the old crone of ninety as the grateful warmth, toward which she extended her withered hands in childish enjoyment.

"So good, so very nice," she muttered.

"Yes, and we are to stay all tranquil here, and dine à la prince. Oh, these wonderful savory dinners, and wines like nectar. It is worth living ninety years to have that for six months. Marie, is that you? Wrap my shawl around me, will you ?"

The door closed after the intruder, but instead of Marie it was Winifred, in an exquisite toilet of pale-green, singularly becoming to her dusky eyes and golden hair.

"Mon Dieu, the angel! It is, it must be Mathilde!" ejaculated old Madame Frissae, with a bewildered stare at Winifred.

"No, no; I am Winifred Jocelyn. You have never seen me, although you have been here so long. Shall I put the shawl around you? It is chilly," Winifred said, drawing the shawl around the aged shoulders gently and deftly.

The old woman leaned back in her chair, staring at Winifred, who stood on the rug, the glimmering light smiling down upon her in amused surprise.

up-stairs, maman; they will brighten the fire for you up there."

"And bring me some wine-iced wine. And will you send me something delicious from the table? Ah, Marie, we will stay here always, won't we? Yes, yes. How divine it is! That trouble twenty years ago gave us all these good things."

Marie bit her lips angrily.

"Take her back to her room," she said to the servant, who stood back that General Jocelyn might pass into the drawing-room.

He advanced courteously to greet his guest.

"Why are you leaving us, Madame Frissae ?" he asked, stopping in front of her.

"Marie says I must go-it is her command; I chatter too much.. I have seen Mathilde's child, and I have told her she will bring sorrow to the Jocelyns, as her mother did-as the other Mathilde." Hugh Jocelyn reeled; his face became ashen. He glanced in mute appeal to the crafty Frenchwoman standing behind her mother, smiling benignantly. "The poor maman can't comprehend how dreadful her memory has become," she observed, darting a warning, menacing glance at General Jocelyn. "Not so bad, Marie; not so bad. I never forget Ma

Dieu!

“Ah, yes, you may say that; but it is Mathilde. how could I forget Mathilde? Beautiful, unlucky Mathilde! And how madly he adored! Ah, how I chatter! You are Mathilde's child. My head is poor sometimes; I am failing; but it comes to me after a bit. Mathilde died nearly twenty years ago," rambled on Sara Frissae. are Mathilde's child. They said it was a girl.”

"You

"My mother's name was Winifred; she died when I was born; papa never married again, and never loved any one except my mother. He seldom speaks of her; he cannot bear it. He loved her, and no other woman living," asserted Winifred, with some pride. "We Jocelyns never change when we love or when we hate."

66

"I know that. I know well how he adored her. Hugh Jocelyn worshiped her- he worshiped Mathilde just as they say the beautiful Bernard worships you. And, ah, I trust it may not bring him the same ill luck." Winifred smiled gently; she pitied the wandering and mingling of past and present of the weakened brain. "My head is poor, but I never forget things that befell years ago-and I never forget that awful time. Take care, it may come back to Mathilde's child and that other Jocelyn. Listen to me, child. You have dark eyes and golden hair; so had she, and evil came of it. But let me whisper to you. If it had not been for all that terrible, heinous trouble we would never have been here, me and Mariedrinking champagne and iced-wine like cheap water. It brought us here. Yes, yes, the dark eyes and golden hair brought us here—

"Maman, is it possible? What are you chattering about?" exclaimed Marie, entering at that instant, and pausing in very visible displeasure.

"The fire is so warm and so pleasant, I chattered of nothing. Only it is Mathilde come to life-she is Mathilde's child." The elder woman pointed to Winifred with her ivory walking-stick, and unmistakable apprehension in her countenance as she perceived her daughter's frown.

"Imbecile !" muttered Marie, ringing the bell. "Pardon her, Miss Jocelyn. Winifred, she is in her dotage. Go

the servant. "And the wine, don't forget that, Marie, or the bonne bouche from the table. Oh! it is so good, such perfection!"

General Jocelyn walked to the mantel, and leaning his arm upon the marble, gazed into the fire, as if unable to trust himself to speak.

"My dear Winifred," Marie said, scanning the girl curiously, with perhaps an old, keen thrill of jealousy of the beauty, brilliant and glowing, quite unaided by art. "How charmingly you are dressed, and how well you look! I think you have almost as much taste as a French woman, and that is saying a great deal." Marie looked up at the general, expectantly. Her gay toilet of deep crimson and black velvet might have offended a faultless taste, but it suited her. She had seen her best days, despite the skillful retouching of faded tints. The brightness was a trifle garish, but the fiery glitter of her great, black eyes needed strong hues. "I fear, my dear," she went on, jestingly-"I fear your toilets will be quite lost on your fiancé, Mr. Fulke."

Winifred walked up to her father, and slipping her hand through his arm, folded the other around it. "Papa will tell you that I am not engaged to Fulke," she said, leaning her cheek against his arm.

The Frenchwoman watched her, a world of envy kindling in her blazing eyes-envy and jealous dislike. "How odd !" she laughed, wickedly. "How odd ! when the dear general has himself been my informant." Winifred faced him quickly.

"Papa, you never said that, I am sure. What does she know of our plans?"

The resolute sternness, growing habitual on Hugh Jocelyn's troubled countenance, became tenfold deeper. He was iron on that point, and solely that. Her resistless coaxing failed of its potency when it touched upon this.

"My dear, you are scarcely polite in your vehemence. Of course, I said so, or Madame Frissae would never have told you."

