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he perseveres if he really does live cheaply-if he resists the tendency to a foolish expense, which seems to be very hard to withstand, so little is it resisted-Osric's cousin will have introduced a fashion which hundreds will gladly follow the moment they see some one brave enough to lead.

OUR FOREIGN GOSSIP.

EVEN at the first glance over the foreign files at our elbow, our eye catches the blurred fragment of a little French drama which is worth rendering into the English of our gossipy columns.

even to express the sympathy they may have felt. The evening entertainment broke up in disorder.

The pretty Elise, with that strong French horror of ridicule become now a fever in her heart and brain, returned to her old rooms, lighted a brazier of charcoal, closed the doors and windows tightly, and the next day they found her fallen upon the stifled fire, dead and cold, with the face which had charmed so many half burned away!

The end was more dramatic, but no more sad, than that which belongs to nearly all of the great sisterhood of Parisian grisettes. Two, or, maybe, A year ago, and the public balls of Paris-about five years of rollicking glee and triumphs-of Bois which every body knows (more than ever now, since de Boulogne drives-of liveried coachmen-of silks Mrs. Stowe, in her "Sunny Memories," records a from the Maison Delisle-of suppers at the Maison visit to the Garden Mabille!)-could not show a d'Or-and then other five years of joylessness-of prettier face or a more deft figure than those belong-wasting cheeks-of cheap hats from the Rue St. ing to the accomplished grisette Elise GMartin-of hard needle-work-of doubtful subsist

box-doors of theatres, or of hospital-lingering; or, better still, a narrow place in the close graveyard of Mont Parnasse!

She was the toast of all the foreign habituésence-and then other years of sous-catchings at the (numbering very many Americans among them); and many was the time she was followed, at the close of the dance, by a dozen eager lookers-on, to watch if there might be any chance of handing her a dropped mouchoir, or of begging her attendance to a petit souper at the Café de Paris.

Alas! (as people say in print) for the poor grisette world! Dashing, brilliant, careless—all smiles and sunshine-and then-hollow faces, hoarse voices, But with all her beauty (frail, no doubt, as that haggard limbs, all shuffled off in a deal coffin to a of all the dancers at the scene of Mrs. Stowe's vis-pit that has no sign over it, and never a wreath of it), she seemed coy and difficult of access. She everlastings! Let us thank our stars that, with all was scarce turned of eighteen, and her color was as our catchings of Paris ways, we have not yet caught rich as the cheek of a nectarine, which they sell you the infection of grisettedom. in the market of St. Honoré, in the month of August. Her movement in the waltz had a certain crazy grace in it that drove one mad; and her bounds at the close of a quadrille were only less wonderful than the traditionary movements of the great Taglioni.

Among those who gazed admiringly on the beautiful Elise, there happened, on a time, to be a certain Edward Blank, of excellent family, who was visiting an old friend of his father's in the quarter of the Chaussée d'Antin. Like the rest, he became thoroughly smitten with the grace and beauty of Elise; but bolder than her other admirers, or more impassioned, he resolutely pushed his addresses; put himself on terms of easy acquaintanceship; placed his coupé and his purse at her disposal; and finally, infatuated by her grace, insisted upon presenting her in the circle of his old friends as the Baronne Blank.

True, Elise was not altogether accustomed to the habit of the society upon which she found herself suddenly foisted; but a few hints from the lover, in respect to the observance of silence, and the abandonment of gesture (so prettily characteristic of the grisette class), aided by the quick observation belonging to every French woman, enabled her to baffle suspicion, and to carry out her new rôle with entire acceptance.

To tie to this story, what a gay border we have, of the proud scenes of the camp of Boulogne! And how this new Napoleon is living up to that scheme of action and energy which was planned for him by Napoleon the Great! We may smile at him, if we will, and make damaging comparisons, and never fancy his thin face and long nose; but there is a mettle in his movements, after all, which was scarce foreshadowed in the Idées Napoleoniennes, and never read on his face when he tarried so long in London, showing his horsemanship on Pall Mall.

