The Parisians, Book 9.

, the image of the beloved dead so forcibly recalled the solemnity of the missi

hich Richard King had limited the suspense of research were not yet expired. Then, too, that letter of Lady Janet's,-so tenderly anxious for his future, so clear-sighted as to the elements of his own character in its strength or its infirmities-combined with graver causes to withhold his heart from its yearning impulse, and-no, not steel it against Isaura, but forbid it to realise, in the fair creature and creator of romance, his ideal of the woman to whom an earnest, sagacious, aspiring man commits all the destinies involved in th

m, and a cheery voice accosted him. "Well met, my dear Vane! I see we

I am going nowhere, exce

by, where, on certain evenings, a well- known club drew together men who seldom meet so familiarly elsewh

By the way, I saw Savarin the other night at the Cicogna's-he introduced me there." Graham winced; he was spelled by the music of a name, and followed hi

avarin? Where

new lady-author-I hat

na! Of course you

es

: however, nothing succeeds like success. No book has been more talked abo

d, and

ho, and what is she?' A girl, I say, like that-who lives as independently as if she were a middle-aged widow, receives every week (she has her Thursdays), with no other

aving a fortune, such as it is, of her own, I do not see why she should not live as independently as many an unmarried woman in London placed under similar circumstances. I suppose she

wish to say anything that could offend her best friends, o

good birth (the Cicogna's rank among the oldest o

ts there make the most desirable husbands; and I scarcely know a marriage in France between a man-author and lady-author which does not end in t

restricted to the pale of authorship-doubtless she h

Enguerrand de Vandemar-you k

y-is he a

llers like Enguerrand, when it comes to marriage, leave it to their parents to choose their wives and arrange the terms of the contract. Talking of lady-killers, I beheld amid

iselle Cicogna's!-what, is t

eared at Paris last year; and though I believe he is still avoided by many, he is courted by still more-and avoided, I fancy, rather from political than social causes. The Imperialist set, of course, execr

ogna's roman first appeared. So, so-Victor de Mauleon

t perhaps know Rameau, editor of the Sens Commun-writes poems and criticisms. They say he is a Red Republican, but De Mauleon keeps truculent French politics subdued if not suppressed in his cynic

the Prince pr

re are other kinds of proposals than those of marriage which a rich Russia

grasping the man's arm

the young lady was so great. If I have wounded you in relating a mere on dit picked up at th

gly so friendless. It shames one of human nature to think that the reward which the world makes to those who elevate its platitudes, brighten its dulness, delight its leisure, is Slander! I have had the honour to make

s a slander sha

of fashion that a man should allow himself to speak in a tone that gives offence to another who intended none; and if duelling is out of fashion in

into dark red. "I understand you," he said

aid about a lady in no way connected with either, would be a cruel injury to her; a duel on grounds so slight would little injure me-a man about town, who would not sit an hour in the House of Commons if you paid him a thousand pounds a minute. But you, Graham Vane-you whose destiny it is to canvass electors a

e a hotheaded fool; forget it-forgive. But-but

that this boast was enforced by a wager, and the terms of the wager compelled the Prince to confess the means he had taken to succeed, and produce the evidence that he had lost or won. According to this on dit, the Prince had written to Mademoiselle Cicogna, and the letter had been accompanied by a parure that cost him half a million of francs; that the diamonds had been sent back wi