young lady is well born. Her father has been long dead; his widow
married again an English gentleman settled in Italy, a scholar and
antiquarian; his name was Selby. This gentleman, also dead, bequeathed
the Signorina a small but sufficient competence. She is now an orphan,
and residing with a companion, a Signora Venosta, who was once a singer
of some repute at the Neapolitan Theatre, in the orchestra of which her
husband was principal performer; but she relinquished the stage several
years ago on becoming a widow, and gave lessons as a teacher. She has
the character of being a scientific musician, and of unblemished private
respectability. Subsequently she was induced to give up general
teaching, and undertake the musical education and the social charge of
the young lady with her. This girl is said to have early given promise
of extraordinary excellence as a singer, and excited great interest among
a coterie of literary critics and musical _cognoscenti_. She was to have
come out at the Theatre of Milan a year or two ago, but her career has
been suspended in consequence of ill-health, for which she is now at
Paris under the care of an English physician, who has made remarkable
cures in all complaints of the respiratory organs. ------, the great
composer, who knows her, says that in expression and feeling she has no
living superior, perhaps no equal since Malibran."

"You seem, dear Monsieur, to have taken much pains to acquire this
information."

"No great pains were necessary; but had they been I might have taken
them, for, as I have owned to you, Mademoiselle Cicogna, while she was
yet a mystery to me, strangely interested my thoughts or my fancies.
That interest has now ceased. The world of actresses and singers lies
apart from mine."