It was no small matter of work he laid out for himself in the summer gone; dictating letters to Ministers at Vienna and Berlin (to say nothing of Nicholas)-pushing Paris streets through such a series of transmigrations that it looks now (they say) like a new-built city-organizing a féte which eclipsed all former fêtes by its gay lampions and its perfect tranquillity-railroading to Bordeaux, and laying the foundations of an imperial villa at Biarritz as a play-house for the invalid Eugenie-then tramping with his new, blue-coated Cent-gardes back to Paris-opening the Opera on a gala-nightand gone, as soon as come, to welcome King Leopold, and the young royal Portuguese, and Prince Albert, all in a breath, with a hundred thousand men in tents, meanwhile, waiting his orders!

But at a certain soirée, after curiosity had almost It will hardly do for an idler, who has flanered the gone by, it chanced that the new Baroness, whose summer out on the Newport cliffs, or between the grace every one admired, was engaged in a quad- Congress Spring and Mr. Marvin's colonnade, to rille, and, excited by the eager looks of those around, sneer at such action as this! He must needs be and mindful only of her old triumphs at the Rane-up i' the morning" who accomplishes so much legh and the Bal Mabille, she unwittingly gave rein to her old-time accomplishment, and executed one of those startling pas which, however elegant in gauze short-clothes, are certainly not of a kind to draw down the plaudits of dowager chaperons.

A buzz of astonishment ran through the room; it came to the savage Edward, who suddenly disappeared. The frighted girl, collecting herself, and remembering her lover, found no way of excuse, or, indeed, of escape. It was dangerous for gentlemen

and so thoroughly.

As for the Cent-garde, the returning world from Paris (whence the world returns now as it did ten years ago from Saratoga or Sharon, and with as little thought)-the returning world, we say, do not speak favorably of the new uniform; and it would seem that sky-blue coats and deep mulberry-colored trowsers did not harmonize easily indeed, we should scarce imagine it; but when the same pet retainers of the Emperor are mounted (as they are

when on special service), with heavy cavalry-boots, I who will be joyous enough to visit even the costly and snow-white buckskin breeches, with a snow- wonders of a new World's Fair?

white plume fanning their brazen helmets, they offer a figure worthy of old-time chivalry.

Nor are they only noticeable in way of dress; but they carry a rifle-grooved carabine, armed with a long polished sword, which is itself a contrivance of the Emperor, and a very dreadful weapon.

We have read how the Chasseurs of Vincennes picked off the Russians who ventured to show so much as an eye through the embrasures of Bomarsund; and the carabines of the Hundred Guards are even more deadly than the arms of the Chas

seurs.

Our sharp rifle-shooting, it would appear, is becoming matter of large practice over the seas; and should the cut-and-thrust aspect of the times cloud into a storm of cross-ocean war, we must look to our barrels and triggers, and never trust to such cast-away guns as have traversed the seas latterly in the mysterious ship Grape Shot!

AND what do people say, on the other side, of the war? Almost every thing, it would seem, that is said here, and with quite as little nearness to the truth. French journalism is (under the Imperial régime) quite shy of any expression of opinion whatever; and even the gossiping columns of Galignani rarely venture a remark that does not praise the conduct of the war, and augur a very speedy close of hostilities. The English papers, now that the great Perry tragi-comedy has blown over, and people grown tired of hearing that the troops in Turkey have no porter to their beef, are really at a loss for material. The grouse and the salmon season added to briskness of chit-chat for a while; but now the game is gone by, and there is a strange eagerness for some news of battle.

The old bourgeois accountants bite the ends of their quills, not knowing if the worst has come yet, or if business is to slip backward or forward in the twelvemonth which is opening. Even political quidnuncs are at fault, and can not so much as venture a guess upon the chances of the Allies in the Crimea, or upon the winter destination of the army and the fleet of the Baltic.

