tess-they are accepted everywhere. Empty compliments do not please me."

“I am a poor man," said Edgar, "an avocat. I can only offer you my name and my heart. Yet "

And the young fellow thought of the events of the last few days, and the splendid vista of ambition opened up to him. But he was wise enough not to tell this to Natalie. He was hungry for her love; and blinded as he was by his fondness, he yet waited quietly till he should win, as he hoped to win, her heart. In his romantic dream of love-that deep and fervent love which had made him stake his whole fortune, his whole being, on this quiet, selfish, mechanical little beautyhe had forecast a delicious reality of winning her wholly to him in his poverty and obscurity; and then, when fortune came, offering to her his greatness and his glory as a crown to her beauty.

Miss Natalie, looking up into his handsome face, thought that, like his cold countrymen, he was calculating the cost of that which might win her; and as she made a great deal of money by her art, and was able to absorb any amount of the precious metal, and spend it again upon her luxuries and her whims, she determined not to part with her precious self but at a very high price indeed. Mr Edgar Wade judged her by himself, and deemed her reticence virtue; she judged him by herself, and thought his silence calculation.

Thus, these two young people were as far from understanding each other as two young people well could be. Miss Natalie Fifine, had she known all, would have found that she had very nearly exhausted Edgar Wade's purse; while his love was boundless, noble, and virtuous. Had he known her and her antecedents, her cold heart--calculating, precise, unmoved-under that very artistically fond and voluptuous exterior, he would have rather married, as many a lawyer has married, his cook, maid, or the laundress of his chambers, than that graceful little creature whom he thought superior to any Englishwoman who ever lived.

"So monsieur has not bought Natalie that pretty bagatelle?" She had a way, which was very pleasant to him, of speaking of herself as an innocent third person-quite a child, indeed— when making any demand upon his purse.

Poets may well say that love is blind. Mr Edgar Wade did not even dream of Natalie's venality, but stretched his arms again to her, and taking her pretty head in his hands, kissed her on the forehead. He was all purity, all devotion and respect to this little Bohemienne, who was more than astonished at this English way of making love.

“Natalie,” he said, as if making her the confidant of something very surprising, "if I have des bonnes fortunes, I may become a milord!”

"Ah! yes," returned the young lady, whose education as to the English peerage was limited. Then she made a pretty little mouth, and closed her large liquid eyes. "Ah! y-a-a-s."

Luckily she said no more. As monsieur is an advocate, such was her reasoning, he may some day be Lord Mayor. Now, to be Lord Mayor was a very great thing in Natalie's eyes. The Lord Mayor was the embodiment to this Parisian of riches and dignity; but with all the supreme ignorance of a conceited, pretty, and spoilt Frenchwoman about anything else but nous autres, she knew that the dignity of Lord Mayor was too far off to be of much good to her. She therefore received this announcement very calmly.

"You will love me more then," said Edgar, mindful that, if he were acknowledged as the heir to the Earl of Chesterton, half the London matches-ay, and the pick of the country ones, too!-would be at his feet. "You would love me more then, my dove!" This with a slight bitterness—that is, the barrister was as bitter as he could be to one whom he loved so deeply.

"Ah, non!" said Natalie, for once noticing his tone, and speaking truly. For she would not have cared for the most magnificent milord maire that ever sat upon a civic throne, since she only cared for herself. Then, with a very artistic lapse into a stage-like utter softness and abandon, she put forward her little hands plaintively, and murmured, "Ah, we poor women, how little do you men understand our hearts! Mon Dieu! is it not for you to move onward and to undertake action, to be immersed in the love of wealth and of glory? That suffices you. But for us, it is to remain at home, to prey upon our desolate hearts, and to weep!"

And with very good French, charming inflection, and perfect emphasis she said this. Every word seemed an epigram. Her lover felt the reproof cut him like a knife, for the quotation was a happy one; and Natalie knew its effect well, having tried it at a little theatre near the Porte St Martin for over a hundred nights.

"O Natalie!" cried he, bending his head over the couch, and nestling in her arms. "O my soul's love! how noble, how generous you are! My future, my life itself is yours! Sleep, then, my bird, and await a happy future for us both!" and he pressed into her hand a packet of notes for current expenses.

