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te. ing at his full length on a sofa in a veranda that overlooked his ample gardens by the announcement of a stranger with letters of introduction. The stranger was admittedâ€"the letters were from a cousin of the Count, a general in the Austrian service, reâ€" commending the Herr Maximilian Balâ€" to to his good offices, as a Hungarian of family addicted to science, and who was attracted to Italy by his desire to see the wonders and beauties of the most famous and lovely land of the world. painter, and his place in the Titian galâ€" lery of the palazzo was fixed on hofore he uttered a word. But Antonio was equally susceptible of the charms of conversation; and the stranger‘s conâ€" versation was adapted to captivate a man of his skill in the graceful parts of life. The Herr Maximilian had traâ€" velled muchâ€"had seen everything that was remarkable in the principal reâ€" gions of the globe, and had known or seen the principal personages of the time. His conversation was adâ€" mirableâ€"easy, fluent, and various; its apimation never fNlagged:; its variety never degenerated into irifling, nor its description into caricature. The Count, a man of higher capacities than any that would be required by the indolâ€" ence of his life, felt his intellectual consciousness revived. He was, as all men are, delighted with the discovyâ€" ery; entered at once into the fuil enâ€" joyment of his awakened understandâ€" ing, and began to wonder what he had *heen thinking of during the last thirty Antonio loved this velvet way of gliding t hrough the world, and in this taste fulfilled all the duties that the world expects from a citizen of Paâ€" dua. But in Padua even this graceâ€" ful lover of his ease was not to be alâ€" togetber tranquil, One day when he was indulging in the memory of cool airâ€"â€"for the reality of it was not to be found in even his marble palace, the month being August, and the bheavyâ€" ens burning over the natipnal head like the roof of an immense furnace â€" the Count of Carara, was roused from lyâ€" The stranger was a man of mature age, with a form bowed by either years or study, and a pale but highly intelligent countenance. The Count‘s picturesque eye immediately set him down as an admirable study for a To suffer the friend who had done him this service to take his departâ€" ure as suddenly as he came, was out of the question. He pressed him to make the palazzo his residence for a week; the week passed, the request was lengthened to a month; the month r-d away only to convince the ount, that, without the society of he Padua, as all the world knows, is the paradise of the far niente, the oriâ€" giuufd(’astle of Indolence, the Palace ol Slumber; the soft, silent, somnolâ€" ent downbed of Italy. The air itself slumbers: the grapeâ€"#atherers nod on the vines; the mules tread as if they were shod with felt; and though Padua produces no longer the silk and velvet that once made her name memorable to the ends of the earth, the genius of them both is in everything. All is silky, smooth, and gravely superb. A drowsy population yawns through life in :tjrowsy city, taught the art of doing nothing by a drowsy university. The old glories of Paduan science are gone to @leep; her thousand doctors, once shedding wisdom into her myriads uf Stuwdents, have sunk down into shedâ€" ders of poppiesâ€"â€" a few innocent old lingerers among the shelves of her mighty libraries, dry as their dust, silâ€" ent as their authors, and not half so active as the moths that revel in their suitry sunshine. Life creepa away in eating grapes, and drinking the worst wine in the world; in having the Malâ€" aria fever in summer, and the pleurisy in winter; in sitling under the shade of sunburnt trees that mock the eye with the look of verdure, and fall inâ€" to dust at a touch; and in blackening the visage over wood fires that make man the rival, in odour, colour, and rountenance, of the boar‘s ham that hangs in his chimney. But the spirit of the Alps was not altogether _ extinguishable. _ Antonio began to grow weary of lingering for ever in the midst of the squabbles of bullying priests and effeminate dreâ€" goons, the abbesses of rival convents, and opera singers, all perfection, and awll ready to poniard or poison each pther. _ The Austrian grasp, too, was benvy on the politics of his calm and venerable city. Yet it had charms still, whose spell defied even the tooth of time, and the insolence of the Ausâ€" trian corporals, mer sea to the south, feels the spirit . of the hills and forests in bim, at €vâ€"â€" ery breath from those noble bulwarks of the land. Whe