Child, thy father is come back!" And taking the infant in her arms, and seating herself at a little distance, she rocked it to and fro on her bosom, and prattled to it, and kissed it between every word, and laughed and wept by fits, as ever and anon she cast over her shoulder her playful, mirthful glance upon the father to whom those fading stars smiled sadly their last farewell.

How beautiful she seemed as she thus sat, unconscious of the future! Still half a child herself, her child laughing to her laughter,--two soft triflers on the brink of the grave! Over her throat, as she bent, fell, like a golden cloud, her redundant hair; it covered her treasure like a veil of light, and the child's little hands put it aside from time to time, to smile through the parted tresses, and then to cover its face and peep and smile again.

It were cruel to damp that joy, more cruel still to share it.
"Viola," said Zanoni, at last, "dost thou remember that, seated by the cave on the moonlit beach, in our bridal isle, thou once didst ask me for this amulet ?--the charm of a superstition long vanished from the world, with the creed to which it belonged.

It is the last relic of my native land, and my mother, on her deathbed, placed it round my neck.
I told thee then I would give it thee on that day WHEN THE LAWS OF OUR BEING SHOULD BECOME THE SAME." "I remember it well." "To-morrow it shall be thine!" "Ah, that dear to-morrow!" And, gently laying down her child,--for it slept now,--she threw herself on his breast, and pointed to the dawn that began greyly to creep along the skies.
There, in those horror-breathing walls, the day-star looked through the dismal bars upon those three beings, in whom were concentrated whatever is most tender in human ties; whatever is most mysterious in the combinations of the human mind; the sleeping Innocence; the trustful Affection, that, contented with a touch, a breath, can foresee no sorrow; the weary Science that, traversing all the secrets of creation, comes at last to Death for their solution, and still clings, as it nears the threshold, to the breast of Love.

Thus, within, THE WITHIN,--a dungeon; without, the WITHOUT,--stately with marts and halls, with palaces and temples; Revenge and Terror, at their dark schemes and counter-schemes; to and fro, upon the tide of the shifting passions, reeled the destinies of men and nations; and hard at hand that day-star, waning into space, looked with impartial eye on the church tower and the guillotine.