem--' “Really I cannot go on with these interminable parentheses,” said she; “you must decipher them yourself.” Upton took the letter, and read it, at first hastily, and then, recommencing, with more of care and attention, occasionally stopping to reflect, and consider the details. “This is likely to be a troublesome business,” said he. “This boy has got himself into a serious scrape. Love and a duel are bad enough; but an Austrian state-prison, and a sentence of twenty years in irons, are even worse. So far as I can make out from my not over lucid correspondent, he had conceived a violent affection for a young lady at Massa, to whose favor a young Austrian of high rank at the same time pretended.”