"Perfectly," cried the girl enthusiasti- | but he said he must go to the Casino first. He had promised cally. "It was a treat! Was it not curious bis being there? It was the same man, you know, that I told you about this morning, who was so kind to me in the train." "Yes, of course," replied madame, a little absently, folding up her many wraps. "I have been wondering about your bridesmaid's dress, dear. Have you any particular choice? I think it would be better for you to come to Paris a short time before the wedding, so that you can have what you like best." Into this new important topic, her thoughts being thus diverted, Dorothy plunged with great energy; and when it had been discussed at much length, the door opened, and Monsieur de Croye made his appearance. "Not in bed!" was his exclamation on entering. "My dear child, what shockingly late hours you are keeping!" "It is only once in a way," she pleaded. "And I wanted to see you before I went, to tell you how very much I have enjoyed myself." "Even at that poor attempt at a ball?" he said kindly. "Yes, indeed, it was too delightful." "Though you only danced once, did you not? for you can scarcely count my attempts, or De Mornay's." "Yes, only once," she repeated; "but all the same, I don't think I ever spent a more delightful evening." "You are a very good, grateful girl," he replied kindly; "I hope I shall be able to do more for you one of these days." "Annette," the tones of his voice altering, — and turning to his wife, "fancy who was in the Casino to-night! the Comte de Rivaulx." "Comte de Rivaulx!" echoed madame, pausing in her tidying; "why, what was he doing there?" "Yes, what? But there is a man downstairs who is at the Lion d'Or, and has just been telling us all about it. It seems he is staying there, though apparently not under his own name. This man, a friend of De Mornay's, Frédon by name, was in his room with the door open, when, at about ten o'clock, he saw a lady heavily veiled go past, and knock at the next door to his. "A servant came out, and she said very quickly; Is the Comte de Rivaulx in? I must see him. Has he started?' ***Not that name,' the servant replied. And then added, 'I wish he had started, 66 "How heartless!" madame remarked. "It is disgraceful," Monsieur de Croye went on. My first thought was thankfulness that that stuck-up Mademoiselle de Villeron would not let De Mornay introduce her fiancé. Of course he was one of that party- vulgar, fast set. I have no doubt his sister was with him!" 66 was "That," madame remarked, scarcely likely, under the circumstances." "What circumstances?" inquired mon. sieur testily. "She has left her hus band," he went on; "we all know that." "Henri!" exclaimed madame in tones of horror, "do not forget the child is in the room." He stopped abruptly, and turned towards the corner where Dorothy, with wide-open grey eyes, in her white muslin gown, was staring at him. "What has he done?" she questioned, coming a step nearer. "Done?" repeated monsieur, still incensed at the contaminating presence that, all unknown, had been so near to him; "he has done nearly everything he should not have done. Ruined, obliged to leave his regiment, penniless, when, fifteen years ago, he had as fine a fortune as any man could wish for; and then a duel to wind up with. The wounded man lying in Paris not expected to live, and he idling about a casino. That, I think, pretty well shows the kind of man he is. But women are all alike. I believe Annette would say something in his favor if she could." "No, Henri," she began doubtfully, "I suppose he is a very bad man. I have always heard he is; still this duel, I was told, was forced upon him, that he was insulted most openly." "I dare say, I dare say. Still he need not go flaunting about as if he were proud of his heartlessness and with his sister, lost to all sense of shame, living with D'Elvas." "Henri!" exclaimed madame, "I insist upon your changing the subject, or waiting until Dorothy has gone to bed." Her husband was silent a moment, and she asked a little curiously," What kind of a looking man is he? I wish I had seen him." "Frédon says that he thinks he saw him go down, and that he never saw a face which bore so plainly the distinguishing marks of the kind of man he is. The expression was horrible, so he says." "What is he like?" questioned Dorothy gently. She was gathering her wraps together, preparatory to departing. His looks don't matter much," replied her uncle. "Suffice it that I consider him to be the wickedest man in Paris." Having made this sweeping assertion, Uncle Henri's feelings seemed a little relieved; for, "He is not handsome," he added; "at least I have always heard that his fascination does not lie in his good looks." "Does he dance well?" Dorothy hazarded, lighting her candle. Monsieur de Croye laughed. His good temper seemed restored. "His dancing," he said, "to quote Frédon down-stairs, is historical." "Well," put in madame soothingly, "perhaps he could not resist going to the ball, if he is so fond of dancing." She was not thinking of the doubtful hero of many Paris escapades of whom her uncle had spoken, - of the man who had run through a large fortune, wasting his patrimony on the idle amusements which his life had suggested, of the man who, in disgrace and ruin, had thought it advisable to leave his country, and strive to carve out a fresh career as a nameless soldier in another land, whilst he, with whom he had fought, lay hovering between life and death in Paris. No; her innocent, girlish thoughts were with some one very different; some one who had been kind and helpful to her when she had been perplexed and anxious who had smoothed many difficulties in her path, which had threatened to interfere with her happiness and