The Secret Drawer

hat we heard these details of the Signor's deathbed,--which, but for the presence of the doctor, who understood Italian, must have remained unknown to us. As it was, the little we learned only increased the romantic mystery which hung over our lodgers, and our Irish servant, Jane, who brought in the supper during the conversation, lingered in the room when the doctor departed, and narrated sundry little incidents she had observed in her attendance up-stairs, and was neither tardy nor cold in her maledictions against "thim tyrantious princes and Popes (for Jane was a Protestant), whose thumb-screwing and police-spies had driven such a rale gintleman to die in a stranger's house."

Poor Christine Silvani! Early next morning she went out alone, and after a long absence, returned with an elderly, long-bearded countryman of her own, who could not speak a word of English, but who she introduced to the parlour to lay a little roll of notes upon the table, while she explained that he had known "her poor papa, a