you have met me here pure accident But answer my question as frankly as I answered yours: What have you contributed to this day's paper?" "To answer truly and sincerely, without reserve, equivocation, or reticence-nothing! "What am I to do? Here we are close to your bureau you see I know where it is and I am no further advanced than I was before." "No more am I. But it is the easiest thing in the world to arrange. Tell me your name and address; I will tell you mine. We have exchanged a challenge: by the rules of society, we should exchange cards." "Although a writer in the Charivari, you must feel your proposition a little too enterprising. Ask yourself what you would think of a lady who consented to such an arrangement." "Perhaps, Madame, you are right. But the fear of losing so charming an acquaintance makes me hazard more than perhaps I have a right to stake." "Well, we shall meet again, depend upon it." "Is that a promise or a consola tion?" "Take it as you like." Will you remember that a letter directed to Mistigris, 180 Rue du Bac, will find me ?" I will remember it.” "Is that an engagement or a politesse ?" "A politesse may be an engagement, though an engagement is not always a politesse." "The omnibus is stopping for you to alight. Bon jour, Monsieur." 'May I not say au revoir, Madame?" Say what you like." He was on the pavement before his sentence was concluded, urged by the rough mandates of the guard. For a week Monsieur Lahure was desperate; for another week he was anxious; the third he was melancholy; the fourth resigned. At the commencement of the second month, he was drifting into love with another, when a brougham dashed past him in the Rue de Rivoli, and the section of the Guido face greeted him with a bright smile. Regardless of promises and philosophy, the young man rushed after the carriage. A crowd of foot-passengers intercepted his career, and he returned home more in love than ever-a sadder and a sillier man. For some days he was gloomy, abstracted, and irritable. His thoughts flowed wearily, at a loss for an expedient. He went to sleep one night, and dreamt of Vanity. In the morning he rose rejoicing. The next day there appeared in the Charivari a little story in a column of short sentences. The title was taken from the old proverb that every medal has its reverse. It was surmounted by a vignette of the Guido face en profile. love such as this will not bear the test of misfortune. Further protestations. magnificently. In addition to the ordinary costume of the nineteenth century, he adorned his button-hole A walk to-morrow in the Bois de with two small crosses dangling to a Boulogne. CHAPTER III. The walk begins. Profile leans on one's right arm. More lovely than ever. Veil still in graceful folds over right cheek. Adorable creature! Then you really love me? One does indeed-and-adorable creature! Also a little. May one not see the whole of that adorable face? Will that jealous veil never be removed? A blush. Nay-prithee. Remonstrance and tremor. A short silence. Distant thunder. Wind blows. Rain falls fast. Shelter beneath a tree. Arm disengaged to run for fiacre. Fiacre found. The door opens. One assists profile with left arm. A gust of wind. Veil flies back. Profile has but one eye. Adieu, Madame. One pays the fare of the fiacre, shuts the door, and walks homealone-blessing the unknown philosopher who invented flight. At the end of the tale was a vignette of the counter-profile, with a great splotch for an eye. Sure enough the next morning Monsieur Lahure (Mathieu) received a letter, not Rue du Bac, but at the bureau of the Charivari. If Mistigris went a little into respectable society, instead of secluding himself to write libels, "one" might perhaps meet young widows with two eyes. Mistigris bought some new clothes, and straightway resumed his lodgings at Paris. He accepted indiscriminately every invitation he received; but he did not meet his widow. One day a friend of his, a painter, invited him to a soirée. The painter was a rich man, and gave sumptuous parties. Large saloons, flowers, music, lights, everything to intoxicate the mind or stimulate the senses. Lahure (Mathieu) was equal to the occasion. He wished to do honour to his vocation, and draped himself golden bar, the Legion of Honour and S. Gregory-orders gained at the point of his pen and pencil. The young man entered the ballroom to watch the dancing. His arrival soon became known, and the dancers executed their best steps gloomily, and deployed, their best graces depressed with the incisive reputation of the artist's pencil, and fearful, as are Parisians, of their own powers of ridicule. Lahure, to reassure them, assumed the smile of a philanthropist, the equanimity of a philosopher, and the abstraction of a poet. Standing half concealed near some flowers, he allowed the dancing to proceed undisturbed, and yielded his mind to pleasure; his vanity somewhat tickled by the sensation his presence had created, and his mind disposed to view with complacency his friend's hospitality. Conversations buzzed about him. GROUP 1.-Elderly Gentlemen. No. 1.-Our friend is giving a brilliant feast. No. 2.-Lucky brigand! with his pictures and his wife, he must have at least a hundred thousand francs yearly. No. 1. At least-and what a charming wife! No. 2.-Not more charming than himself I dine here Wednesday. No. 1.-I agree with you. I dine Saturday. GROUP 2.-Younger Gentlemen. No. 3. What lovely women! An artist has an eye for the beautiful. No. 4.