had, at the cost of trouble to himself, given her the crowning joy of her holiday. Some one who had looked at her with dark, grave eyes, and told her the bitterest punishment of wrong-doing is to find out we have been a bad guide to those we love, some one who had placed in her hands the little symbol which had served as the connecting link between brother and sister, whose love, formed of the threefold cord, no dividing sin and shame could sever. Of the voice that had said that hope was forsaking him, but that her young innocent hand should give it back to him. And it seemed to Dorothy, standing in the bare French room, with the moonlight falling across the uncarpeted floor, that, of a sudden, a great window had been flung open before her, out of which, gazing, she saw, for the first time, all the sin and sorrow that there is in the world. From Blackwood's Magazine. MUCH as I appreciate summer weather, I am afraid that soft, balmy days are not favorable to the doing of laborious work, whether of body or mind. I find them, however, highly conducive to the act of mind which we call musing; and, upon reflection, I do not see why a man should not, at convenient times, drop the reins upon the neck of his fancy, and suffer himself to be spirited about according to her pleasure. This is dead against the teaching of the profound Locke, who, if I remember rightly, in his "Conduct of the Understanding," insists that the mind must always be at the service of its owner, and must never be allowed to take the lead and to carry him off wool-gathering. Locke, like some other great thinkers, is almost too severe for mortals of only ordinary strength. Nay, it may perhaps, without profaneness, be made a question whether nine-tenths of us could at all endure the mental discipline which he thinks wholesome and improving. I will even go a little farther than this, and say that if a man were strictly able to follow out Locke's precept, and to assign to his mind its "daily stage of duty," he might, while always following after good and worthy objects, miss and come short of objects more original and more adapted to his powers and disposition. Working earnestly but in set grooves, he might travel very near to, yet never see, some treasure which a roaming imagination would be sure to light upon. Such observations as these ought, however, as I know, to be offered and received with extreme caution; because it is easier to loosen than to control the mind, and wandering thoughts, if freely indulged, often object to one taking the road back into prescribed study. Even were the argument for dreaming much weaker than it is, I think that I should to-day hardly take to anything very serious. The turf is so fresh and green, the air is so scented and soothing, it is so delightful "under the shade of melancholy boughs," that even if I were to force my self to a task, the chances are that, having once done so, I should treat resolution and come here again miching for an hour or two. It is a favorite conceit of mine when I thus make holiday, that I am the victim of a retiarius, the cause of the conceit being nothing stronger than that I lie in a net-hammock wondrously adapted for repose, where I look probably as much like a cabbage as a gladiator. Certainly I do not feel like a victim as I revel in the far niente, forgetting the world and trusting that I am for the present by the world forgot. I am not, in my hours of ease, one bit uncertain or hard to please: I know what I like very well- and that is, to be let alone. understands his business much better than I do; still, is it wise of him when he wants people's good-will- their patronage, as he expresses it to fool them by representing his plaguy advertisements as matters of importance?" The feeling which he has aroused in me is simply irritation at the fright he gave me; and I am very unlikely, while feeling thus aggrieved, to go to see him myself or to recommend him to any one else. He had much better have sent his programme without any trickery, and let it take its chance with my impartial judgment. Then it would in due course have humph! perhaps it might not have been brought to me at all, or, having been discovered on my desk at a busy moment, would have been chucked into the waste basket. Yes, he has by his "dodge " caused me to read his announcement and to think about it, The feet of him that brings tidings although he has aroused my ire. To se(good or bad) to my retreat are not beauti- cure attention by any means was evidently ful to me; and I feel an emotion only too his object; to secure it inoffensively if he like hatred against that person in buttons could, but to impress with a pang rather who carries something ominously resem- than not to impress at all. I am thinking bling a letter in his hand, athough he about the fellow, that is certain; I shall comes only from a sense of duty towards probably think again of him ; and I already me. This unreasonable enmity is another see the foreshadow of an event which, for proof that I am not in the frame of mind the sake of others, though not for my own recommended by Locke; I confess to sake, may be exactly according to his debeing uncharitable, and I mentally make sire. I may condone before Wednesday, spiteful comments on the nunció as he and take a party of four to his perform. draws near. I suspect him of exaggerat-ance, which I should not have done if the ing his chest with a sponge or something advertisement had been delivered in an of the sort, and decide that he has the unpretending cover. most offensively conceited strut ever seen -all this because of my belief that the letter is considered important and will cruelly interrupt, if it does not bring to an end, this swing in my net. Yes, charlatanry is justified of