From time to time some bugbear story gains a form and currency-either that the Marshal St. Arnaud has fallen out with his generals, or that the British and French admirals are at loggerheads, and the effect shows itself in a little tightening of the purse-strings at the Bourse; relaxed, however, very possibly the next day by a trumpet-like telegraph in the Moniteur.

Meantime, the English visitors come and go, and their shopping-visits are untiring, as of old, throughout the whole length of the Rue de la Paix. But the new devices are not multiplied as they were when peace brooded over the nations; and those who look on tell us that the shop-windows show now the same rich jewelry trinkets which they showed at the burst of spring. There hardly seems to be any hearty preparation for the great Exhibition of May; and though the building is taking on its white glazing to the roof, and is showing the first traces of those pictured windows which will light up into an Aladdin's palace its vast length of galleries, we do not hear of any great efforts on the part of the tapestry men or the artisans in gold and silver.

Indeed, if the war lingers, as the stubborn Nicholas, with his threat of erecting Poland into a nation (for the discomfiture of Austria), seems to promise it shall linger, who will be rich enough to buy, or

The energy and the spirit of an Emperor can do very much, it is true; and he may decoy people by lampions, and tempt them to stay by his nervous order and brilliant street fronts; but he can not fill their pockets with money, or their hearts with gladness: least of all, when the fathers, and brothers, and sons are staving off the pestilence of a Dobrudscha, or dodging the hot shot from the embrasures of Sebastopol.

And as for American journeyers and buyers, is their freedom of money and of rambles to outlast forever the breaking down of railway securities, or the doubling of coal-capitals? After our pleasant experiences in that way in the neighborhood of the Croton reservoir, one would think that investments would be small for a year or two to come, even in the better-ordered devices of a Parisian palace of crystal. Yet it may interest some to know that the stock in this French show-place, issued at twenty dollars the share, still holds its value, and is selling for some ten per cent. over cost. Indeed it is something rare-judging as well as we can from the quotations in the Presse-for a French stock, of whatever character, to suffer depreciation; and while our great lines of railway have nearly all of them brought losses to the original subscribers, there are very many in France which are now selling for double their cost; and the average market-value is some twenty per cent. above par.

And we beg to remark in this connection, that every man there connected with railway management has his own special duties to perform; and any divergence from them, or any neglect, will cost him very dearly. Thus, upon a pleasant day last summer, a certain director of the trains upon the line of Scraup, thought it worth his while to pay a visit to a station near to Paris upon a special engine. His authority forbade any interference on the part of engineer or of station-master; but, unfortunately, he miscounted his time-a collision ensued. Two lives were lost, and some half-dozen were injured.

The courts took quick cognizance of the matter; there was a thorough investigation (not such as we give to Norwalk bridges and Henry Clay burnings); there was no shirking of responsibility from president to superintendent, and from superintendent to engineer, and from engineer to signal-man; but the niceties of the administrative organization enabled the court to trace the responsibility to the man with whom it belonged; and the director is now, with cropped hair (as short as should have belonged to the superintendent of the New Haven-Norwalkbridge-break-down), and in the company of other criminals, working out his period of imprisonment; while the company, whose servant he was, is made chargeable with all the damages which followed his lapse from discipline.

SPEAKING of Courts and Court-decisions in France, reminds us of a trial, just now ended, of two men charged with a murder committed ten years ago, but which has at length worked itself to the light.

A certain Captain Gronan, being a retired officer of the army, lived, ten or twelve years ago, in a little country-house called La Grange, just without the pleasant town of Blois. He kept his little chariot, he lived easily, and was reported in the neighborhood to be a man of very much and very ready money.

Upon a day of midsummer in the year 1844, the

neighbors observed with some surprise that the gates of his little inclosure remained unopened. The shutters were all fast at mid-day; none of the servants were astir. This was the more surprising, as he was known to be a man of early habits, and he rarely failed to take his morning drive through the streets of the little provincial city of Blois.