character of the Itâ€" alian is thus mingled of contending elements, amd, as chance directs, it is K'ropell.ed to lavish induigences of the eapolitan, or to the hardy habits of . the region that every morning glitters with its ten thousand pyramids of marâ€" . ble, and its ten times ten thousand . &'\naclu of eternal snow â€" above his . ad, in the north ‘The Counti Anâ€" tonio di Carara was a Paduan noble, descended from the famous Cararas, | Princes of Padua. Antonio was a true | Italian, steeped to the lips in the spirit of the south, eleâ€"‘ gant, luxurious, and languid. But the vicinage of the north had its share ’ in his composition. His life was a | dream. His paternal opulence flowed | away on singers, dancers, and diletâ€" | tanti, He wrote sonnetsâ€"he composâ€" | ed cavatinasâ€"he even invented a new ' fashion of wearing the bat and plume â€"â€"and was the first authority consulted | on every new arrival of a first-rat.ei maestro of the violin, the sword, dancâ€" | Iingy dogs, anything. C The languor of italy in limate, manâ€" | the accomplished Hungarian, Padua pers, and pursuits, meits away all . would become dull to an intensity beâ€" Individual character in the central yond all human suffering. The request southern division of the land. But the was extended to a year. His guest north boasts of manlier propensities | smiled, but told him that matters of The wind blows vigor of mind and body | importance compelied him to think Of from the Alps. Beyond those hills lie | relurning homeward; and that though Bwitzerland, the country of penury fl!,ld’ he was determined to revisit Italy and freedom; Germany, the country of toil, | the Count, some years must elapse beâ€" mental and bodily. Even the rough fore his return. mountaincer oi the Tyrol gives his Carara felt as an Italian feels on share to the general activity of the every occasion that thwarts his proâ€" region: and even the Veronese,though | pensities, be they what they will; he glancing on the luxuriant landscape ‘ was in despair. There was but one alâ€" that apreads ‘like the waves of ABLMK tornativte An Lanvls Thate amnt * Hentral TORONTO The luxuriouns Italian became the philosopher; he rose with the sun, he studied until midnight, he plunged inâ€" to the mysteries of science, he grew recluse, pale and severe. But the deâ€" light of discovery repaid all the laâ€" bours of the pursuit. The trangsmutaâ€" tion of metais, that most dazzling dream of science, which will dazzle to the end of time, let him onward witbh an enthusiast‘s disregard of all things but his cracible, In the meanâ€" while he himself had become an object of attention; and the Count Carara had already marked the day and hour when he was to become master of the grana secret of this world‘s wealth, when a knock at his study door disâ€" turbed him in the midst of the operaâ€" tion, and a corporal of grenadiers handed a paper to him, containing an order for his arrest on the ground of freemasonry. The Count was indignant at the inâ€" terruption; the fire of the Italian character blazed out in wrath at the insolence of disturbing a noble in his own sanctuary; but the corporal had no ears for reason, the bayonets at his back were better arguers; and in the midst of a plantoon of whiskered giants, the philosopher was marched first into the presence of the goverâ€" rnorâ€"who informed him that his estate was confiscated to the use of better subjects, of whom the governor himself was to be presumed the most deserving â€"and next to the wellâ€"known Torre di Eccelino. This famous remnant of the ages of blood,â€"which every living Italian records as the ages of glory, when every little town of Italy had its battlemeiits, its territories, its slaves, its army, its despot as fierce as the Grand Turk, and its enemy within half a league, as inveterate as the Kalmuc Tartar; its war once a month, bloody, as if the weal of the world depended on the sword; and its siege, storm, and sack once a year,â€" bad been just converted into a state prison. Yet it was the very spot which, if Carara, had been free to choose, he would have chosen. From its summit, Eccelino, the most sanguinâ€" ary of the sanguinary, the most sub tle, daring, and ambitiouns of an age of civil and martial ferocity, watched the movements of the vast turbulent city below, then filled with partisans of all the desperate feads of the day. From its summit he too had watched the stars, that as they rose or set, twinkled above, or flashed in constellaâ€" tion, wrote in characters of fire the fates of hercoes and empires. Within ts recesses, too, the man of power and blood had plunged in those forbidâ€" den