her children. Quacks, as to some matters, know us a great deal better than we know ourselves. What a weak thing, then, is the human mind with all its grand pretenBut when I open the despatch my coun- sions! Even the sage Locke would have tenance clears, my heart is once more in been easier to be played upon than a pipe the right place. I behold a page of be- by a professor of this quality. The weakcoming gait, and with a bosom in strictness is not confined to this or that person, proportion to the other parts of his frame. I address him in a sweetly benevolent tone as compensating for the mental injury that I had done him; for though the billet was marked "immediate," and had been otherwise commended to the household as demanding instant attention, these are but the devices of a mountebank for advertising his entertainment. Nobody is at this moment intruding on my laziness; I need not, and I shall not, determine just now whether or not I will form one of the audience of the professor (as he calls himself) on Wednesday next; and I once more "daff the world aside and bid it pass." "That professor," I reflect, as I subside into delicious placidity, "probably neither does it affect us only at certain times of the moon. Our infirmity is general, and is at all times exposed to attack, as is evident by the immense number of persons, from the pretended halt, maimed, and blind, up to the profoundest impostors, from fortune-tellers and thimbleriggers to financial and political swindlers, who practise daily upon universal credulity. What quantities of wealth are made change hands continually by means of imposture pure and simple, or of devices not wholly chimerical in themselves, but puffed and advertised with impudent audacity! Caution, in these cases, seems to be in the inverse ratio of the magnitude and effrontery of the imposture. Some pains may be taken to ascertain | known to be well stocked; the former has whether a street beggar is blind or not; but sacks of gold are emptied into a South Sea scheme without the slightest solici tude, except that the deposit should not be made too late. Various degrees of skill can be shown in very immoral pursuits; and I trust that I shall not be taken as expressing admiration or approval of their craft, if I notice one or two men who appear to have been at the head of the science of extracting money without rendering any equivalent. I doubt whether, during the last fifty years, any Englishman has shown such aptitude in this line as the late Mr. Cobden. He drew from the people money by hundreds of thousands of pounds; and he had a secret which put him in the highest walk of his disreputable profession. That is to say, he did not feel it necessary after a coup, to make off to some obscure retreat, where he might enjoy his gains in obscurity while his victims were returning to their right minds, and growing resent ful; but he was able for a long time to keep up the illusion, and to levy heavy tolls a second and a third time before the public infatuation was dispelled. His hat had gone round so many times that it seemed to be possessed with the spirit of a blind mill-horse turned out to grass, and to be unable to move except in circles. One of the supposed benefits for which this enormous price was paid was enduring peace. Any man who will take the trouble to glance over the world's chronicles since the year 1847, the time about which Mr. Cobden began to "operate," may quickly satisfy himself as to the amount of value which the credulous public received in the form of peace for all their subscriptions. Another of Mr. Cobden's boasts was that he would "crumple up Russia." Yet anybody who reflects on the (to us) threatening position of Russia upon the frontier of India, will admit that she was not "crumpled up" by Mr. Cobden, and was not an easy power to crumple up. Many men have since attempted to follow in Mr. Cobden's footsteps, but none with anything like his ability. He understood his metier, and stuck to it. Office, which was offered to him, he steadily refused. He knew how to live on the public far more agreeably than by doing official work. In our day Mr. Parnell has made a prosperous start in Mr. Cobden's line, and that in spite of a difficulty which Cobden had not to contend against. The latter drew always from a purse which was managed to extract £50,000 from pockets which he affirms to be pitiably empty, and he has thereby given contradiction to the maxim ex nihilo nihil fit. It has yet to I be seen whether Mr. Parnell can keep the stream running as Mr. Cobden did; he has undoubtedly shown a pretty wit in that way. And in reckoning up those who have subsisted themselves handsomely by public contributions, I must not leave Mr. O'Connell unmentioned. He did not, it is true, go down to the grave in the full enjoyment of the reputation, such as it was, which he had acquired; but for a great number of years he made the public a ready milch cow. When I spoke of enduring peace as one of the baits which Mr. Cobden employed to mislead the people for his own ends, I, of course, did not mean to say that he created the general belief in the possibility of lasting peace. He merely, as all these cunning fellows do, wrought upon an instrument which he found ready framed to his hand. Throughout the present century a notion has been gaining ground that we, if we will it so, can always avoid going to war; and a sort of corollary to this notion is, that every war which we have made or may make, must be a crime, no matter what the circumstances might be which led, or might lead, us to draw the sword. Now, as almost every man who reflects at all must find such doctrine difficult of digestion, Mr. Cobden saw a favorable opportunity of bringing out his pepsine, or, in plain