"He is gone at this moment," she resumed, "to order the horses as well as all the French he knows will let him."

"I suppose you told him the story we agreed on?"

"Yes! The gobe-mouche swallowed it, just as if it had been butter." "All about the King?"

"Every bit!"

"I hardly thought he would get that down! What a tremendous ass! And so you really intend to hook it ?"

"If you have no objection."

"He means to marry you I suppose !"

"Sans faute. I'm to be made an honest woman of-at last!"

"Et après?"

"Um! Ça dépend !"

"Well, but I don't quite understand your little game! Throw some more light on it!"

"As much as you please. What do you really wish to know?" "What your plans exactly may be."

"You and I are wise enough in our generation, as events have proved; but neither of us, I am afraid, have had it altogether in our power to say exactly what will come to pass in the next six months."

"Granted, as to the durability of our position; but we have formed expectations."

are.

"So far as that goes, I don't mind telling you what my expectations You know we have both been on the look out for a good thing for ever so long, and a dissolution of partnership was always on the cards." "Not contemplated, however, without regret, at all events on my side."

so.

"Well, I will return the compliment. All things considered, we have hit it off very well since we became so closely related. But, as you remember, we agreed to keep together as long as it was our interest to do Now it is more to my interest that we should separate. After that conversation in the châlet, when he”- -a gesture indicated who-"let us into his affairs, and showed how well worth our attention he was, I resolved at once to fix him. There are, as you very well know, two sorts of Englishmen who come mooning abroad: those who disparage foreign rank, and those who are its slaves. I need not say to what class he belongs. Besides," and here Clotilde smiled, "he was captivated at first sight by your humble servant, and would no more think of doubting anything I told him than of disbelieving in his own existence. To cut this part of the subject short, on a hint that I gave, and supposing you to be a most terrible Turk, he offered to run away with me, and I mean to let him. But before that event takes place, we must settle our mutual affairs. What tin can you let me have?"

"I am glad you used the word tin, replied the Count, "because that simplifies the matter. I have very little of the ready, and what little I have I want."

"Come, not so very little. You forget what you won the other night, and you were tolerably flush before then."

"I vow, you are mistaken. Our long journey, added to that piece of ill luck, in being obliged to cut it so suddenly when I might have done a good thing at Baden, brought me down a good deal, and if this fellow

had not turned up at Le Prese, we should most likely have had to shoot the moon instead of paying our bill when we came away. The fact of doing so has left me nearly high and dry again."

"I know better than that. You have plenty."

Well, but what do you want with money when you are with him?" "Oh, accidents may happen. Besides, I don't choose to be without." "Will ten Naps do?"

"Ten Naps! And you admit having five hundred pounds."

"I said in a cheque, you know."

"Yes, but you said, too, that the cheque was as good as cash."

"So it would be, no doubt, if I presented it over his banker's counter. To use your own words, 'accidents may happen' before I get there." Again I must remind you that you spoke of getting it cashed at Milan."

66

"That might or might not be. And then I did not know you were going to bolt."

You want to keep it all to yourself."

"I see how it is. "By no means. I am quite willing to go halves while we hunt in couples, but you can't expect to share when I hunt alone. You don't take into account, either, that if you marry, all he has will be at your disposal, while I must be content with only what I've got! I meant to have made a good deal more of him, I assure you."

We are to be re

"So you may yet. I never said we were not to meet again, even if you, an incensed brother, did not succeed in overtaking us. But the fact is, our meeting again is a part of the programme. pentant sinners, and throw ourselves on your generosity. You didn't suppose I was going to tie myself for life to such a muff as Signor Tomkins!"

Hardly. But how am I to know where you are ?"

"Oh, you may easily keep us in sight. If I tell you our route, you can always ask for a letter at the poste restante, as, by-the-by, you did to-day. What was that for?”

Nothing particular. Only an answer to an advertisement of mine." "You have a great many irons in the fire."