Some few who approached the doors opening upon the court of his little country-house, fancied they heard slight groans from within. A nephew of the Captain, who lived at Blois, was sent for, and in company with an officer of the provincial police, he broke the outer gates and entered. They found the poor officer lying in a pool of blood by the hall-door dreadfully wounded but still breathing. There were traces of a violent struggle, and the wounds appeared to have been inflicted with some blunt implement, which at first could not be discovered.

The three domestics who occupied the house with the Captain were all murdered in their rooms. The drawers and desks of the officer's apartment had all been rifled; but it could not be ascertained if the murderers had succeeded in finding money, or indeed if the poor Captain had any at the time in his house.

The fastenings of the doors and gates were in their usual condition, and it was impossible to determine in what way the guilty parties had made their escape. Upon close search a bloody spade and pick-ax were found in a cistern in the court. Nothing further appeared to give a clew to the murderers.

At that time, however, the railway was in course of construction which now runs along the banks of the Loire, in the immediate neighborhood of the old town of Blois. A company of the workers upon the embankment had their quarters not far from the country-house of Captain Gronan. Suspicion naturally fell upon these; and two, who were noted for their dissolute habits, were arrested on suspicion. Meantime the wounded officer, under very cautious treatment, had recovered his strength and was considered out of danger. But either the terror of the assault, or the injuries he had received, had disordered his brain; and he never recovered the use of his reason.

Upon being interrogated in respect to those who had attacked him, his only reply was-"The railroad! the railroad!"

The matter was the more remarked, when it was known that the woman who had manifested confusion had lived, about the time of the murder, with one of the men accused, who was since dead. The police of the district were informed of the circumstances, but contented themselves with keeping a close watch upon the woman.

Nine years passed by, and the poor Captain still lingered; yet nothing appeared to throw new light upon the terrible events of that fatal night at the country-house of La Grange. Not long since, however, a most trifling circumstance called the attention of the neighborhood anew to the almost forgotten crime. A woman living in the vicinity, of the name of Cousin, in the course of a violent altercation with a neighbor, said, "I am not so indiscreet as you; for I have seen things which would make a hanging-matter, and yet I have said nothing."

"Ah! it's the murder at La Grange," said the other. Whereupon the woman Cousin was confused, and would say nothing.

The police, informed anew, ordered the woman Cousin to the Mairie for examination. Being strongly pressed and terrified, she reported what she knew.

At the time of the murder she had kept a little wine-shop for the workers on the railway. Upon the fatal night, being out at a very late hour, she had overheard a noise in the country-house of La Grange and screams. Afterward she had seen three men grouped together under the wall; she knew them: one was the man who was since dead, and who at the time had been arrested on suspicion. The names of the other two were Boyer and Rottier.

Inquiries were immediately instituted, by which it was found that Rottier, at the time of the murder, was living in a small house near La Grange with an abandoned woman of the name of Jolly. Some few years after the crime he had quit the country in company with Jolly, and, falling very sick at Tours, he had, imagining himself to be near death, confessed the crime to Jolly. But now being recovered, he stoutly denied this fact, as well as the allegations of the woman Cousin.

Boyer was also discovered, and a woman with whom he was known to be living at the time closely questioned. At first she denied every charge; but becoming confused in her answers, and betraying more than was safe, she at length avowed his participation in the murder, and testified that his repeated threats of her life had compelled her silence.

This of course served to increase the suspicion against those in custody; but, after long inquiry and patient investigation, no positive evidence could The trial was short and the evidence conclusive. be found against the prisoners, and they were dis- The men Rottier and Boyer were both condemned charged. to death, and will suffer execution on the guilloThe Captain continued to occupy his country-tine just ten years and two months after their longhouse, in a pitiable state of body and mind. He concealed murder at La Grange. rarely spoke, and only incoherently. At times, as if suffering from terror, he pressed his hands upon his temples, exclaiming, "The railroad! the railroad!" It must be observed, moreover, that upon being confronted with the individuals arrested on suspicion, he had looked vacantly at them, and given no token of recognition.

Some two years after, this fact was the subject of mention in a cottage not far from the scene of the murder, when a woman who was present said, "Of course he did not recognize them, for they say they were masked."

