which he always eat with a good relish; never troubling to ask how it was procured, or to doubt the appetite and satisfaction of his wife and daughter. When he had completed his repast, he would kiss the duchess, playfully reprimand Germaine for coughing so much and keeping papa awake at night, and then go out for a walk-expecting cheerily that fortune might take a turn any day, and must some day. Doctor Charles le Bris is young, welllooking, agreeable in his manners, skillful in his art-a favorite wherever known, and rapidly rising to a valuable practice in his profession. He is Germaine's attending physician. He has pronounced her case to be hopeless, and gives her not more than four months to live. He can only alleviate, not cure. A sincere regard for the duchess, whose health is giving away under the combined burdens of poverty and anxiety for her child, is an additional motive for continuing his daily unpaid visits. Then, it would be bad policy to desert a noble family in distress. The doctor is shrewd, though he passes for being only good-natured. Doctor le Bris also sometimes visits Madame Chermidy, in the Rue du Cirque, Faubourg St. Honoré. Madame Chermidy, née Lavenaze, had inherited the beauty of an Arlesian mother for her only fortune. Twenty years ago she sat at the counter of a tobacco shop in Toulon. It was a favorite place of resort for naval officers when in port. In 1838, Lieutenant Chermidy, coming in from a long cruise, went to buy a cigar there, and was enchanted with the unwonted sight of such charms. Like Saul, the son of Kish, who went out to seek his father's asses and found a kingdom, so the honest lieutenant in pursuit of a cigar found a wife. He offered himself, was accepted, and thought he had taken a prize. The prize took him for the convenience of a marital flag to cover contraband. Luckily for the worthy sailor, his life was mainly on the sea, where it proved less stormy than on shore. Ten years later, with ripened beauty and two or three hundred thousand francs that she had received neither from her husband's wages nor by legacy, Madame Chermidy came to Paris. She took a grand apartment in the Faubourg St. Honoré, drove out two blood horses to the Bois du Boulogne, and was much talked of, without furnishing any patent cause for scandal. When her husband came home in 1850, after a three years' absence, he was astounded by the magnificence of her apartment and the brave livery of her domestics; and when his dear Honorine presented herself in an elegant morning toilette that must have cost as much as two or three years of his pay, he forgot to clasp her in his arms or kiss her; sheered off without saying a word; ordered the hackman to drive to the Lyons Railroad dépôt, and embarked a month afterwards for a five years' cruise in the Indian Seas. Some while before the arrival of her husband, Madame Chermidy had made the acquaintance of the Count Diego Gomez de Villanera. The count, you see it by the name, is Spanish. He is tall, dark complexioned, and rather harshfeatured; grave and dignified in his manners; ardent in his passions; the soul of honor-all as become a Spanish hidalgo, who traces the course of his unsullied blood through twenty generations. The astute Arlesian studied through her lover at a glance. Her character remained to him a sealed book. Lost in fond contemplation of the beautiful cover, he never thought to pry into its mysteries, nor dreamed they differed from the promises of the fair title-page. She was so delicately sensitive that she would not accept a ring, a brooch-the merest trifle, from him. The first present she could be prevailed on to receive, after a year's intimacy, was an "inscription of rente" for forty thousand francs. The money she had brought to Paris was nearly exhausted. In November, 1850, she was delivered of a son, whom Doctor le Bris declared, at the Mairie of the Second Arrondissement, under the name of Gomez, born of unknown parents. Don Diego would have recognized the child, but that it is not permitted by the French laws. He could not endure to think that the Marquis de los Montes de Hieros, the hereditary title of the eldest son of a Villanera, should one day sign himself Chermidy. In his distress, he revealed the whole case to his mother, and asked her advice. The old dowager bears considerable resemblance to her son-ugly, tall, proud, and noble in all senses. Her thoughts are all employed on heaven, her house, and its heir. She regrets his passion for the Chermidy, which she is too wise to reproach him with; for she knows well the world, though no longer of it. She takes the infant, to bring up in her hotel. The Chermidy sees the new hold she has upon the count, and devises a bold plan for turning it to the account of her vaulting ambition. Marriage, during the lieutenant's life, is, of course, impossible; but the lieutenant, exposed to the perils of the sea and of battle, will not, it is hoped, live always. One day she said to Don Diego, "Marrytake a wife from among the first nobility of France, and condition that in the legal papers of arrangement for the marriage, she recognize your child as her own. By this means, little Gomez, who is now two years old, will become your legitimate son, noble on the father's and mother's side, and heir of your Spanish estates. As for me, I sacrifice myself to the interests