"It is necessary."

"And those ten Naps are all you mean to give me? Make them twenty !"

"Well, I won't be stingy. But there is one thing I have just thought of. In exchange for that cheque, I gave an order on parties in Paris quite as respectable as Aldgate, Pump, and Co., of London. As I told your lover, it is of no consequence where he offers it to be cashed, but it may be as well that he should not present it anywhere, so, as the paper is of no value to him (or anybody else), there can be no harm (not that that would much signify) in putting it into the fire, if it happens to fall in your way. You understand!"

"Perfectly," said Clotilde, "but stay! There is a part of this business, and a very important part, too, which I also had very nearly forgotten. You know that I am going to be married."

"So

you said."

"Yes. But how is that to be managed ?"

"Oh, here, in Italy, you will find no difficulty in getting a priest to tie the knot for you. Three or four of those bright little coins I just gave you will make it square in no time."

66

Perhaps. Only suppose I don't want the knot to be tied so fast as a priest would make it. The time may come when I may wish to be let loose!"

"Oh, you need not be so particular. You could always leave him whether you were married or not. The thing is done every day."

"So it is, but if I were his wife he would have a claim upon me, and there might be all sorts of bother. No! I am willing enough to go through the ceremony-to satisfy him-but he who performs it must not be a priest."

"By a priest you mean, of course, a Roman Catholic priest. I don't see how you are to avoid that in this country, unless you could get hold of a Protestant parson-one of those wandering English clergymen, members of the Alpine Club, who turn up everywhere now-a-daysbut though they may be willing to scale any mountain in Switzerland, I don't think any of them are scaly enough to splice the first runaway couple they meet with on the mountain-side."

"Who wants them? Upon my word, Doll, you have led a respectable life so long, that I think you have turned fool at last!"

"Explain the meaning, Clo, of that polite observation."

"I said I wanted no priest-Catholic or Protestant is all one to me; I desire neither. You will answer my purpose as well as the best of them."

"Me?"

I sim

"Yes-you! How you stare! I say you. When I asked you for some money a little while ago, you said I simplified the matter. plify it again now. What can be easier to carry out than my present proposition? Instead of having all the trouble of hunting up a parson, you make your appearance at a place agreed on in full canonicals-any masquerade shop in Milan will supply them, and you are pretty well used to disguises-and throwing as much mystery over the concern as you like, we can, as you say, 'make it square in no time!' When once he thinks himself my husband, I can deal with his property just as if he really were so. You will get more by it that way than any other-and I shall be my own mistress again-or yours-whenever I please."

The Count listened with admiration to this iniquitous proposal, and when the Countess had ceased speaking, he cried,

"Bravo! Clo! You are, in classical language, a 'One-er.' You know how to do the trick, and deserve to succeed. I certainly made no mistake when I entered into partnership with you."

"You have no scruples of conscience, then ?"

The Count laughed,—and in a few words more his soi-disant sister settled their course of action. She was to keep him au fait of her movements, as she had already intimated, by a letter which he would find at Milan; the rest she left to his powers of contrivance. The conference then broke up, and the precious pair left the salon together, in search of Signor Tomkins.

They found him in the market-place, close by, pacing to and fro, under

the shadow of a high wall, the observed of more than one observer, for though the Italians are not an inquisitive people, the sons of Britain sometimes make them stare by singularities of costume and behaviour, and the blue veil of Signor Tomkins, thrown back in a degagée manner, to allow him the full enjoyment of his cigar, rather tickled the feminine fancy of half a dozen-young and old-of the swarthy Tiranese.

Perceiving the approach of the Count and Countess he hastened to meet them, and Clotilde saw by the exultant expression of his countenance that his mission had not been fruitless.