studies, which shook sovereigns Carara felt as an Italian feels on' every occasion that thwarts his proâ€"| pensities, be they what they will; he was in despair. There was but one alâ€" , ternative, to leave Italy and trave! with this man of accomplishment | | round the world, consume life thus gyrating, and die after a prolonged | conversation of fifty years. The Hnn-| garian argued strenuously against this | genuine Italian romance; sat up half a night suffering himself to be cnnvinoâ€"' ced, gradually gave way to al} the; Count‘s arguments, and even pointed | out the means of making this pereâ€" | grination a much more delightf{fu)l adâ€"| venture than it had seemed to the ; glimpse of dawn.glided from his chamâ€" | fancy of the Count,; and at the first ber, with his valise on his shou.lder,l into the suburhs. As Padua â€"would ; have been asleep all day, it could scar-l cely have eyes for the simple and !onz,-)y fugitive, who threaded its dozâ€" ,llng streets at an hour when no Paâ€", duan on record had ever known wheâ€"| ! ther it was the fuil blaze of sunshine, : or the darkness of Erebus. He made | | his way accordingly ; passed through | 'st reets of palaces and walks of state‘ | as invisible as a spirit; walked throuch magnificent gateg where no sontine]i | challenged, and no Swiss kept the key, | | straight forward through Sousovino‘s | bronze borseman, and Barbarini‘s ; and, ‘ unbayed at by a solitary dog, reached | | the Cemetario grande; the true emblem | of the city, weedy, calm, soundless, and | | decayingâ€"a bed of but more steady | slumberâ€"a Padua under ground. | & mM | _ The beart, stifled by the trappings of prosperity, often learns to bear only : when the trappings are plucked away. ‘Carara, the prisoner in his cell, was a [ different being from Carara, the eleâ€" | gant but weary voluptuary in his palâ€" ! ace. The vision of his wife and child | came before him, and made him often forget the massive beams and iron {stanchels that stood between him and | those whom he loved. He revolved the \ hours which he bad flung away with | them ; resolved, if his fortunes should \ _ But this was but m _ thunderbolt | pilunged into a lake; it flashed, blazed, ‘and shook the waters from shore ; it ‘was extinguished, and the waters were ‘as smooth as glass again, no breath | disturbing their blue complacency, the ‘quiet mirror of the quietest of all skies, Caraira had brought his noble bride to his palazzo, showed her, to the homage of his hundred domestics, in new cosâ€" | tumes of scarlet and gold, walked with ber through his spacious apartments, marble floored, and glowing with the frescoes of Giorgione and Spagnolet ; had pointed out to her vivid glance the Titians, the Raphaels, and the Tintorâ€" ets ; had unfolded the purple curtains which concealed the virgin loveliness _ of the Madpnna of Correggio from the profaner eye; had given a concert to her on bet arrival, and a ball to the podestat, and every soul that called itself noble for ten leagues round Paâ€" dua; and thenâ€"returned quietly to his tranquil career, subsided out of the | world‘s %earing, lapsed into Elysian slumber ; listened to the murmurs of bis fountains, and the cooing of his | doves, till they both sent him to sleep; ‘and, wrapping his soul in more than ‘all the silks and velvets of the land, be prepared himsel{ to dream through | the world. ; not to be won in a nation of swordsmen | and daggerâ€"bearers without its hazard. ‘It cost him thrée duels with the inâ€" dignant suitors, and had nearly cost ‘him his life, by a aturdy blow of a dagâ€" ger in his side, as he was in the act of handing his bride elect into her charâ€" | iot at the door of the Grand Opera. He fell covered with blood, languished for a month on the verge of death, was cheered by the beautiful lady‘s redoubâ€" led protestations of living or dying with him, and recovered only to be the most envied husband fram the Alps to the Apennines. V from their thromes, disturbed popes turn again, to disdain the silver stream and conclaves with new terrors, filled Of life, and think of the surge ; to show nations with sudden tumults, and laid himself fit for something better than waste the happiness of human nature. the master of French valets, and the But here he was declared, by the tonâ€" companion of Spanish lapâ€"dogs; o gus of all Italy, to have laid the founâ€" take the goods that rank, wealth, and dations of his incomparable success; to | nature gave, and be a noble, a husband, have discovered the means of overâ€" and a father, and worthy of the names. throwing all resistance in the field,| But his prisonâ€"bars _ were still as