The Parisians, Book 5.

e next morning in answering numerous letters accumulated during his absence. Late in the afternoon he had an interview with M. Renard, who, as at that season of the year he was not over-

ountered Rochebriant on horseback. The Marquis courteously dismounted, committing his horse to the care of the groom, and linking his arm in Graham's, express

y mind at the time, and over which I have of late still more earnestly reflected. You spoke of the duties a Frenchman owed to

that between the irrevocable past and the uncertain fu

ider it dishonourable in me if I entered the

, if your coun

e has been gunpowder in the atmosphere we breathe ever since the battle of Sadowa. What think you

wo nations so warlike, close to each other, divided by a borderland that one covets and the other will not yield, each armed to the teeth,-the one resolved to brook no rival, the other equally determined to resist all aggress

lain, passionately; "and against a Prussian! P

l susceptibilities. To return to the point you raise. If France needed the aid of her best and bravest, a true descendant o

n wife? What! had he himself failed in the respect which he would demand as her right from the loftiest of his high-born kindred? What, too, would this man, of fairer youth than himself, think of that disparaging counsel, when be heard that the monitor had won the prize from which he had warned another? Would it not seem that he had but spoken in the mean cunning dictated by the fear of a worthier rival? Stung by these thoughts, he arrested his steps, and, loo

, hesitatingly, and w

make any man proud to win her, is withdrawn. I have become acquainted with her since the date of our conversation. Hers is a mind which harmonizes with the loveliness of her face. In one word, Marquis, I should deem myself honoured, as well as blest, by such a bride. It was due to her that I should say this; it was due also t

nd something suspicious in a confession thus singularly volunteered; but the

s, so despondent! Your words of warning impressed me at the time, but less durably than you might suppose; for that very night as I sat in my solitary attic I said to myself, 'Why should I shrink, with an obsolete old-world prejudice, from what my forefathers would have termed a mesalliance? What is the value of my birthright now? None,-worse than none. It excludes me from all careers; my name is but a load that weighs me down.

t n

would say, 'But for her marriage she would have been a singer on the stage!' I will own more: the fancy I conceived for the first fair face, other fair faces have dispelled. At this moment, however, I have no thought of marriage; and having known the anguish o

, both in honour and in heart. After a few more words, the two young men shook hands and parted. Alain remounted