-Beauty is enhanced by gold. So thinks our host. No. 3.-Do you see Lahure? It is not often he goes into the world. Perhaps he seeks for models. No. 4.-Beware he does not fix upon you. No. 3.-He might do worse. No. 4.-Perhaps he seeks, like our host, to unite the profession of a husband with his original career. No. 2 (from group 1).-Well, there is a good chance to-night for some one. Madame Dumesnil-Lacondrage once more honours society with her presence. No. 4.-Society will greet with enthusiasm the incarnation of seventyfive thousand francs a-year. No. 1.-And how very beautiful she looks! No. 3 (enraptured).—Like a Guido. GROUP 3.-A young Lady, No. 5; and a young Gentleman, No. 6. No. 5.-How very curious! No. 6. It is indeed extraordinary. Nos. 1&3. What extraordinary? Nos. 2 & 4.) is curious? No. 5.-A lady in the boudoir. No. 6.-A very beautiful person. No. 5.-Not exactly beautiful. No. 6.-Well, perhaps not-but so like. No. 5. So like a caricature by Monsieur Lahure. No. 6. The lady with one eye. Group 2.-But has this beautiful lady but one eye? Group 3.-No; two eyes. The sounds murmured in the distance. Lahure, as he afterwards declared, with his heart beating, moved into the boudoir. There there, occupying a whole sofa, dressed richly and artistically, sat the lady of the omnibus, dazzling in beauty and in diamonds, smiling triumphantly, and surrounded by a platoon of admirers. Lahure again half concealed himself by a curtain, and gazed on the beautiful vision before him. Her white neck rose majestically from her massive but symmetrical shoulders, which, in their turn, stood out in bold relief from the sharp outline of her velvet dress. Every turn of her head was graceful, and the wellgloved hand that held her bouquet or her fan was small and taper as a child's. For the first time in his life Labure felt abashed. He could not hear her words; but as she spoke her admirers laughed in chorus, and Lahure thought she was telling his story, and that the laugh was against himself. He was simple-hearted, though a caricaturist, and he did not yet know that an ample jointure adds a peculiar pungency to the witticisms of a handsome widow. But the idea of being ridiculed steeled the young man's heart. Girding himself with the armour of his trade, he placed a smile upon his lips and walked jauntily to the sofa. The widow observed him for the first time, and a blush spread over her face and neck. It was a good sign, and Lahure became relentless. The widow bowed. "Bon jour, Monsieur. It is some time since we met." He bowed in return, silently. "We have been laughing almost foolishly," she continued. "I trust not at the humble individual who now addresses you." Ah! you who joke others are the first to resent jokes yourselves. I suppose you were the hero of our dithyramb." "It would probably supply me with a supplement to a romance." The widow gazed at the young man with that imploring look common to women and dogs. "Be reassured," she rejoined, "we were only canvassing a play." "I did not know you were acquainted with my friend Lahure," interposed the host, who was passing at the moment. "Oh yes, indeed. We are collaborateurs." As she spoke, she moved her skirts on one side with that gesture peculiar to ladies when they invite you to sit next them on a sofa. The gesture dispersed the platoon of admirers. "What induced you in the Charivari?” to attack me "To effect one of two objects; and I have succeeded." "What were they?" "Either to pique you, and thus revenge myself; or to flatter you, and thus to find you." "And you think I was flattered?" I am sure of it." "Do you think it legitimate to bring your powers to bear against a defenceless woman ?" "As legitimate as you consider it not to keep your word. I gave my word not to follow you nor inquire after you, and I kept it." "I made the same promise, and kept it." But you gave hopes." "Can one give hopes in an omnibus?" "Ah, Madame, an omnibus may contain as true a heart as a gilded coupé." Bravo!-a capital sentence for your next article.' "Brava! You wish to humiliate me by my profession." "You do me an injustice." "You have treated me badly, and I cannot trust you." "If you really knew the truth, you would not think yourself ill used." "I can conceive no possible ex cuse. "What would you have thought of a woman who wrote to you with out knowing your name?" "You might have known me." "No sooner did I discover your real name than I wrote to you.' "But you did not give me yours. You left my finding you to chance." "You wish to humiliate me by avowals." "What do you mean?" "It was not quite chance that made us meet to-night." "Why, our host did not know that we had ever seen each other." "But his wife is a friend of mine." "When I did see you," burst out the young man in a transport, "my knees almost gave way under me." "I suppose it was only the sang froid of a writer that supported you?" "As a writer I should have succumbed. It was my artist-half sustained me." Then you are two men against one woman. The game is unequal." "Yet the woman has beaten the two men." "Explain yourself." "You who have learnt my name, and I am ignorant of yours." "Really. Do you assert that you do not know who I am?" "On my word of honour." She looked at him fixedly-then continued in a low tone"Guess it then." "I cannot." Surnames are vulgar, commonplace. They were invented for purposes of civilisation and utility. We never think of those we love by their surnames-our sisters, our children, our mothers, our wives. If we lived with them in a desert island, we should soon forget any names but those of baptism. It is a Christian name that lies in our hearts. Society may require me to salute you as Madame So-and-So. Shall I thus recall you in my dreaming hours?" Another pause, and the widow, in a tremulous whisper "Then I must tell you myself. My husband was an old man, who treated me as his daughter. His name was Dumesnil-Lacondrage." "In that case, Madame, I must bid you good-by." "Why ?