"Who says they were masked?" asked another. The inquiry drew attention to the first speaker, who appeared confused, and with evident embarrassment said " she had heard so."

VOL. IX.-No. 54.-3 H

WE have, on occasions, plaited out our weavework of foreign gossip with the crayonings of Jules Lecomte-a gay, conceited, Parisian trifler-than whom no man knows better the merit of a pun, or has studied more zealously the harmony of a pretty mensonge. There is about his letters (published weekly in a paper of Brussels) an absence of earnestness, an artful hilarity, a French vanity, a rhythm of language, a foppishness of intent, and that utter good-for-nothingness of fact and excellence of falsity which make them quite charming.

In one of his later ones, writing from the Rhine (whose wines are so meagre, as he thinks), he gives us a pleasant picture of the annoyance to his vanity caused by the ever-present English. He has evi

846

dently lost a good look-out for his cultivated eye by | to the guide, who said it was not enough; the Ger-
some first-coming English people. And from his mans are an impertinent people."
back-room looking only on the dry vineyards, whose
wines vex his French sympathies, he thus vents his observing Frenchman, but I will venture a good
I know nothing of it, continues our valorous and
indignation: Every where these English men and wager that the East is just now full of such voy-
long English women have taken the chambers look-agers; not traveling for observation, but-to have
ing on the Rhine. They pass their days with a long been there.
spy-glass in hand, counting the trees on the hills,
and recording these lively impressions in an album,
with a detailed account of their breakfast, and the
cost of washing!

They record their names from town to town; and, by arrangement with their fellow-travelers who follow after, manage to secure the front rooms to their compatriots for a season together. No other traveler has even a remote chance of gaining a view.

In fact the English traveler is the plague of all routes, large or small. One can not travel in the same direction with him without becoming enraged by his impudence. In the hotels they engross the best rooms; in the railway carriages they seize upon the best places, and stuff the wagons with their innumerable carpet-bags. At the tables they snatch the best bits of chicken or beef, and serve themselves twice to a dish from which a poor Frenchman has never the chance of a single venAll the bells in the house are for the special service of the English traveler; all the servants are at his special disposition. In the winter he barricades the chimney-side for himself and his long wife, and in the summer usurps every agreeable bit of shade upon the parterre of the hotel.

ture.

If a fine point of view is reached by railway or diligence, he thrusts his long neck and brown Macintosh in the front of all others; his umbrella, his cane, and his gloves are in every body's way. If he passes you, he crushes beside you, your limbs and lungs are in danger from your toes; and if he sits his elbows. If he reads the journal, you may reckon on his keeping it by the hour. In short, he is every thing, and you count for nothing in comparison.

And yet, to make the matter still worse, your modern British traveler is a skin-flint (il liarde), and the times of the "Milords" belong to ancient fable!

It is a droll reason, moreover, says our French commentator, which drives the British in such shoals along all the avenues of travel. They travel more to be out of their own country than to find any enjoyment in another. For it must be known to every body that all the necessaries of life are excessively dear in England, except pheasants, lobsters, and flannel!

happened to see, at twilight, three or four menI remember that upon a time, in Switzerland, I mere points they seemed in the distance-on one of the highest peaks of the Jungfrau.

I called the attention of my companion, and said, 'Do you see those three Englishmen ?"

He laughed, and said-" Why English?"
It appeared afterward that I was right: they had
Murray!
gone there (the guide told us) to see the view-in

hood would come in, nowadays, for a share of
One might suppose that our American brother-
French raillery, considering the crowds who have
flocked in the summer past to the inns of Switzer-
land and the Rhine-side houses.

comte, in his pretty tirade about English travelers, But before taking leave of our spirited Jules Lewe excerpt from him a paragraph or two more, which are very typical of what we may call the Frenchnesses of travel.

his back chamber-and hearing a knock at his door,
One day our paragraphist was in his chamber-
gave the order to enter; upon which there appeared
a tall, blue-eyed German girl, of exceedingly pretty
entered upon what seemed a tirade of abuse of
countenance, who, with considerable gesticulation,
Frenchmen generally.