and bo,fgling all resolve in the counâ€" strong as ever, the cell as high from cil; to have found wealth inexbaustibe the ground, the jailer as sullen, a_nd knowledge that eurpassed the reach the day as solitary. To bribe the vigâ€" of the human mind, sagacity that noâ€" ilance of the turnkeys was hopeless ; thing could perplex, and strength that for the first act of justice had, been to nothing could overwhe!m, and to have plunder him of every ducat. To adâ€" paid, for all, the fearful price of his dress the governor‘s reason waS equalâ€" own soul. ESuch was the legend; and | ly hopeless ; for the strict order of that when Carara entered the cell where governor was, that the prisoner should this extraordinary being had so oftâ€" have no means of making any appeal. en trod that his spirit seemed to haunt : To summon the public to the decision the place, he shuddered as he saw, Of his rights and wrongs, must be deâ€" transcribed upon the wall above his ferred until there was a public; or UDâ€" head, the lines of Ariostoâ€" ‘til he could find any Italian in existâ€" "Eccelino !â€"Immanissimo tirrano lence who cared an inch of macaroni for Che fia creduto figlio del demonio." !the rights and wrongs of anything OnD S se Dolsa veve % o a â€"__Ati.. ds mvANE But there is nothing which aecays more rapidly than the imagination in prison. _ The first day‘s solitude, the second day‘s solitude, and the third day‘s solitude drove every phantom from his presence. The age of poetry was no more; the clank of the sentinâ€" el‘s pike, and the rattle of the jailâ€" er‘s keys, reclaimed him from the doâ€" minion of magic, and he began to deâ€" scend in thought to that world, to which he was never likely to descend in reality, but on his way to the scaffold. i Which was damaged by a SPANISH CRUISER VISCAYA, shell from the United States cruiser Brookyin during the bombardment of Santiago, , The imagination of some small boys is worth having. The other night, when { Mr. Wallypug was lying asleep on his | library sofa, and snoring away for dear life, Mrs. Wallypug remarked that she | wished be would not snore so. {_ Pa ain‘t snorin‘, said Tommy Walâ€" lypug. He‘s dreamin‘ about a dorg, and { that‘s the dorg growling. Dohbsonâ€"Did you know your wife‘s first husband? Hobson (with a sigh)â€" Yes, but he never put me on to his domestic affairs, confound him. COLD AND wWARM YEARS. The Meteorologische Zeitschrift, a German scientific publication, contains a treatise by Dr. F. Maurer on the reâ€" gular periodical repetition of cold and warm years. During certain intervals of time, extending as a rule to about fifteen years, there is a recognized change of warm and cold periods. The warm periods, he says, do not simply include a series of summers of extraâ€" ordinary warmth, but also a series of mild winters. _ Similarly, during the cycle of a cold period, not only are the winters more than ordinarily severe, but the summers are far below the average hbeat. _ Dr. Maurer affirms that we can predict with tolerable acâ€" curacy the time when the mnext cycle of warm periods will occur. _ It is due, he calculates, somewhere about the turning point between the two cenâ€" turies ; and he thinks it probable, from the data obtainable, that the early years of the next century will be disâ€" tinguished by a series of hot, or rather extremely hbhot, summers and a series of exceptionally mild winters. The sting of all this wretchedness was envenomed by its uncertainty. If his enemies, or their instrument the govâ€" ernor, had declared to him that hbis imprisonment was to last for a year, or fifty yenrs, or to lay him in the grave, he might have prepared himself for the duration ; he might have braced up his mind for a calamity of which he knew the extent ; be might have said to himself, "Joy and hope are shut out for ever. I shall seek and struggle for them no more. My dungeon must be looked on as my final home. 1 must sternly conform â€" myself to ruin. _ I must look upon my imprisonment only as a slower death, and be contented as I may." But from the tower of Padua he might be released at a moment, or never. He might return that night to his own roof, or never lie down under its shel‘>r. While he was speaking, the order might be at his prisonâ€"doors for restoring him to the arms of his wife and child, or the merciless spirit that had torn them asunder might be darkly decreeing an eternal separation to thein all. But it was the doubt, the near possibility of the enjoyment, that made him still nurture his agony. He could not heroically harden himself to endure. _ He must tremble, for he must hope. earth. The feeling of solitude