66

Peut être," lisped Natalie, as she touched his forehead with a kiss as light and as cold as the fall of a snow-flake.

at

The horse's hoofs were soon heard near Queen Anne Street; and anon Edgar Wade was asleep like the magistrate, dreaming of love; while Natalie, having counted her gains, slept too, in her little nest, in which she had previously indulged in a cigarette and a petit verre of absinthe. Poor little thing! She, too, was doing her best in the great game of life. She had endured hunger and cold in the streets of Paris ; had sung cabarets and guingettes; had been beaten by papa when he was drunk, and mamma when she was hungry and savage; had risen through her grace and her beauty; had established Père Bouvier as seller of old books and curiosities; and had rescued the mamma from the sad role of a rag-picker, to place her in comfort near the store of the old soldier, her father. To take these worthy people into the country in some desolate white French cottage, where they could quietly sink into the grave, consoled by the curé, and respected by nos bon villageois, was Natalie's ambition. Did not the end justify the means?

And oh what cross purposes do we not play in love! Here was the great heart of Edgar Wade blindfolding itself with the idea that cunning reserve was purity-mechanical action the ideal of grace-the movements of a puppet the intense and rapturous bound of a living love. And while the Bouviers, père and mère, were watching their daughter, and counting every ounce of gold she gained, complaining that she had made no more, or talking of her cruelty, she was

watching their rheumy, hungry eyes with the only true love she ever gave to any human being. Ah! what a boon to our poor human hearts is true love! What misery is it to awaken from that sweet illusion, and find our idol worse than of clay, our soul's sweetest passion a delusion and a snare!

CHAPTER XIII.

THE EDITOR OF THE "ARGUS" PICKS UP MATTER.

WHEN Mr Tom Forster had perfectly escaped from the land of dreams, which he did with various starts and tremors, as becomes a man well on in life, he awoke all of a sudden; and, acting mechanically, upon a vigorous impulse, jumped out of bed like one of those wooden frogs which itinerant vendors exhibit upon tea trays. It was this springy activity which gave Old Daylight his place in the world. He was always ready and on the alert; and this he attributed to the fact that, when awake, he was out of bed in an instant. Had he carried his philosophy further, he might have placed it to the iron will behind this activity.

The philosopher was copious in his ablutions-it being, let us add, somewhat of an error to suppose that the present generation first discovered the virtues of cold water and yellow soap.

After that, he was ready for breakfast and the battle of life. The housekeeper-a boisterous, familiar woman-looked upon Mr Forster, who was always considerate and kind, as her natural prey. As she came into the parlour with the breakfast, she remarked

'Well, we are looking well this morning, considering how late we were out last night; leastways, it was not to be called night. Small hours it was, and very small hours."

Mr Forster, who was busy with his own thoughts, looked up, and said nothing.

For her part, continued the housekeeper, she did not like

midnight wanderings. After they were a certain age, middleaged gentlemen, not to say old men, were best a-bed.

The talkative Mrs Spiller had, in fact, heard the exodus of Edgar Wade; and, being utterly puzzled by her master, had charitably supposed him to be engaged in some nocturnal wickedness, too base to be made public. It was with a feeling very much akin to bitter disappointment that made her cry out, "Well, we do look well;" for, in Mrs Spiller's private opinion, Old Forster ought to have had the heavy eyes and weary look of a stage murderer after he had "done the deed." Mr Cooke, after being busily engaged on his own account in Duncan's chamber-and professionally in whitening his cheeks, reddening his eyelids, and dishevelling his stage wig-presented some such type, when he staggered in from the murder of the king, as Mr Tom Forster ought to have filled in Mrs Spiller's eyes.

Meanwhile, the dreamy philosopher was laying down a little plan of proceedings for the day's work, all of which he carefully carried out, and heard no more of Mrs Spiller's chatter than he did of the cry of milk and the rattle of the early carts in Queen Anne Street. As Mrs Spiller was too officious in laying the breakfast, and put down the mutton chop with a dash-Mr Forster always ate a hearty breakfast, and did not dawdle with his tea-her master rose with great politeness, and, opening the door, motioned her out, saying

"Convey my compliments to Mr Wade, and ask him how his mother slept last night."

Mrs Wade was just the same, neither better nor worse, said Mrs Spiller-who knew all about it; and who, as is the case with cruel and selfish people, hardly believed in an illness which was so quiet, so uniform, and yet so dangerous. She also resented the interest that Mr Forster took in the family up-stairs, as opposed to her own.

"That will do, then; I shall not require you, and I shall not dine at home, Mrs Spiller;" and, with a hand held up to forbid further parley, he closed the door.

In pursuance of his plan, after breakfast, Old Daylight, taking one of the letters he had obtained from Edgar, proceeded to a gentleman who dealt in manuscripts and autographs in