of our boy. I will retire to a cottage, to live on memory and weep over past happiness." This grand act of renunciation augmented, if possible, the doting admiration of the chivalric Diego, who refuses to abandon this heroine of maternal love. To overcome his scruples, it was necessary that Madame Chermidy should disclose, as delicately as might be, other features of her scheme. "Marry," she whispered in his ear, "provisionally. The doctor will find you a wife among his patients." Mademoiselle de la Tour d'Embleuse bears one of the first names of the old noblesse. She can live but a few months. Her father is penniless, and has all the tastes that wealth alone can gratify. For a sufficient sum of money he will consent to her marriage, with the proposed condition. When she is dead, the count will have a legitimate son, and be free to legitimate his mis. tress whenever the fates remove the impedimental lieutenant. Don Diego's love for his son controls his better sentiments regarding the shameful bargain. The noble, religious old dowager's love for her son, and her conviction that he will alienate his estates and commit any other folly that the bad woman may urge, if this plan be not followed, do not overcome her disgust, but make her consent, as to the least of evils, to the shameful bargain. Withal, for she is a woman, she has come to be strongly attached to the little Gomez: and he is a Villaneraher noble blood runs in his veins. Doctor le Bris proposes the affair to the duke one morning, as that worthy gentleman lies in bed. And here follows one of the best scenes in the book, where the doctor's worldly shrewdness and coolness curiously but naturally mingled with his kindness of heart-the duke's selfishness and gentility, and conventional pride of class and levity-the duchess's regard for her husband's comfort, and her maternal love and womanly delicacy-Germaine's devotion to her father's comfort and to her dear mother's relief from tho sufferings of poverty, and holy sacrifice of maidenly feelings to their interests— are depicted in their varied play, contrast and conflict with rare skill and (French) truthfulness. It is too long to translate in full. Abbreviation would destroy its nice shadings, and be a gross injustice to M. About. We pass it over, then, as well as-and for similar reasons-other scenes in which, after the proposition is accepted, the members of the two families are introduced to each other. The count, who is punctiliously respectful, exchanges some needful formula of words with his affianced bride, who passively endures his presence, but hardly conceals her angry disgust for her purchaser. With the maternal instincts of her sex, however, she takes kindly to the little Gomez, and grows to love the old countess, who installs herself at once as nurse and mother, and between whom and the poor duchess, acquaintance fast ripens into mutual esteem. Meantime, doubts and fears begin to arise in the calculating breast of Madame Chermidy. If this consumptive girl should not die presently?—if even she should get well with one lung, as the doctor confesses lies within natural possibilities?-if Villanera should, as sometimes has happened, the doctor says, contract her malady? She tries to break the match of her own invention, but in vain. Don Diego, having promised to marry Germaine, will keep his word as a man of honor; and as a man of honor will do all that he can to prolong her life, and so long as she lives, have no relations-not even by letter-with the Chermidy. The marriage ceremony is performed, and the bride and groom, accompanied by the countess and Doctor le Bris, enter a carriage on leaving the church, and drive out of Paris on their way to Italy. Throughout the journey, the count pays unremitting and respectful attentions to the invalid, who accepts them coldly, without thanks. Towards the little Gomez, towards the noble old mother-in-law, she displayed all the sweet womanly graces of mother and daughter. With the doctor, she is friendly and confiding, as with an elder brother. To her husband she showed more than the caprices of a womanmore than the querulousness of an invalid. One day, when he asked after her health, she answered, with a calmness just colored by a sneer, that she was getting on finely-her suffering was on the increase! He felt the bitterness of the reproach, and felt that he had no right to protest. Under pretense of viewing the landscape, he turned his head to the window, and she saw tears fall on the carriage wheels. Three months of Italian travel improved neither her health nor her humor. At Nice, the population was made up of consumptive patients like herself; the festal gayety of Florence mocked her suffering-was at discord with her dying estate; the Campo Santo of Pisa, the sombre master-piece of Orcagua, frightened her morbid imagination; Rome, with its empty palaces, and deserted streets, and ancient ruins, seemed like a sepulchre, and they went to Naples. At the table d'hôte of their hotel, in this last-named city, the doctor and the count chanced to meet with a rosycheeked young Englishman, who told them that two years before he was in the last stages of consumption. The physicians had given him up. He only sought an easy place to die in, and went to the south side of the Isle of Corfu to await his last hour. The climate, quiet, and