On the occasion of which I am now writing, the night's
performances consisted of two plays. An accident, to be presently
related, prevented us from seeing more than the introductory part
of the second piece. That one act--in respect of the influence
which the remembrance of it afterward exercised over Rothsay and
myself--claims a place of its own in the opening pages of the
present narrative.

The scene of the story was laid in one of the principalities of
Italy, in the bygone days of the Carbonaro conspiracies. The
chief persons were two young noblemen, friends affectionately
attached to each other, and a beautiful girl born in the lower
ranks of life

On the rising of the curtain, the scene before us was the
courtyard of a prison. We found the beautiful girl (called Celia
as well as I can recollect) in great distress; confiding her
sorrows to the jailer's daughter. Her father was pining in the
prison, charged with an offense of which he was innocent; and she
herself was suffering the tortures of hopeless love. She was on
the point of confiding her secret to her friend, when the
appearance of the young nobleman closed her lips. The girls at
once withdrew; and the two friends--whom I now only remember as
the Marquis and the Count--began the dialogue which prepared us
for the story of the play.

The Marquis had been tried for conspiracy against the reigning
Prince and his government; had been found guilty, and is
condemned to be shot that evening. He accepts his sentence with
the resignation of a man who is weary of his life. Young as he