language, and perhaps nettled by the English usurp-
Our hero, Lecomte, not being very skilled in the
servant, who gallantly came to his relief.
ation of the front chambers, rang the bell for the

dropped a hint or two which quieted the girl, and
The servant, who seemed to know the visitor,
sent her away shortly after, in tears.

living in the neighborhood of Bonn (where the alHer story proved to be this: Being beautiful, and bum of Lecomte is filled up), she had met with a versity of the town, and who illustrated his Ovid by dashing German student, who studied at the unifrequent visits to the little vineyard chalet, where lived the pretty girl of our story. The student, young and warm-hearted, loved the Flora of the fields of Bonn; and she, young too, loved the dashing student who came to her father's vineyard. And weakness was joined to love; and promises were passed that they would become man and wife. She

friend of the German student; and dining together,
But there came to Bonn in this time a French
and scrambling over the hills together, as friends
will, in the neighborhood of the Drachenfels, the
Frenchman came to know the story of the loves of
the German student, and saw the pretty damsel
who had spirited away his heart.

From this it happens that the English world trav-hoped it; and he, warm-hearted and generous, beels for cheap comfort and an economic livelihood. lieved, and intended it too. The moral aspect of things makes no part of their consideration. What matters it to them whether scenery is beautiful or tame-the Rhine swift or muddy-except indeed there is mention of these phenomena in Mr. Murray's Hand-book; in which case they are all madly bent on verifying the statements of their great publisher of Albemarle Street! Ask, if you please, the valets and the cicerones; they will tell you that an Englishman goes always to the top of a tower or spire-further, perhaps, than any one else—and, arrived there, he sits down, not to look, but to read Mr. Murray's description! If it be the Cathedral of Cologne which thus tempts the Englishman and his wife, they sit down in the evening to record the matter in their album, thus: "Wife and I went up the Cathedral tower; 883 steps; lit my cigar at the 223d; a nail in my boot hurt me at No. 247; gave three small silver groschen

ence, laughed at the student's idea of marriage, and
But the Frenchman, with his Parisian experi-
assured him how much bolder a triumph it would
be to dash away some fine morning, and leave the
poor girl to catch a new lover among the vine-dress-
ers of the country of Bonn.

listened to the chatty Frenchman, and adopted the
And the young student, over his Steinberg wine,
Frenchman's scheme. The story came, I scarce
know how, to the ears of the poor girl; and weeks
after her desertion she came to the town to find the

Frenchman of the hotel at Bonn, who had wrought | be disposed ever to show favor, let the fortune you such fatal change in the mind of her German lover. may have intended for your daughter be settled It happened that Jules Lecomte, as the only upon her children." Frenchman there, was the one to receive the maidenly rebuke which came from the infuriated and abandoned girl. He makes a pleasant joke of the matter, nor counts it half so serious a thing as that the English travelers should have shut him off from the river half of the hotel.

The English may be eccentric and disagreeable, especially in their fits of traveling; but, after all, they usually bear about with them a sense of honor and of honesty, which such Frenchmen as Jules Lecomte are very slow to appreciate.

We have no doubt that he is as buoyant in character and as piquant as his quill: if there were more weight, 'twould be better worth keeping.

WE shall sum up with a story of Guinot's, who has been whiling out the summer past at the various watering-places of Germany. The matter we take in management now belongs to his summer story of the Baths of Wiesbaden.

Every body nowadays knows these baths, and the immense caravanseries there, where people go, not not only to cure the salt-rheum, and the gout, and dance, but to make what show they can (with coin) against the chances of roulette, or the great red and black game of "Thirty-one."

Well, among the visitors there, in the summer just now gone out of remembrance, was a certain Major Medlitz, the son of a harum-scarum father, and the grandson of an old gentleman of fine estate, who had died many years before, of a lingering disease of gout. The father too was dead; and in dying had bequeathed his son (the Major Medlitz of our story) a tedious lawsuit, and not a penny with which to push it forward.