words, of showing how universal and perpetual peace might be induced to spread her balmy wings over the whole world. "Make trade thoroughly free," dogmatized he, “and you make war impossible." The affirmation, no doubt, quieted many peace-desiring minds. How, in the present day, and in recollection of all the dreadful wars which have occurred since Mr. Cobden's false prophecy, the belief in possible eternal peace is nourished and maintained, it is not easy to perceive. But there are many infallible signs of a belief being prevalent that all war and fighting may be avoided, and that any British minister who may throw down or take up the gauntlet is guilty of a grave offence. This absurdity, like every other fallacious belief, will only have its day and then pass into the limbo of vanity, from whence A violent cross-wind from either coast away of no account. In the days of the emperor Charles V., the idea of Spain ever dwindling to a fourth rate power would no doubt have been scoffed at. Let Britain be warned in time. She is tampering with her possessions, her character, and her prestige. History is our warrant for the belief that a change will come. The signs just now are all the other way, and only for an increase of the fashionable disposition. It is difficult to understand how a movement which seems to gather head as time rolls on, is ever in ordinary course to decline and disperse. Yet such will be the event And I, who am taking my native land if we judge by what already has been. to task for imprudence; am I altogether England was republican once and Puri- careful? There is an ugly-looking cloud tan; but she righted herself, as she has visible through the trees, which has gathbeen wont to do, after indulging for a time ered while I have been pondering. It is in extravagance. How the rectification just possible that a storm may be coming, may come about cannot be so distinctly and that I ought to decamp. But I am foreseen; but political feelings will prob- weak on that point; the sun is still shinably be swayed by commercial depression. ing, and the air is delicious I can get Our popular forces seem to be working to shelter in five minutes. No; I won't together to destroy our prosperity, and to budge yet. If a thorough wetting, with put us down in the scale of nations. If perhaps a long walk or drive in wet clothes, so, the day must come when our working were at hazard, I should have to avoid classes, instead of busying themselves that at any sacrifice of present ease. about the readiest means of transferring the wealth of capitalists to themselves, will be jostling each other to get employment at all. At such times war gives a convenient fillip to business, and the cry for peace will probably become very piano. Hard times make people captious; and it would not be surprising if, instead of selfaccusation and self-effacement, we were to show a ltttle tenacity and pugnacity, Three or four of us had gone what we and to speak rather sharply with our ene- called fishing on a very promising mornmies in the gate. As things get rougher, ing, and we enjoyed until afternoon favor. the soldier's daily ration may be an attrac-able weather, and sport of the humble tion, and tend to bring arms into fashion. It is even possible that the mad cry may be for a time, "War at any price!" Then, if our senses should return, as after former follies, there might be again a rational care for British interests, and a resumption of wholesome sentiment. We may fairly speculate in this way, because hitherto Britain has known how to stop short of ruining herself. But it is a vastly dangerous thing to get on the road to ruin; and we may only hope we must not presume that a place for repentance may be found for us before it is too late. Some nations, after being too confident in their prosperity, have suffered a long eclipse. And in saying this, I am not thinking solely of the ancient world and the ruins of empires. In comparatively modern times it has been quite possible for a famous and prosperous state to undo itself by foolhardy perversity. Spain was, not so long ago, a rich and a renowned land-great in arts, great in arms, of most extensive dominion. Look at her now, and believe that it is possible for a power that has been in every way gifted, to decline and to become There were days when even that was otherwise, and when discomfort was the only penalty of being wet through that I ever thought about. This discomfort I remember to have encountered on many occasions in very early life, and notably on one occasion. It was not the wetting itself, but the period which preceded it, that has stamped it on my memory. kind to which, in those juvenile days, we aspired. As the day got older, however, a very unwelcome change occurred in the sky, which grew black and threatening; a howling, down-stream wind got up, and then a few drops of rain warned us that there was an evil time coming. We did not know how to judge of the weather, and with the sanguine disposition of youth, determined that we were in for a shower, which would pass away presently. It was advisable, however, to get shelter somewhere till the rain should be over; and as to that somewhere there was not much choice. Our river ran through a dreary marsh, and the only habitation within easy reach of us was a wretched cottage where they sold beer. For this refuge we made, and we arrived there before the rain had done us much damage. Out of all our pockets together we were able to extract the price of a pot of beer; and, confident in the possession of this talisman, we went boldly in and demanded refreshment. We were only just in time; almost before we were served the rain blew in at the door of the cottage, so that the goodwife had to shut it. The windows were not |