abstinence from medicine, had made him a well man. It would appear from M. About's graphic account of its various attractions, that the Isle of Corfu has not only hygienic advantages far superior to those of the vaunted resorts for pulmonary sufferers in Italy and the South of France, but that it is a delightful and equally desirable residence for that large class of unfortunates who suffer from chronic or transient feebleness of purse. The climate is paradisiacal, so Our travelers, accordingly, sail for Corfu, where they install themselves in a fine old half-ruined country mansion. Meantime, the old Duke de la Tour d'Embleuse was busy, with the means furnished by the price of his daughter, in renewing his experience of the pleasures of Paris. With appetite excited by long abstinence, he soon seeks its gratification in scenes of low debauchery, to the disgrace of his rank. To raise him from such degradation, the Baron de Sanglié, knowing that an attempt at complete reform would be idle, introduced him to circles on the confines of the respectable world, where its external refinements and forms of decency are preserved. Here the old rake becomes acquainted with, and soon enamored of, the beautiful Madame Chermidy. Under the skillful processes of this woman, who takes a vengeful pleasure in doing mischief to the family whose daughter, by persisting to live, robs her of her love and impedes the fulfillment of her plans, he assigns over to her the inscription of rente which he had received from the count; and finally brings to her, what, before all things, she was anxious to see, the letters written by Germaine, the countess, and the doctor, to the duchess. She had been kept informed by the doctor, with whom she arranged a correspondence before his departure, of Germaine's condition, which was always represented as nearly hopeless-i. e., very promising for the hopes of the ambitious Arlesienne. But the letters to the duchess showed matters in a somewhat different, and, to her, much less cheerful light. Without exactly contradicting the reports sent her by the doctor, they represented Germaine as possessed of a curious degree of vitality; for, after resisting a severe attack of illness at Corfu, she was strong enough to write a long letter to her mother, containing warm expressions of love for young Gomez and her mother-in-law. The name of her husband, though unaccompanied by any expressions of tenderness, occurred with a suspicious frequency in this epistle, as did, also, allusions to his mistress, doubly disagreeable to the fair reader, as being, in the first place, uncomplimentary, and then, as indicating some thing like jealousy on the part of the Madame Chermidy, seriously alarmed at the state of things, takes into council her femme de chambre and confidante. This girl is the namesake and distant relation of her mistress, and attached to her with a canine devotion. Her love and fidelity in that direction absorb all that is good, or that simulates goodness, in her half-savage nature. In her early life, when she resided at Toulon, she had made strange acquaintances, whom she had not entirely lost sight of on coming to Paris. Accordingly she finds, without much difficulty, a person of the name of Mantoux, who, after the expiration of a term of service in the galleys at Toulon, is rather unsuccessfully trying to earn an honest livelihood, as a locksmith, at Corbeil, near Paris. He is quite ready to go to Corfu as body-servant in a family, one of whose members is very ill. Should the lady die, he will receive an annuity of 1,200 francs. The femme de chambre takes occasion, incidentally, to remark, that sick persons have sometimes been killed by arsenic being accidentally mingled with their drinks. he manages, adroitly enough, to administer to Germaine, daily, a very weak solution of arsenic in wine and water. The fragile inhaling apparatus of Dr. Chartroule, which he had brought, proved to be broken when unpacked, but another was obtained, as soon as possible, and to its use Dr. le Bris attributed the perceptible improvement of his patient's health. A slight color began to tint her pale cheeks; the very skeleton that she had been began to take on flesh; her fine golden hair no longer wreathed a death's-head; when they bore her out to the garden she inspired the genial air with a longer breath; latterly, she permitted the count to read to her, as she lay there, reclined in her long chair, and seemed almost interested in what he read. One day, after he had been reading for some time, he observed that she had fallen asleep. He laid aside the book, and, softly approaching, knelt by her side. He bowed his face fondly over the slumberer, but dared not touch her lips. A sentiment of delicacy, of shame and deep self-reproach, to think how he had become her husband, forbade him to catch, by stealth, a kiss from his wife. We must pass rapidly over the next month or two and the next fifty pages. Suffice it to say, that the strength and beauty of our heroine have steadily increased. Auscultation shows that the lungs are rapidly healing. The delighted doctor, though allowing a larger part to Providence than young physicians are apt to, cannot sing sufficient praises to iodine. The villain, Mantoux, who has received a hint and a threat, in an anonymous letter, from the Faubourg St. Honoré, plies his