escorting the goldsmith and Julio, waving a paper in his hand, rushed
breathlessly along the passage.

"Saved, saved!" cried Magdalena. "Hither, hither, father, Julio!"

The executioner had wreathed his hand in her dark, flowing tresses;
already his dreadful weapon was brandished in the air, when it was
crossed by the bright Toledo blade of the young cavalier, and flew
from his grasp, clanging against the prison wall.

"Unhand her, dog!" cried Julio, "or die the death!"

Sullenly the executioner released his hold, and sullenly listened to
the royal pardon.

Magdalena was soon beneath her father's roof,--soon in the arms of her
cousin Juanita. Long did she resist the importunities of Julio; for
though innocent in fact, judicially she stood convicted of a capital
offence. But as time rolled on,--as her innocence became the popular
belief,--she finally relented, accepted his hand, and beneath the
beautiful sky of Italy, forgot, or remembered only as a dream, the
perils and sorrows of her early life.




PHILETUS POTTS.

A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.