to the barouche, and tore the bouquet from out of Madame de Montpont's hand. "Little one!" she said, "you have only two good features, and those are your eyes. If I ever see you with my

adored Florestan, I will tear them out of their sockets."

"Who is that?" exclaimed Brigantine, terrified.

"Some poor creature who has made her escape from Bicêtre or Charenton," replied Juvignac. And he ordered his postilions to remove her to another part of the grounds.

Viscount Florestan de Juvignac had removed upon the faith of his four thousand francs from his lodgings in the Rue Saint Lazare to chambers in the Hôtel des Princes. He was breakfasting upon a dozen Ostend oysters, a cold partridge, and a bottle of Lafitte, when a valet brought him in a note highly scented with musk upon a silver platter.

"From Mademoiselle de Folle Avoine," said Juvignac to himself, as he glanced at the superscription. "What a passion she must be in. Never mind, I will peruse her abuse; it cannot even excoriate my epidermis."

But the letter was not abusive; on the contrary, it was exceedingly contrite. The young lady regretted that in attempting to recal him to his fidelity she had permitted herself to flirt with another; it was only done with the view of exciting his jealousy, and he had paid her out in her own coin at the steeplechase. She had written, but he had not answered her letter. She could not live without his love; the charcoal was already lighted; all she asked was that he would give her one last embrace before starting upon a long journey. The carriage she was about to travel by waited for no one. It was a hearse!

"Past eleven!" exclaimed Florestan. "Oh, heavens! Poor dear girl! she may be asphyxiated by this time. I shall be too late." And he rushed out to No. 27, Rue de Breda.

Mademoiselle de Folle Avoine was not dead. But she lay in bed, and when Florestan knocked at the door her maid brought in the red-hot charcoal.

"Where am I?" asked the poor young woman, as she opened her eyes to witness her lover's sobs.

"On my heart!" responded Florestan-" my heart, which has never ceased to beat for you! Dear angel! why did you wish to die?"

"Because you no longer loved me!"

"I

"We will go to Dieppe," said Florestan, when mademoiselle had recovered, and the first burst of reconciliation was over. shall never forgive myself for my rudeness in refusing to take you when you asked me."

Mademoiselle de Folle Avoine smothered the viscount's regrets in her embraces, and two hours afterwards they were on their way to the sea-side for the especial benefit of mademoiselle's health.

Unfortunately, the young lady's health was so delicate that they had to make a little stay at Rouen on their way. In the excess of his love, Florestan had admitted that the story about his inheritance was all a fable, and that all he had was three thousand francs, the remnant of his winnings at Madame de Frontignan's. Mademoiselle looked very serious, but she declared she liked him the better as he was. At the hotel at Rouen they picked up many acquaintances, chiefly English tourists. Florestan thought the naïve insulars might be easily victimised, and he proposed a hand at lansquenet to a neighbour at table-a Captain Macduff. By midnight the gallant captain had cleared him of all his ready money, plus a hundred louis on his word.

The next morning, when Juvignac awoke from a sleep disturbed by a thousand conflicting and painful emotions as to how he should extricate himself from the dilemma in which he was placed, he perceived that mademoiselle was gone, and had left a note behind her. It was more explicit than comforting. He owed Captain Macduff, she said, a hundred louis, and had not a farthing to pay, so she had been to the hateful Englishman, and had offered her person as an indemnification for the money. The captain had accepted, and she had sacrificed herself to save her dear Florestan. Was she not a hundred times dearer than ever to him?

Six months have elapsed. No more Operas, Boulevards, and Cafés Anglais. The scene has changed to Landernau. Bastien Fouilleroux, driven to extremities, has left the scene of his triumphs, and accepted the humble situation of clerk to his old college chum, Valadon. He had become with the lapse of time even reconciled and steady, but the memory of his dear friendsviscounts Néris and Barbantin-still haunted his imagination. They might be well married, rolling in wealth and luxury, and he had to toil in the study of a country notary for his bread!

One day, however, a paragraph in the Gazette des Tribunaux caught his eye. It related briefly that the body of a young man known as Viscount Gaston de Barbantin had been fished up from the Seine, that his real name was Jérôme Bondin, and he was a well-known chevalier d'industrie, who had preferred suicide to the pursuits of justice. A few days afterwards another lugubrious paragraph in the same record of criminal cases announced that a certain viscount-Fabien de Néris, but whose real name was Robert Dupuis--had been taken up for appropriating to himself the plate at the Maison-Dorée, and had been condemned to two years imprisonment and five years of surveillance.

Such was the end of the three viscounts. Bastien had received a severe lesson, but it was not lost upon him, and he lived to discover that talent, labour, and virtue, constitute the only true titles of nobility.

49

THE PHARISEE.

I.

WALKING in the country which unites the city of Puerto-Rico to the continent of the island were the Brigadier D. Agustin Campos, colonel of a regiment recently arrived from the mothercountry, and a young lieutenant, his aide-de-camp. The enthusiastic love that this young man showed to his old chief had been and still was the theme of unkind jokes and censures among his companions, who could not understand that a young man of his brilliant qualities, suited to please and excel in any circle, should prefer to all of them the society of an austere old man; therefore some attributed this preference to low flattery, others to pride, others, finally, to caprice, considering that there is no greater intolerance than that of mediocrity for superiority. But all these outlets of malice were confined to sarcastic smiles and indirect and hidden jokes; such was the respect that the high, courteous, and reserved bearing of the young lieutenant had inspired in them.