"Very well, papa," rejoined Winifred, her eyes blazing this time. "You may tell her now that I not only won't marry Fulke, but I can't."

General Jocelyn opened his arms involuntarily, and drew his daughter to his breast, with something of his old, intense affection.

laws to keep it in order, punishing severely any one who broke them; so that, although he was really a very good man, and a very kind one, there were many people who hated him bitterly, and thought him cruel and unjust.

So Gohur made up his mind that, as the Emperor seemed to be making the people unhappy, the Emperor ought to die, and that he would be the man to kill him. He knew well enough that he would be killed himself for doing it, but that did not frighten him a bit : for he thought he was doing right, although, as we shall see presently, he found himself mistaken there.

Now, to meet with the Emperor was no difficult matter, for instead of shutting himself up in his palace, like most other kings of that day, he was found going about into all parts of the town, dressed in rough clothes, like a workman, to see how his orders were obeyed, and whether his people were well or ill treated. So Gohur hid a short sword under his robe, and away he went into the city.

But when he got there he found such an uproar and confusion as he had never before seen. The whole air was filled with flying dust, amid which a crowd of men, women and children were running and screaming, as if frightened out of their wits, while every now and then came a crash, as if a house had fallen, or a great tree been torn up by the roots. And presently, right down the middle of the street, came rushing an enormous elephant, which had broken loose in a fit of rage from one of the great bazaars, and gone charging though the town, destroying all before it.

A fearful sight it was, that great black mass of savage strength tearing along like the rush of a locomotive, and beating down the huts on either side with one slash of its trunk as it swept by, its huge white tusks gleaming like sword-blades, and the foam flying from its open mouth. Right and left the people fled, shrieking before it, and all was terror and disorder.

Now, I should tell you that in that country there are a set of people called Pariahs, or outcasts, whom every one hates and looks down upon and avoids as if they had the plague, and nobody will shake hands with them or speak to them, or be friendly with them in any way.

Why this is so would be too long a story to tell you here; but for a Hindoo to have anything to say to a Pariah would be thought quite as bad as for one of us to be friendly with a thief or murderer.

Well, it happened that one of the Pariah children-a poor, half-starved creature-had slipped and fallen right in the elephant's track. Another moment and it would have been crushed to death; but a man, dressed as a laborer, sprang out right in front of the furious beast, caught up the child, and leaped back just in time to escape the charge of the elephant, which went rushing blindly down toward the river.

But as the man jumped back, the turban that hid his face fell off, and every one saw that this man, who had risked his life for one of the "outcasts," was no other than the Emperor Baber himself.

Then a great hush fell upon the crowd, and every man looked blankly at his neighbor, as if he could scarcely believe his own eyes. In the midst of that dead silence another man suddenly stepped forth.

It was Gohur; and he knelt at the Emperor's feet, and, holding out his sword to him, said, firmly :

"Prince, I am thine enemy, and I meant to have slain thee this day; but he who saves life is greater than he who destroys it. My hands are weak against him whom God protects. Take my sword, and kill him who would have killed thee."

Over the young Emperor's noble face came a strange smile as he listened to the grim confession. He stretched

forth his hand and raised the kneeling man gently from the earth.

"Not so, my brother," said he, kindly. "Thou hast said truly that it is better to save life than to destroy it; and should I kill any man who has confessed his fault and been sorry for it? Take back thy sword and use it in my service, for from this day I make thee one of my palaceguards."

The stern Hindoo bowed his head and wept like a child. But Baber's words came true, sure enough; for in after years Gohur was one of his bravest soldiers, and saved him many a time in battle. And to the end of his days he was never weary of telling how the Emperor had spared him, or of repeating the words that he had spoken: "It is better to save life than to destroy it."

ONE PICTURE.
CHAPTER I.

AMERICA LENLEY.

E consoled, signore - be consoled. The signorina shall be my special charge, and she will not need long to be led. The Signorina America will soar! She will be rich! She will be known! She has painting eyes!"

Thus did the good old Italian painter, Anselmo Truffi, endeavor to quiet the dying father of the weeping girl, who, leaning against the grisaille window, entirely given up to her grief, sees nothing, hears nothing, knows nothing but that she is menaced with one of the worst mortal sorrowsthe death of a beloved parent.

What did it matter to her that Truffi was but reiterating his frequent prophecy of her future greatness, or that her father had just confided to the faithful old friend of now eighteen years the savings of his latter life that she may study in comfort to become like Lenley himself-an artist.

By morning the soul had flitted, and ere another week the solemnities of burial were over, and America was-except for Truffi and his very infirm sister, Giuditta-all alone.

To work, then-to work! For if the little hoard failed ere the crop of success was gathered in, there would be nothing for the orphan but a poverty more soul-debasing, more relentless, on these far shores, than she could have found it in her native land.

Little did America imagine what her task would be. There were already so many artists in Rome whose talent was great. It would be only possible to ultimately succeed by finding some special originality of talent-some pathway comparatively untrodden. And America had promised her father to avoid what he had called "Throwing out feelers." She had promised to allow nothingtill she had done something worthy, indeed-to be seen of her efforts by stranger eyes.

"Better never paint but one picture in a lifetime than many trifles," her father was wont to say. "It fritters away the very soul; it is the idlesse' of the knight whose armor is too heavy; it is nine times out of ten final failure."

So America became a target for comment, an unfailing source of bewilderment and conjecture. What was she doing, and how did she do it? Truffi alone and old Giuditta penetrated the solitude of her quiet studio, and they were stanch and true in their silence.