The old banker thought the proposal romantic; he disliked romance; he had no regard for it. Every woman should have a dot. He should give his daughter on her marriage a hundred thousand florins; when a suitor offered with an equal fortune, he would consider his application.

The Major despaired; but the daughter encouraged him still. She urged him to press forward the old claims which his father had left in the toils of the courts; a sum of fifty thousand florins was involved; it might be decided in his favor.

Whereupon the Major, who had long ago given up all hope from this quarter, renewed his urgence; and the banker, acted upon perhaps by the daughter's earnestness, threw out a hint, that, in the event of a decision in the favor of the Major, he might be induced, possibly, to consider the application anew.

A year's full-pay of Major Medlitz went to the prosecution of his claims. His character was good, and no objection could come from the banker on that score. The daughter was full of hope while the trial lingered. At length the decision came. It was against the claim of the Major!

He took his leave despairingly of the daughter of the banker (who still, however, ventured encouraging words), and withdrew himself to the baths of Wiesbaden, to fortify himself against the gout, and to nourish his blasted hopes.

The sharpness of his regrets brought on a fever, in which he raved of money; and as he recovered slowly, all the intensity of his thought was bent upon devising some scheme by which he might enrich himself, and display to the hard-minded banker the coveted thousands of florins.

With such fancies flaming in his mind, he retired

There is an old notion-perhaps not altogether a false one-that the gout, though an inheritable dis-one night of the July last past, slept as it appeared ease, is wont to skip every alternate generation; in virtue of which Major Medlitz had a constant fear of being overtaken by the same gout which had carried his grandfather to the grave.

to him soundly, woke at his usual hour in the morning, and, upon looking around his chamber, was amazed to see a pile of gold coin upon his table! He examined the doors; they were closed as he had closed them the night before; the windows-they too were untouched.

He counted the gold; there was nearly ten thousand florins. Hiding it in the drawer, he called his servant. He asked who had entered his room in his absence? No one. Who had come to visit him at night? No one.

His father indeed had escaped, and had showed his joyfulness in spending all the estate, which should have passed down to the grandson-the Major of Wiesbaden. Finding himself poor, or at least dependent only on his small army-pay, and liable, as he thought, to pass away some summer with the hereditary disease of his fathers, Major Medlitz had determined never to embroil himself by marriage; He suspected him of concealing the giver; he ofleast of all was his proud temper disposed to enter-fered the servant double bribes, if he would inform tain the thought of repairing his fortunes by a marriage for money.

(A droll notion, to be sure, for a Frenchman; but M. Guinot is responsible for it.)

him by whom a packet had been left in his chamber. The servant, seeming bewildered, could tell him nothing.

Two nights after the same extraordinary occurIt happened, however, that Major Medlitz, being rence happened again. Ten thousand florins, and stationed with his regiment in the old city of Stras-more, in gold and in bank notes, were found upon bourg, fell in while there with the pretty daughter his table when he rose in the morning. Again every of a wealthy old banker. He admired the banker's outlet of the chamber was examined; he even searchdaughter, and came soon to love the banker's daugh-ed the floor for some loose tiles; but all was firm ter; and the banker's daughter, whether captivated and sound, and the matter as inexplicable as at the by the military rank of our hero, or what not, came first. soon to love the gallant Major Medlitz.

But the banker was one of those sensible men who would listen to no mention of a son-in-law who had not either a fortune in hand or one in expectation. The Major knew this, and therefore made this appeal to him: "I value your daughter for herself; I have no wish to enjoy her fortune; let me marry her without a dowry; we can live comfortably upon my army-pay; and, should you

The servant, subjected to new inquiry, could throw no light upon the affair.

A week after, the circumstance was repeated again. The Major grew terrified; he observed, or fancied he observed, that he attracted unusual attention upon the walks of the town. He fancied he was somehow become a subject of conversation. He saw men whispering, and pointing after him as he passed. He determined with himself, that, on

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