cinnamon on the lower part of the breast, and
with a face like a sheep. In Ceylon, milk-white
specimens of little deer are found sometimes,
which have been, it is supposed, called the moose
deer, on account of the smallness of their size,
from the Dutch word muis, or mouse. "Here is
a creature," says Robert Knox, "in this land no
bigger than a hare, though every part rightly
resembleth a deer. It is called Meminna, of a
grey colour with white spots, and good meat."
"Its extreme length," says Sir James Emerson
Tennent, "never reaches two feet, and of those
which were domesticated about my house, few
exceeded ten inches in height, their limbs being
of similar delicate proportions." It can inflict
a severe bite. An accident which befel a milk-
white maminna, prevented its being sent as a
present to the Queen, in 1847. Five milk-white
deer were found in the palace when the English
took possession of Kandy, in 1803.

THE LOTTERY DREAMER.
IN FOUR CHAPTERS.
CHAPTER IV. THE TERNO.

IT was a Friday evening, about a month after
the day of the "merenda" in the Cascine and
the conversation following it, which has been
recorded in the last chapter. And the same four
persons were once again together in the little
shop on the Ponte Vecchio. Upon this occasion,
however, the party of four was not divided into
two pairs as had then been the case, but were all
assembled in the larger front shop. Carlo's
proposition had been duly made to the old jeweller,
as had been projected; and the result had fully
confirmed the sagacity of his judgment on the
subject. As soon as old Laudadio had been
made to understand that it was intended to assure
to him a home and maintenance, together with
unbounded command of his own time, and ample
leisure for pursuing studies which had become
his master passion, he jumped at the proposal.
All the feelings which would once have arrayed
themselves in opposition to it—the citizen's
pride, the artist's pride, the householder's pride
—had long since died out under the blighting
encroachment of the one domineering thought,
like the healthful vegetation that perishes
beneath the baleful shade of the upas-tree. Carlo
had judged rightly. The lottery, which had
killed so much else, had killed all these things in
the old man.

The proposed arrangements, therefore, had all
been brought to bear prosperously. The
marriage of Carlo and Laura was fixed for the
following Sunday. It was to take place in the
quiet little church of Santo Stefano, which serves
as a parish church for the houses on the northern
part of the bridge. After some delay and trouble
the necessary papers and certificates were all in
order. Carlo, like most others of his class and
generation, had not been near a confessional box
for a long time. But it was necessary to do so,
and to have a certificate to that effect, before he
could be married. And he had, not without
considerable repugnance, gone through the
ceremony, and obtained his papers accordingly. On
the morrow the necessary agreements between
him and old Vanni were to be formally executed
before a notary; and the neat tablet, with the
words, "Carlo Bardi, Jeweller and Goldsmith," in
letters of gold on a blue enamelled ground, which
had been duly prepared, was to be put up over the
narrow little door, in the place now occupied by the
half-effaced and faded name of Laudadio Vanni,
which had been written there in old-fashioned
black letters on a white ground more than half
a century ago. This morrow, in short, was to be
a very busy day with Carlo. The goods in which
he had invested his little capital for the stocking
of his shop had all been purchased, some in
Florence, and some in Paris. The latter were still
in the custom-house; some of the former not
yet delivered. But Carlo hoped to have them all
safe under his own roof by the Saturday night,
and looked forward to a long day of hurry and
bustle. Laura was to be equally busy in receiving
the goods, arranging, cataloguing, and examining,
all day long.

This Friday evening, therefore, was the last
quiet hour before the marriage, and the last of
the old jeweller's life as a householder and
master tradesman. His life-long friend, Niccolo,
had accordingly chosen this evening to bring his
congratulations—and the bride's dower.

"Here they are, my friends," said the cavaliere,
producing two long rouleaux wrapped in
paper, that looked as yellow as an old man's
lifelong treasured packet of love-letters; "here
they are, two fifties, just as I rolled them up
something like twenty years ago. They have
never been touched since, though many a time
there has been sore need of them. But trust
old Cola Sestini for that! Sure bind, safe find!
And now, Laura mia," he added, as he put the
heavy rolls into her hands, "there they are, and
the keeping of them is off my mind."

"You know, Caro Signor Cavaliere," said
Laura, "that grateful as Carlo and I are for an
assistance so important to us, there is little more
to be said about it than we ought to say every
day. For God knows how things would have
gone with us but for you. You must be tired of
being thanked, and anybody else would be tired
of doing the good deeds to be thanked for.
Here, Carlo," she added, as she put the packets
into his hands, "you have not to learn now all
that my godfather has been to me."

"Thanks, Signor Cavaliere, for my Laura's
dower," said Carlo, as he got up to take the
money, extending as he did so his right hand to
the old man, "and a thousand times more thanks
for your approval of our marriage. I will lock
up the dollars, and leave them yet a little longer
in their old wrappings. But I am afraid that
their long repose is very nearly over."

And so saying, Carlo proceeded to place the
two rouleaux in an iron-doored strong safe,