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6 the only word which is there forbidden? Talk, children, of what you list, but never let my old ears be startled by the mention of those accursed islanders!"

The speaker was an aged man—aged he seemed beyond the common lot of humanity—and thin, shrivelled, and contracted, as if the popular belief were true, that his life was prolonged by chemical secrets, and that he won from subtle drugs and essences a meagre and protracted existence. The anger of Carrara (for such was the old man's name) was of brief duration, and almost the following moment he became immersed in his former occupation.

It was a strange scene, the contrasts which met in that large but dilapidated chamber. It had been the banqueting-hall in the ancient palace of the La Franchi, but the revelry and the splendour had long since passed away. The history of its former possessors had been the history of most noble families. First pomp, finally want—the gorgeous retinue reduced to the scanty train—daughter after daughter to convent—son after son to the wars; one remnant of olden state vanishing after another, till the last of the line died a forgotten exile in some obscure skirmish far away from his native land. One or two aged