grew painful, bitter, agonising, intolerable. RODCTIANCE, NIDCUCE, usvulnlug, 4d lc P"tuta‘ The far niente life never bad such & trial, and never was more torturing. Carara would have exchanged his beâ€" ing with that of any lazzarone that begged and burned in the noon of any city of hovels in the realm, Books, the pencil, music, all the resources of a life of idleness, of gracefulness, or of industry, were alike forbidden to him. He felt himself day by day more merâ€" cilessly cut off from mankind, recedâ€" ing hourly from existence, turning inâ€" to a wild beast, degenerating into the uselessness of a stock or a stone. and regretting only that with their use lessness he had not their insensibility. To Be Continued EXPLAINED. , There are hardly any business transâ€" ‘actions and the city looks very Joneâ€" | some, there areso few people on the | streets. WThe families remain at ‘ home, excepting when the sound of a gun {rom one of the forts causes the | people to rush to the windows or inâ€" | to the streets tosee if the American |fleet is approaching. | CRITICIZE THE AMERICANS. l The Spaniards comment continually | upon the tactics of the American fleet | and, naturally, they are very severe in gtlmir criticisms, for they do not unâ€" derstand the method of warfare adoptâ€" ed. Many of them go so far as to say the United States is not prepared for war, that no plans have been decided upon and that the authorities at Washington are not serious in the steps taken. Indeed, the Spanish miliâ€" tary and naval authorities are beginâ€" ning io nurse themselves with the beâ€" lief that the naval and military powâ€" er of the United States has been exâ€" aggerated by the newspapers, and they are applauding themselves with the idea that Spain is showing herself able to fight the United Blates. FOOD GETTING sCaRrCER. Advices from Caibarien and other towns show thit a scarcity of provisâ€" ANXIOUS AND ANGRY. In spite of this outwardly cheerful aspect of affairs, bitterly anxious feelâ€" ings exist. People go so far as to charge Senor Moret, the former Minâ€" ister of the Colonies of Spain, of beâ€" ing a traitor and of having "sold Cuba to the United States." This causes discontent to prevail, and, if the Spanâ€" ish fleet does not arrive here before food becomes really scarce, rioting may be reported. Lumber, Shingles and Lath always In Stock. Food Prices Are Rising, But Military Enâ€" thuslasm Grows and Many Voluntecr for the Defence~â€"An English Kuars Banished Recause #he Hid Food for the 8ick and Starving Poor. Havana and the rest of the Island of Cuba, so far as heard from, is offiâ€" cially pronounced to be entirely quiet, says a Havana letter,. _ Preparations for defence are being pushed night and day and work is going on without ceasâ€" ing on the fortifications all over the island. _ The Spanish officials here claim that if 50,000 men were needed to attack Havana by land and sea when the war broke out, at least 100,000 men will be required now, in view of the new and strengthened â€" fortifications, and also because the soâ€"called "cultivaâ€" tion zone" has been extended to Rinâ€" con, Calabara and Bejucal, which are inside of the line of defences now. This will, it is asserted, support the inhabiâ€" tants with food for a long time to come. Aaving Completed our New Factory we are now prepared _ go FILL ALL ORDERS PROMPTLY. We keep in Stock a large quantity of Sash, Doors, Mouldings, Flooring and the differâ€" ent Kinds of Dressed Lumber for outside sheeting. Ocur Stock of DRY LUMRE is very Large so that all orders oan be filled. Sash and Door Factory. TN A BELEAGUERED OITY LIFE IN HAVANA GOES ON SMOOTHâ€" LY DESPITE THE BLOCKADE. N_ G. &J. McKECHNIE _Il'_;l'lll_n‘, when a fine, firm ished. He & puts the jar in place night and takes out the butter in A CRUEL BANISHMENT. The Spanish officials have discoverâ€" led in the bouse of the English nurse. Sister Mary, who attended the sick and !wounded survivors of the United | States battleship Maine in the hospiâ€" the autonomists are daily giving more proof of their utter inability to govern the island. _ Captain General Blanco is compelied to do most of th«! work for them. _ Autonomy, therefo= is nothing more than a mockery. and the Capta‘in General has the reins of Government entirely in his own hon/s The rainy season hbhas not yei menced, and the heaith of the ®p soldiers, it is said, has greatly proved. The military governor will issue «nâ€" other edict referring to the prices of provisions and reducing the size ol the loaf of bread. _ It is also reported that the military governor will issue on order prohibiting â€" selling â€" provisions