as fire is from ice. This time it was the utterance of hearts withered by misery, of experiences gained in the mansarde, the morgue, the cul-de-sac, the bordel, the streets; not the speculations of fine gentlemen in silks and velvets, and gilded drawing-rooms. Balzac was meditating his Comédie Humaine,' Jules Janin his 'L'Ane Mort et la Femme Guillotinée,' Mürger his Vie de Bohême,' and Hugo was soon to pass over to their ranks and become their chief. Christianity was again menaced, this time by a dreamy pantheism, which is still developing; literature, ideas, scepticism were no longer the monopolies of a class: they were universal; and the salon, as a power, ceased to exist.

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Ere closing this article we must take a parting glance at her who was the last representative of the old society, Madame Récamier. Born under Louis XVI., she lived beyond the third revolution, surviving until 1849. Three generations of the Montmorencies had sighed at her feet. Ils n'en mouraient pas tous, mais tous étaient frappés,' said one. M. de Chateaubriand held the first place in her regards for many years; that their friendship was purely platonic cannot be doubted. After his wife's death he made Madame, long since a widow, the offer of his hand. Why should we marry?' she said; if solitude is sad to you, I am ready to live in the same house with you. The world, I am certain, is just to the purity of our connection, and would approve of everything I could do to give repose, happiness, and tenderness to your old age. If we were younger, I would not hesitate; I would joyfully accept the right of consecrating my life to you.' In her last days she became blind; but, although her features were withered and her form was bent, she retained the old fascinating smile and elegance of manner. She had long since quitted Paris for the solitude of the Abbaye-aux-Bois. There, says a writer in the 'Biographie Universelle,'' each day, with the exactness of a clock, the inhabitants of the Rue de Sèvres saw him (Chateaubriand) pass, elegantly dressed in a short riding coat, towards the Abbaye. But as old age advanced upon him he came in a coach, and found the aid of a stick necessary to ascend the stairs. At length, when his limbs became utterly decrepit, he was carried up in a chair by a couple of servants.' There is something infinitely pathetic in this picture of the two old lovers growing old together. He went first; and she survived but a few months-dying of cholera.

The Loves of Alonzo Fitz Clarence and
Hosannah Ethelton.

BY MARK TWAIN.

I.

It was well along in the forenoon of a bitter winter's day. The town of Eastport, in the State of Maine, lay buried under a deep snow that was newly fallen. The customary bustle in the streets was wanting. One could look long distances down them and see nothing but a dead-white emptiness, with silence to match. Of course I do not mean that you could see the silence,-no, you could only hear it. The side-walks were merely long, deep ditches, with steep snow walls on either side. Here and there you might hear the faint, far scrape of a wooden shovel, and if you were quick enough you might catch a glimpse of a distant black figure stooping and disappearing in one of those ditches, and reappearing the next moment with a motion which you would know meant the heaving out of a shovelful of snow. But you needed to be quick, for that black figure would not linger, but would soon drop that shovel and scud for the house, thrashing itself with its arms to warm them. Yes, it was too venomously cold for snow-shovellers or anybody else to stay out long.

Presently the sky darkened; then the wind rose and began to blow in fitful, vigorous gusts, which sent clouds of powdery snow aloft, and straight ahead, and everywhere. Under the impulse of one of these gusts, great white drifts banked themselves like graves across the streets; a moment later, another gust shifted them around the other way, driving a fine spray of snow from their sharp crests as the gale drives the spume flakes from wave-crests at sea; a third gust swept that place as clean as your hand, if it saw fit. This was fooling, this was play; but each and all of the gusts dumped some snow into the side-walk ditches, for that was business.

Alonzo Fitz Clarence was sitting in his snug and elegant little parlour, in a lovely blue silk dressing-down, with cuffs and facings of crimson satin, elaborately quilted. The remains of his breakfast was before him, and the dainty and costly little table service added an harmonious charm to the grace, beauty, and richness of

the fixed appointments of the room. A cheery fire was blazing on the hearth.

A furious gust of wind shook the windows, and a great wave of snow washed against them with a drenching sound, so to speak. The handsome young bachelor murmured,

'That means, no going out to-day. Well, I am content. But what to do for company? Mother is well enough, Aunt Susan is well enough; but these, like the poor, I have with me always. On so grim a day as this, one needs a new interest, a fresh element, to whet the dull edge of captivity. That was very neatly said, but it doesn't mean anything. One doesn't want the edge of captivity sharpened up, you know, but just the reverse.'

He glanced at his pretty French mantel-clock.

'That clock's wrong again. That clock hardly ever knows what time it is; and when it does know, it lies about it,-which amounts to the same thing. Alfred!'

There was no answer.

'Alfred! . . . Good servant, but as uncertain as the clock.'

Alonzo touched an electrical bell-button in the wall. He waited a moment, then touched it again; waited a few moments more, and said,—

'Battery out of order, no doubt. But now that I have started, I will find out what time it is.'

