bordered with trees, and almost immediately found himself amid scenes clothed with all the freshness of the country. Handsome mansions here and there dotted the landscape, with pretty little parks, enclosing orange-trees and magnolias, surrounded with hedges of holly, in whose foliage numerous little foraging birds were busy in the sunshine. The young man looked at these dwellings with an exile's longing at his heart. He imagined groups of parents and children, brothers and sisters, under those sheltering roofs, all strangers to him, an orphan, alone in the world. The pensiveness of his mood gradually gave place to more cheerful thoughts. Visions of prosperous business and a happy home rose before him, as he walked briskly toward the hills south of the city. The intervals between the houses increased in length, and he soon found himself in a little forest of pines. Emerging from this, he came suddenly in sight of an elegant white villa, with colonnaded portico and spacious verandas. He approached it by a path through a grove, the termination of which had grown into the semblance of a Gothic arch, by the interlacing of two trees, one with glossy evergreen leaves, the other yellow with the tints of autumn. Vines had clambered to the top, and hung in light festoons from the branches. The foliage, fluttering in a gentle breeze, caused successive ripples of sun-flecks, which chased each other over trunks and bough