"And now," said Harley, whistling to Nero, whom his ward was silently
caressing, "I must take Leonard away. Adieu! all of you, till to-morrow
at dinner. Miss Violante, is the doll to have blue eyes or black?"

Violante turned her own black eyes in mute appeal to Lady Lansmere, and
nestled to that lady's side as if in refuge from unworthy insult.




CHAPTER XII.

"Let the carriage go to the Clarendon," said Harley to his servant; "I
and Mr. Oran will walk to town. Leonard, I think you would rejoice at an
occasion to serve your old friends, Dr. Riccabocca and his daughter?"

"Serve them! Oh, yes." And there instantly returned to Leonard the
recollection of Violante's words when, on leaving his quiet village, he
had sighed to part from all those he loved; and the little dark-eyed girl
had said, proudly, yet consolingly, "But to SERVE those you love!" He
turned to L'Estrange, with beaming, inquisitive eyes.

"I said to our friend," resumed Harley, "that I would vouch for your
honour as my own. I am about to prove my words, and to confide the
secrets which your penetration has indeed divined,--our friend is not
what he seems." Harley then briefly related to Leonard the particulars
of the exile's history, the rank he had held in his native land, the
manner in which, partly through the misrepresentations of a kinsman he
had trusted, partly through the influence of a wife he had loved, he had
been drawn into schemes which he believed bounded to the emancipation of