outside of the city of Havana. in which case Havana will have provisions for a long time t> come City official news has been received here from tha Provinces of Santiago de Cuba and Puerto Principe, but it is known that all the efforts of the colonial Government to prevail upon the insurgents to come to terms hove failed, as everybody expected. tals, a considerable quantity of Amâ€" erican relief provisions. _ Because she did not notify the authorities of the existence of these provisions, Sister Mary has been ordered by the military governor to leave Havana for England at the first opportunity. The {ormer insurgent leader, Masso is busily engaged in completing the formation of the Fourth Battalion of his brigade of volunteers. _ They are nearly all natives. _ Two battalions of negroes are also being enlisted. The volunteers are doing duty day and night. . Thousands of additional volunteers have been enrolled in difâ€" ferent parts of the island, and the Spaniards say they could get as many more if they had arms to distribute to them. wages at all, but are giving clean clothes and food to their employes as the price of labor, which has led to many abuses. increases every day. . Thousands of laborers of all classes are without work, The commercial houses have been comâ€" pelled to reduce wages 53 per cent. as a rule, and many are not paying There is still considerable coal in Haâ€" vana. The gas company is using very little coul at present and only absoâ€" lutely necessary lights are used. All the stores and business houses are without the gas light and the state of semiâ€"darkness into which the streets are thrown gives Havana quite a weird appearance at night. THE NUMBER OF UNEMPLOYED ions exists. Were it not that the city is blockaded, people would hardly be aware that war was in progress, at least so far as the western provinces of Cuba are concerned. _ The inactivity of the insurgents, in view of the concenâ€" tratton of the Spanish troops in the coust tow ns cannot be accounted for by the Spanish commanders. _ The main point of interest here at present is as to when and where the American troops will effect a landing in Cuba, though the Spaniards {:ronounce themâ€" selves confident of being able to repel any invasion. Eggs, cornmeal and flour are becoming more scarce in Haâ€"~ vana, and the prices of all articles of food are doubling, though very many families have left Havana and a large number of homes are to let. _ Now g‘ou find fifteen or twenty persons liv»= ng in a single room, â€" Nearly all those about the bay and along the seasbhore, from La Punta to San Lazaro and the suburbs of Vedada and Carmelo are unoccupied, their former occupants beâ€" ing in fear of bombardment. At Esperanza a rich coal mine has been discovered. It is to be immediâ€" ately worked for navy purposes. EASY WAY TO MAKE BUTTER 1g in is the 11 h soil. The sorl is with the gravel an« of the road is lar The mesans of p crown must depend For an average cou a grading machine method will be to natural soil givin thâ€"n it is intended shall have. This c grader over one si cutting off the top loosened dirt to t the Tfidu back al turn :s the loosene This will leave a f sentre of the road: of which is a shoul« forming a shallow t gravel should be p a rounded surface at the sides levelled the shape of the r Old gravel roads in sidges. with squa edge of the ditches. better plan is to cut . throwing the loosem The ditches are usus flat, the road bavin BUTLMC meath stone roun once the n benes There grave gle pa down en dnk w aicd to, lst roun de terial : ed on the which very given siigl terial mus as possible road must th the Li comp on & road wa be the coverin mit. th en. shou perience BLOD posu un de OP w bouiders scat parts of Cana ers care mus DMlltic s road. 8 msny pa metal. able. shou miake good : slaty nature inch ring ; such as wi ring ; 8rd, ingsâ€"that ed in crus The stone shoul grades according stone to be place road, and the fin grading of the & of the screen stones are placed balng graded in thi *r stones wear m larger and a rou Large stones at th amethod good grave where stone roek or as field bo film have used st t a stone crush tachment affords The Great N to Buil Expertâ€" Builders POOGSS L wel it does not muy be underne In the intelligen ud, the intentior one coatinf is t« rface and prote OC 16 WE PLACING To know ho DC By ive & kno is even _# it is not ne but that the ishing the de avel year af: , unless it a a» of the ros T h« Uneiss rock d nno imyp D O in vup 81 arc M in BROKT t} th A01 D h S81\ € I n into 1 his mo L8 Do Arse as a viou L VC n th U W D c is n coun Prewi n n Lk HJI L0 t1 tC