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was able to travel, and requested to see him in the interim.

The next morning she received the following billet from him:

"The countess de St. Dorval is recovered, and I am overpaid. Before this "note will reach her hands, I shall be on my way to Normandy,

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"JEAN DE MUIR." "Then there yet lives some humanity "in the world," exclaimed Imogen, dropping a tear on the note; "and, deserted

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by all those who call themselves my "friends, I owe the preservation of my "life to the benevolence of a stranger.'

The tide of health now began to visit once more the exhausted frame of Imogen; her cheek again faintly glowed with its rich colouring, and her eye sparkled with its vital beam. She endeavoured to banish from her mind every thing that could rouse its dormant agonies; she thought not of the past, she spoke not of the present; she made no enquiries; she seemed only anx

ious to commence a new era of exist

ence.

Beatrice, unasked, informed her that no one had called during her illness except the old usurer, who, on the first night of her indisposition, had waited on her to know the intrinsic value of a picture he was going to dispose of; but that, hearing of her illness, he had hurried away, "as if," said Beatrice, "he thought there "had been a plague in the house."

Imogen sighed; her heart was now almost invulnerable to disappointment, yet for a moment she felt its shaft inflict a wound; she had thought the usurer was not of the common order of beings.

In a few days she found herself able to travel; every thing was prepared for her. journey, and the morning of her departure arrived.

Clad in a simple white robe, wrapt in a large mantle, and covered by a long veil, leaning on the arm of Beatrice, the countess de St. Dorval passed through a range

of vast and desolate apartments, despoiled of their elegant drapery, their rich and splendid furniture; and, with a feeble step and downcast eyes, reached the great hall. Here she delivered the keys of her house into the hands of the tradesman's wife who had been sent to prison for the silk hangings he had furnished for the hotel de St. Dorval. The woman she made her housekeeper at Paris, with a suitable allowance, and a small sum of ready money in hand, which her poverty rendered acceptable. She then surveyed her traveling equipage; it consisted of the cabriolet she had traveled up to Paris in with the chevalier, for her two women; a small covered litter for herself, and two mules for the page and .Jaques.

The morning was only in its dawn when she ascended her humble vehicle. As the carriages rolled through the court, Imogen cast one look on the heavy but magnificent pile she was, she believed, for ever quitting. The emotions with which she had

entered it flashed on her memory, those with which she was now leaving it struck on her heart; she sank back in her litter, and the heavy portals of the court closed after her with a loud crash.

They now entered the principal streets of Paris, and Imogen again insensibly raised her head and cast round her eyes. The lamps were not yet burnt out; the patroles of the night were still on duty; a few scattered groupes of masquers, returning from their nocturnal orgies, were stealing along to their respective homes. As she passed by the hotel de Guise, the porter was unbarring the gates of the outward court. She had often given him money in her frequent visits there; he looked into the litter as she passed, and caught her eye; he bowed low, and a faint benediction met her ear-it was gratefuland this little circumstance affected her. As she drove by the hotel de Belleisle, she turned away her head; the feelings the sight of it renewed were too painful to be encouraged.

They passed close by the palace of the Lauvre. The window of the audiencechamber was open: at that very window die had been presented to Henry the

a. by the incitess de Guise; at that window she stood when for the first time her bow was encircled with the diadem of peerige when she beheld the dake de Beauliers! She gazed on this memento of her triumphs and her pleasures, till disance stole it from her view, and tears dimmed her eyes.

They had now passed by all the suburbs; and as they advanced into scenes of rural peace and beauty, Imogen cast back one longing lingering glance, beheld the rising smoke, the lofty towers, and pointing spires, of Paris, appearing at intervals through the brakes and boles of the surrounding trees; and if one tear of youthful regret fell to the recollection of those festive gaieties, those brilliant pleasures, and splendid triumphs, she had once enjoyed, and now for ever relinquished, many

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