"All the beauties of nature are united in this island to make it a perfect Eden," said the above-mentioned Lieutenant Luciano Encinas to the brigadier. "Like torrents of liquid silver from a grotto of emeralds, its limpid rivers pass under gigantic trees which are ever green and full of life as luxuriant youth; they wind through fields which are never seen either dry or impoverished; like loving hearts they glide among the sweet and flexible canes, as condescension and goodness united, and, like clear mirrors, they reflect and beautify at the same time all objects that come in their way."

"My dear Luciano," replied the brigadier, "sometimes I am inclined to think they have given you too literary an education for the career you follow, for which one code is enough-honour; and one manual-method. Your education has made you a poet, and if poetry exalts reality, it also discomposes it. Instead of being enraptured with the beauties of nature, it would be better if you thought of the bad effect the climate of this island has on our troops. What losses are there in the regiment?"

"A hundred and four, my brigadier," answered the lieutenant. "Do not imagine because my heart is impressed by the poetical that my mind neglects that which by obligation should occupy it. To think that poetry is inconsistent with practical life, is a narrowminded prejudice, unworthy of your disinterested and superior judgment."

"What would you have, Luciano?" replied the brigadier. "This feeling is not a hostile intimation; it is the consequence of

my active life. You know I enlisted as a common soldier in the War of the Independence; I have risen by degrees, and without ever tiring, to the rank which you see I now enjoy, and which I consider unmerited."

"I don't know," exclaimed the lieutenant, "which is most worthy of admiration-whether he whose silent and modest merit fortune unsolicited has rewarded, or he who considers his just rewards undeserved."

The brigadier was silent a few moments, as if hesitating between his habitual reserve and the honest sincerity that was the basis of his character; but the latter getting the better of the former, he said to his young companion:

"It is repugnant to my delicacy to leave you in what is partly a mistake; you, Luciano, who, though so much younger than myself, I look upon as my best friend, or rather as my son. I had a generous protector while he lived, and, above all, when he was minister he never ceased to extend to me his protecting hand, and to give me proofs of his friendship, the last being to give me the care of his son on his death-bed. That protector, Luciano, was your father. Acknowledge, then, the truth contained in one of those proverbs, proved by experience, No hay hombre sin hombre -(Man cannot live without man)."

"It is true that man cannot live without man," answered Luciano; "it is truth which is daily confirmed by deeds as a great lesson from God; this we are taught by Christian fraternity. I will refer you to an incident which confirms and proves equally this truth. Listen. A youth as noble as he was kind, as brave as he was gentle, had entered into a regiment in which, after a short time, he was beloved by all, but especially by his orderly, who was the best, most honest, and most deserving soldier in the regiment. The former lived with another ensign, his intimate friend and relation. These cousins had not as yet been in any engagement, and both of them, animated by that holy patriotism, inspired by their religion, their king, their country, their home and national independence, awaited impatiently an opportunity to distinguish themselves. The great day for which they longed with so much impatience and enthusiasm arrived. The first ranks were already engaged when his company received the order to advance, which was obeyed. The orderly, who did not lose sight of his ensign, observed with uneasiness the livid paleness of his countenance, which denoted profound emotion, and the wandering expression of his eyes, which indicated the perplexity of his mind; nevertheless, he continued advancing, but on arriving at the place of action he saw him stop and shudder; at his feet lay, bathed in blood, his face distorted by a painful death, the corpse of his cousin! The company continued advancing, and the young man remained immovable and petrified before the dead body at his feet."

The brigadier had stopped and listened with eager and increasing interest to the narration of his aide-de-camp, with his astonished eyes fixed on him. "In the midst of the confusion," proceeded the narrator, "the faithful orderly turned to seek his master with a look of unutterable anguish. His ensign was no longer there, but neither was he among the combatants; the heart of this loyal and brave man was oppressed. He is lost!' he thought with sorrow, 'his young and still tender mind confused by grief and by horror, a momentary emotion has overpowered him and subjugated his great and noble heart.' Not far from the scene of combat there were some ruins; the generous orderly, guided by the instincts of his heart, ran towards them, there he found him he sought weeping over the body of his companion. They are fighting there!' he cried, seizing and shaking him by the arm as if to awake him from a lethargy. The ensign aroused shakes himself, raises his fallen head, grasps his sword, and rushes as one intoxicated to the hottest of the fight; he behaves like a cid, he gains that day a cross of honour, and in after years becomes one of the bravest and most prudent chiefs of the army. That youth, who was paralysed with horror for a moment, was my father; that loyal friend who drew him from the precipice in which he was going to destroy his life and his honour was you. You see," continued the young man, down whose cheeks flowed abundant tears, and throwing himself into the arms of the brigadier, "how true it is 'man cannot live without man.'

999

"And your father told you this, which only he and I knew," said the brigadier, his voice trembling with the strength of his emotion; "oh, what unpardonable imprudence!"

"Say rather what a good lesson he gave his son," replied Luciano; "teaching him to mistrust himself, to despise arrogance, and to give hereditary veneration to gratitude."

II.

CLAUDIO FAJARDO was looked upon as one of the richest proprietors of that colony. He was a widower, and had three children.

The eldest, who was called Bibiana, was more than thirty years of age, and had never loved anyone, nor had anyone ever asked for her hand. In the first place, Bibiana was very selfisha too common infirmity, and which freezes the heart to all but self-love, and is, without doubt, an efficacious antidote against its passions. It is a pity the cure should be worse than the disease, for the simple reason that the injuries done by egotism have no cure. In the second place, the reason of her remaining unmarried was that none of those who had aspired to her hand had