minute doses of arsenic, and wonders, even more than the doctor, that the cure goes on. A charming courtship is going on between husband and wife. Her humor has improved with her health; she is glad and grateful for the constant proofs of his devotion; the recollections of the marriage contract and the wedding ceremony are less painfully vivid. Still, a little remnant of wounded pride, a jealOn the recommendation of the be- ous doubt of the share that Parisian witching Chermidy, this man is readily woman yet has in his heart; and, perapproved by the weak old duke, and haps, more than that, the natural shyimmediately proceeds to the Villa Dan- ness of an inexperienced young girldolo in the Isle of Corfu, whither we for she is nothing more-restrain the will follow him. undisguised display of her affection. When he is installed in his functions, On his part, Don Diego having been so long rebuffed, conscious that he has no right to complain, timid as the strong are when in love, respectfully waits for encouragement to avow his passion. One day they gave a dinner to some pleasant Corfu neighbors who had become their friends. The conversation at dessert chanced to turn on the British East Indian policy, and this very naturally led one of the guests to mention the news just brought by the last steamer, of the "affair at Ky-Tcheou, where the Chinese had killed two missionaries and the commandant of a French ship-the Naiade, Captain Chermidy!" Don Diego turned suddenly pale; the old countess rose from table, and the guests went into the drawing-room. Poor Germaine felt that the decisive moment of her life had come, and that Villanera, not le Bris, could now alone preserve it. She escaped from the company as soon as she could, leading away her husband into the garden. Here follows a conversation, a forgiveness of the past, a mutual avowal, and, altogether, as pretty a love scene as was ever enacted by twilight under the soft sky of the Ionian Isles. It does great credit to M. About, as a literary artist, and forces one to think better of his heart. As for pure, sweet, naïve, beautiful, loving Germaine-we envy the privilege of the delighted Don Diego, as he tenderly kisses her two little hands, which, a moment afterwards. are locked about his neck, as she draws down his head, till his lips meet hers-for the first time. She regained her chamber, overcome by glad emotions. Hope and an eager desire for continued life and health grew strong in her. She wanted to hasten her cure; she grew impatient of the doctor's caution. If it is the iodine that is so healing in its virtues, why not inhale the life-giving fumes in full, long breaths? When the countess entered her room, an hour afterwards, she found the apparatus broken on the floor, and Germaine burning with a violent fever. The doctor was frightened at the excited condition of his patient, which seemed hardly to be accounted for solely by an immoderate use of iodine. The next morning, he recognized an inflammation of the lungs; and was in despair. Physicians from the town were sent for. One of them timidly suggested a gleam VOL. X.-6 66 of hope; perhaps," he said, “it is an adhesive inflammation, which will reunite the cavities, and repair all the injuries caused by her original malady." Poor le Bris shook his head: you might as well say to an architect that the shock of an earthquake would restore a tottering house to its equilibrium! Not only the members of her family, but all the friendly neighbors, who had become warmly attached to her, were filled with sorrow, and disputed the privilege of doing the slightest services for the sufferer. Mantoux, alone, was full of wild cheerfulness, as he thought of his annuity, and would walk about to view a little property that lay near the villa, and on which he had set his heart, as on an assured and pleasant retreat for his virtuous old age. The fever set in the first of September. On the sixth, Dr. le Bris wrote to the duke-66 When you receive this letter, she will be no more. Break the news carefully to the duchess." The same day, Mantoux wrote a few words to the femme de chambre of Madame Chermidy. The letters reached Paris the twelfth. The duke received, his as he was going out to make his daily visit to the Rue du Cirque. Its contents confused his poor, muddled brain, and he hurried to his dear Honorine for explanation and sympathy. He never had seen Madame Chermidy so beautiful; she was brilliant with joy. "Good-day, duke, and good-by," she said. You wonder where I am going?-I am going to Corfu. You have lost your daughter? -Yes, I know; and I have found my son and the Count Villanera. Do I love him?-My poor duke, I have always loved him. He is free, now, and so am I. I shall be countess. Do you want some money?-No! very well; but, remember, you can only have it from us for the future. Good-by!" The wretched old man left the house, and ran about half-wildly in the streets. The loss of Honorine-the proof that she had never loved him-threatened to deprive him of the small stock of sense he had hitherto preserved. Toward nightfall he was met by the Baron Sanglie, who, by questioning, found out, at last, the story of the letter, and the affair of the morning in the Rue du Cirque. He led the duke home, informed the duchess, as he best could, of the sad news, and applied himself to heal the duke of |