free institutions won him favor with all classes. In the fashionable
circle he soon became a pet.

Mrs. Lansdowne had from the first distrusted him. There was no
tangible foundation for her suspicions, but she had not been able to
overcome a certain instinct that warned her from his presence. She
watched, with misgivings of heart, her brother's growing familiarity
with the Italian. A facility of temper, his characteristic from
boyhood, made her fear that he might not be able to withstand the
soft, insinuating voice that veils guilty designs by winning
sophistics and appeals to sympathy and friendship. And so it proved.

One day, in extreme agitation, Rossini came to Mr. Somers, requesting
the loan of a considerable sum of money, to meet demands made upon
him. Remittances daily expected from Europe had failed to reach him.
Mr. Somers was unable to command so large a sum as he required. His
senior partner was absent from home. But the wily Rossini so won upon
his sympathies, that he went to the private safe of his
brother-in-law, and took from thence the money necessary to free his
friend from embarrassment. He never saw the Italian again.

When the treachery of which he had been the victim burst upon him,
together with his own weakness and guilt, he was filled with shame and
remorse. Mr. Lansdowne was a man of stern integrity and uncompromising
justice. He dared not meet his eye on his return, and he dreaded to
communicate the unworthy transaction to his sister, who had so gently
yet so faithfully warned him.

He made desperate efforts to get traces of the villain who had
deceived him. Unsuccessful--maddened with sorrow and shame, he wrote a