He had more than one reason for priding himself on this result. In the first place-aided, perhaps, by a couple of Napoleons which he slipped into the aubergiste's hand-he had contrived to make that worthy fellow comprehend his necessity, and obtain from him the promise that a carriage and pair of horses should be at the bridge-foot precisely at twelve o'clock. Next, the innkeeper, mistaking him no doubt for the British ambassador, had continually called him "Votre Excellence," the meaning of which he perfectly understood. And, thirdly-his crowning triumph-he was all this time deceiving a diplomatist, stealing a march, in fact, upon a distinguished agent of "la haute politique," his reward in so doing being that inappreciable prize, the hand of the Countess Clotilde de Crèvecœur.

All this knowledge, hived in his bosom, made him an extremely cheerful companion, and the three prolonged their promenade till the moonlight glittered on the waters of the Adda, and the shades of evening began to fall. Clotilde then, pleading fatigue, announced her intention of retiring for the night, and with a meaning pressure of the hand, which Signor Tomkins as significantly returned, as he whispered the words " All right," left her brother and his friend to finish their cigars in the open air before they followed her example.

The bats, those constant denizens of Italian towns, flitted swiftly, but not unheeded, by, as Signor Tomkins silently meditated on his daring lover-like emprise.

"Are ye things of omen ?" he inwardly demanded. "Is your rapid flight a token of success, or on your sooty wings does danger hover?" When great events are at hand, the most adventurous may question Fate.

FONTAINEBLEAU.

Of all the copper-plate engravings, lithographs, and other pictures representing Fontainebleau, there is one which has always pleased me the most, because it depicts the subject most correctly, a lofty, solemn façade, the south side of the château, washed by a deep, dark lake: on the right, towers, battlements, gables, and roofs, which furnish an idea of the rest of the enormous edifice, and on the left, tall plane-trees and forest. Quite in the foreground there is a small boat, surrounded by swans and weeping willows, which hang down into the water, and are mirrored in it. This sketch is more characteristic than all the rest. There is certainly another, which is much grander, although more sad, and which has been converted into a splendid apotheosis, at least by the present generation of Frenchmen-I mean Horace Vernet's glorious picture, Napoleon's Farewell to his Guards in the large Palace-yard, before his departure for Elba. But this picture, in spite of its historic interest, represents nothing but a military spectacle, which might have taken place equally well in St. Cloud, the Tuileries, or elsewhere, and for this reason I prefer the one alluded to above. Let us leave soldiers and the turmoil of war out of the question, and revel in the lovely landscape, upon which Nature has so lavishly expended all her charms.

And yet at Fontainebleau we cannot give ourselves up exclusively to a contemplation of nature, at least, not when within sight of the château, which is the most important historical monument of France: but these impressions reach us from the past, and even the dark and melancholy scenes hence arise before us in a mild and conciliatory light. Before I proceed let me make one remark-I have no intention of supplying a full and detailed description of Fontainebleau. I purpose behaving like the numerous foreigners, or the Parisians themselves, who make a hasty visit, look at the most interesting things, and on their homeward journey resolve to come again very soon, and remain for a longer period.

The palace-garden of Fontainebleau is divided in two by the large lake, but connected by flying bridges. On this side is the ". "parterre" that is to say, the flower-garden proper, and, on the other, what is called the "Jardin Anglais," containing the portion reserved for the emperor. But when their majesties and the whole court are at Fontainebleau everything is locked up, even to the flower-garden situated outside; only a single allée in the park is left open for the inhabitants of the town to take a walk. Everywhere behind the gilt railings are sentries with tall bearskin shakos, and a pack of indolent, sleepy valets, dressed in gold lace and badly behaved-a real false note in the harmony of this beauteous scene. Formerly (say the Legitimists, for Fontainebleau is a tremendously Legitimist town), all this was very different. When Charles X. lived in the palace with his court, all the gates and approaches were open, and the public were even admitted to the gallery in the hall to see their majesties dining. People were also admitted at certain hours of the day to the whole palace, except the private apartments of the royal family. This is certainly true, and very noble, but our age has altered. Moreover, this popularity and kindness did not