He stepped to a speaking-tube in the wall, blew its whistle, and called,

'Mother!' and repeated it twice.

6 Well, that's no use. Mother's battery is out of order, too. Can't raise anybody downstairs,—that is plain.'

He sat down at a rosewood desk, leaned his chin on the lefthand edge of it, and spoke, as if to the floor,—

'Aunt Susan!'

A low, pleasant voice answered, 'Is that you, Alonzo?'

"Yes. I'm too lazy and comfortable to go down-stairs; I am in extremity, and I can't seem to scare up any help.'

'Dear me what is the matter?'

• Matter enough, I can tell you! '

'Oh, don't keep me in suspense, dear! What is it?
'I want to know what time it is.'

"You abominable boy, what a turn you did give me! Is that all ? '

6

All,-on my honour. Calm yourself. Tell me the time, and receive my blessing.'

Just five minutes after nine. No charge,-keep your bless

Thanks. It wouldn't have impoverished me, aunty, nor so enriched you that you could live without other means.' He got up, murmuring, 'Just five minutes after nine,' and faced his clock. Ah!' said he, 'you are doing better than usual; you are only thirty-four minutes wrong. Let me see . . . let me see Thirty-three and twenty-one are fifty-four; four times fifty-four are two hundred and thirty-six. One off leaves two hundred and thirty-five. That's right.'

He turned the hands of his clock forward till they marked twenty-five minutes to one, and said, 'Now see if you can't keep right for a while. . . else I'll raffle you!'

me.'

6

He sat down at the desk again, and said, Aunt Susan!' 'Yes, dear.'

'Had breakfast?'

"Yes, indeed, an hour ago.'

'Busy?'

'No, excepting sewing. Why?'

Got any company?'

'No, but I expect some at half-past nine.'

I wish I did. I'm lonesome. I want to talk to somebody.'

'Very well, talk to me.'

'But this is very private.'

'Don't be afraid,—talk right along; there's nobody here but

'I hardly know whether to venture or not, but '

But what? Oh, don't stop there! You know you can trust me, Alonzo, you know you can.'

I feel it, aunt, but this is very serious. It affects me deeply, --me, and all the family,—even the whole community.'

'Oh, Alonzo, tell me! I will never breathe a word of it. What is it?'

'Oh, please go on! I love you, and can feel for you. all. Confide in me.-What is it?'

'The weather!'

Tell me

'Plague take the weather! I don't see how you can have the heart to serve me so, Lon.

'There, there, aunty dear, I'm sorry; I am, on my honour. I won't do it again. Do you forgive me?'

Yes, since you seem so sincere about it, though I know I oughtn't to. You will fool me again as soon as I have forgotten

this time.'

'No, I won't, honour bright. But such weather! oh, such weather! You've got to keep your spirits up artificially. It is

snowy, and blowy, and gusty, and bitter cold! How is the weather with you?"

'Warm and rainy and melancholy. The mourners go about the streets with their umbrellas running streams from the end of every whalebone. There's an elevated double pavement of umbrellas stretching down the sides of the streets as far as I can see. I've got a fire for cheerfulness, and the windows open to keep cool. But it is vain, it is useless: nothing comes in but the balmy breath of December, with its burden of mocking odours from the flowers that possess the realm outside, and rejoice in their lawless profusion whilst the spirit of man is low, and flaunt their gaudy splendours in his face whilst his soul is clothed in sackcloth and ashes and his heart breaketh.'

Alonzo opened his lips to say, 'You ought to print that, and get it framed,' but checked himself, for he heard his aunt speaking to some one else. He went and stood at the window and looked out upon the wintry prospect. The storm was driving the snow before it more furiously than ever; window shutters were slamming and banging; a forlorn dog, with bowed head and tail withdrawn from service, was pressing his quaking body against a windward wall for shelter and protection; a young girl was ploughing kneedeep through the drifts, with her face turned from the blast, and the cape of her waterproof blowing straight rearward over her head. Alonzo shuddered, and said, with a sigh, 'Better the slop, and the sultry rain, and even the insolent flowers, than this!'

He turned from the window, moved a step, and stopped in a listening attitude. The faint, sweet notes of a familiar song caught his ear. He remained there, with his head unconsciously bent forward, drinking in the melody, stirring neither hand nor foot, hardly breathing. There was a blemish in the execution of the song, but to Alonzo it seemed an added charm instead of a defect. This blemish consisted of a marked flatting of the third, fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh notes of the refrain or chorus of the piece. When the music ended, Alonzo drew a deep breath, and said, Ah, I never have heard "In the Sweet By-and-By" sung like that before!'

6

He stepped quickly to the desk, listened a moment, then said in a guarded confidential voice, 'Aunty, who is this divine singer?

'She is the company I was expecting. Stays with me a month or two. I will introduce you. Miss

For goodness' sake, wait a moment, Aunt Susan! You never stop to think what you are about!'

He flew to his bed-chamber, and returned in a moment per