-why?" "Madame Dumesnil-Lacondrage is in every one's mouth, the beautiful widow and the rich one, with seventyfive thousand francs a-year, and the world at her feet. I thought I was speaking to my companion of the omnibus, equal to myself in fortune, and perhaps not above my love. No, Madame, I will not contend with the world, where there are so many rivals to mortify my pride during the race, and to win it at the end. Let me stop short at the starting-post, not to lose my self-esteem as well as my happiness." The handsome features of the young man flushed as he spoke, his eyes half filled with tears. "So farewell, Madame," he continued. "No, Monsieur. I will not say farewell. It is not thus I part with "I shall guess your Christian Mistigris. Stay!" name." "What is it?" "Constance." "Then you must know me. I have always been called Julie; but my name is Constance likewise." Not many months afterwards Monsieur Lahure (Mathieu) gave a ball on his own account, and the Guido face received the guests. SWITZERLAND AND FRENCH ANNEXATION. until If the talent for organisation which distinguishes our Gallic neighbours enables them to send into the field an army better fitted to undergo the hardships and overcome the difficulties of a campaign than we can, we may at least find consolation in the reflection that, in all departments not connected with the Government, we are not subject to the thraldom which is the result of this tendency. In the mere arrangements of travel, for instance, the Englishman abroad is constantly conscious of an undue interference, on the part even of nonofficial employés, with his personal liberty. He dislikes being obliged to be at the station half an hour before the train starts; he is insulted by the presence of a gendarme at the ticket-office, to see that there is no cheating on either side; he is anxious for the rest of his journey about his luggage, because he did not see it put into the train, although he has got a ticket for it; and finally, he is indignant at being kept wait ing in the "salle d'attente five minutes before the train starts. While seated here, he has time to consider his grievances, and determines, on his return to his native land, to be less ardent in the cause of administrative reform-for he finds, after all, that he is a fortunate individual to have his lot cast in a freeand-easy country, where people have learned "how not to do it." On the night of the 25th of last March, I found myself precisely in the condition of a British traveller making invidious political comparisons of this nature, while standing, in a highly irritable frame of mind, jammed against the glass door of the waitingroom of the Lyons and Geneva Railway, between a fat and somewhat offensive Belgian, and a lady with a baby, which she allowed to rest temporarily on the bundle of wrappers I held under a very tired arm. We were all waiting to make that rush for seats which is the usual preliminary to a night-journey, and casting longing eyes on the carriage ticketed Geneva," when, to our horror, a were TURIN, April 12, 1860. side-door opened, and a posse of gentlemen appeared upon the platform, coolly clambered into the aforesaid carriage, and appropriated all the best seats. It was evident, now, that I had no chance of getting into the corner with my back to the engine, and securing the seat opposite for my legs, by putting my cloaks into it, as though they belonged to some one else. Bulky men making themselves comfortable in each compartment, so that even the usually perverted sense of their own rights, which distinguished my companions, was roused, and we clamoured vociferously. At last the door was opened by a responsible official, with an air of authority, of whom I inquired, with that polite irony peculiar to persons in a state of suppressed virtuous indignation, what the amount of the sum might have been which he had privately received for giving the choice of seats to the stout gentlemen? (who had by this time filled all the compartments with tobacco-smoke). 66 Sir, you insult me!" "That was my intention; but I feared you might not feel insulted by the remark." "Take care, sir-but, in fine, I am not master here. It is not my fault; let me show you a seat." So I was crammed, as the eighth passenger, between seven_men-all smoking, all talking, and some of them whose proximity was disagreeable for other reasons. They were to be my companions for the next fifteen hours, during the first ten of which I was fully occupied in making futile endeavours to sleep. My neighbours, when they did not talk, snored, letting their lighted cigars drop feebly out of their mouths as they went to sleep, and carefully retaining as much smoke in the carriage as possible, by keeping both windows shut. At last morning dawned, and we stopped for "café au lait," and under the genial influence of the early meal one's faculties became once more roused, and one's better nature protested against ten hours of unamia |