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through his object, and love can endure a great deal, he at length thought himself compelled to make use of insult. Contriving, therefore, one day to proceed from one mortifying word to another, he took upon him, as if in right of offence, to anticipate his daughter's attention to the parting guest, and show him out of the door himself, adding a broad hint that it might be as well if he did not return very soon.

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Perhaps, Signor Antonio," said the youth, piqued at last to say something harsh himself, "you do not wish the son of your old friend to return at all ?"

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'Perhaps not," said the bee-master.

What," said the poor lad, losing all the courage of his anger in the terrible thought of his never having any more of those beautiful lettings out of the door by Maria,-" what! do you mean to say I may not hope to be invited again, even by yourself?—that you yourself will never again invite me, or come to see me?'

“Oh, we shall all come, of course, to the great Signor Giuseppe," said the old man, looking scornful,—“ all cap in hand."

"Nay, nay," returned Giuseppe, in a tone of propitiation; "I'll wait till you do me the favour to look in some morning, in the old way, and have a chat about the French; and perhaps," added he, blushing, "you will then bring Maria with you, as you used to do; and I wo'n't attempt to see her till then."

"Oh, we'll all come of course," said Antonio, impatiently; "cat, dog, and all; and when we do," added he, in a very significant tone, "you may come again yourself."

Giuseppe tried to laugh at this jest, and thus still propitiate him; but the old man hastening to shut the door, angrily cried,

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Ay, cat, dog, and all, and the cottage besides, with Maria's dowry along with it; and then you may come again, and not till then." And so saying, he banged the door, and giving a furious look at poor Maria, went into another room to scrawl a note to the young citizen.

The young citizen came in vain, and Antonio grew sulkier and angrier every day, till at last he turned his bitter jest into a vow; exclaiming with an oath, that Giuseppe should never have his daughter, till he (the father), daughter, dog, cat, cottage, bee-hives, and all, with her dowry of almond-trees to boot, set out some fine morning to beg the young vine-dresser to accept them.

Poor Maria grew thin and pale, and Giuseppe looked little better, turning all his wonted jests into sighs, and often interrupting his work to sit and look towards the said almondtrees, which formed a beautiful clump on an ascent upon the other side of the glen, sheltering the best of Antonio's bee-hives, and composing a pretty dowry for the pretty Maria, which the father longed to see in the possession of the flashy young citizen.

One morning, after a very sultry night, as the poor youth sat endeavouring to catch a glimpse of her in this direction, he observed that the clouds gathered in a very unusual manner over the country, and then hung low in the air, heavy and immovable. Towards Messina the sky looked so red, that at first he thought the city on fire, till an unusual heat affecting him, and a smell of sulphur arising, and the little river at his feet assuming a tinge of a muddy ash colour, he knew that some convulsion of the earth was at hand. His first impulse was a wish to cross the ford, and, with mixed anguish and delight, to find himself again in the cottage of Antonio, giving the father and daughter all the help in his power. A tremendous

burst of thunder and lightning startled him for a moment; but he was proceeding to cross, when his ears tingled, his head turned giddy, and while the earth heaved beneath his feet, he saw the opposite side of the glen lifted up with a horrible deafening noise, and then the cottage itself, with all around it, cast, as he thought, to the ground, and buried for ever. The sturdy youth, for the first time in his life, fainted away. When his senses returned, he found himself pitched back into his own premises, but not injured, the blow having been broken by the vines.

But on looking in horror towards the site of the cottage up the hill, what did he see there? or rather, what did he not see there? And what did he see, forming a new mound, furlongs down the side of the hill, almost at the bottom of the glen, and in his own homestead?

Antonio's cottage:-Antonio's cottage, with the almondtrees, and the bee-hives, and the very cat and dog, and the old man himself, and the daughter (both senseless), all come, as if, in the father's words, to beg him to accept them! Such awful pleasantries, so to speak, sometimes take place in the middle of Nature's deepest tragedies, and such exquisite good may spring out of evil.

For it was so in the end, if not in the intention. The old man (who, together with his daughter, had only been stunned by terror) was superstitiously frightened by the dreadful circumstance, if not affectionately moved by the attentions of the son of his old friend, and the delight and religious transport of his child. Besides, though the cottage and the almondtrees, and the bee-hives, had all come miraculously safe down the hill (a phenomenon which has frequently occurred in these extraordinary landslips), the flower-gardens, on which his bees

fed, were almost all destroyed; his property was lessened, his pride lowered; and when the convulsion was well over, and the guitars were again playing in the valley, he consented to become the inmate, for life, of the cottage of the enchanted couple.

He could never attain, however, to the innate delicacy of his child, and he would sometimes, with a petulant sigh, intimate at table what a pity it was that she had not married the rich and high-feeding citizen. At such times as these, Maria would gather one of her husband's feet between her own under the table, and with a squeeze of it that repaid him tenfold for the mortification, would steal a look at him which said, "I possess all which it is possible for me to desire."

CHAPTER XI.

BEES.

THE BEAUTIFUL NEVER ΤΟ BE THANKED TOO MUCH, OR TO BE SUFFICIENTLY EXPRESSED.-BEES AND THEIR ELEGANCE.-THEIR

ADVICE TO AN ITALIAN POET.-WAXEN TAPERS.-A BEE DRAMA.MASSACRES OF DRONES.-HUMAN PROGRESSION.

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