my cough will never get well if I stay here all winter

He wants to send you away!" cried the girl, springing up impetuously and overturning a chair in her excitement, causing the old parrot in the brass-wire cage to wake up in a flutter.

"You have frightened poor Coco," said Madame Raymond, plaintively.

"Oh, never mind Coco," said Paula, feverishly, "but go on telling me."

"Sit still, my dear, or how can I tell you?"

But Paula did not sit down again; she remained standing over her small frail grandmother, looking down at her with fierce inquiry. The latter continued—

"He thinks that if I were to spend the winter in a warmer climate, the evil might be arrested. He spoke of Cannes or Nice."

"Cannes or Nice!" The girl's dark eyes sparkled with excitement as though the words had been heaven or paradise. "How delightful!"

A shade passed over Madame Raymond's face as she took hold of Paula's sunburnt hand with her delicate fingers—

"Darling child! I fear that I am going to make you very unhappy, but it cannot be helped. I shall have to go alone."

"Alone?"

"Then I am to stay herealone?" said Paula in a choking voice, striving bravely to force back the tears of disappointment that were starting to her eyes

How hard it was to di-appoint that young eager spirit yearning for life, and freedom, and change! How natural, how excusable were Paula's aspirations! Are not freedom, and pleasure, and movement the lawful right of the young and strong, just as trouble and suffering are the natural heritage of the aged? But just for that very reason Paula must be left behind, for it was possible-nay, even probable--that trouble rather than pleasure would be the outcome of this journey, and the tender-hearted grandmother would fain spare her granddaughter the pain that might be coming. She had not two years to live-she felt sure of that. Had not the doctor given her to understand as much that very morning? might possibly be prolonged by wintering in a better climate, but the least imprudence would bring on the end; and if dark and troubled days were at hand, it was much better that Paula should not be there to witness them.

Her life

"Dearest child! do you think I would part with you unless it were absolutely necessary? It is only for your sake that care to get well again."

"And you will-you must get well again, grandmamma," cried Paula impetuously, throwing herself down on her knees, and hiding her flushed face in Madame Raymond's lap. "How wicked, how selfish I was to have thought of myself! I will do anything, and bear anything, if you will only promise to come back quite, quite well again in spring."

Madame Raymond smiled rather sadly.

"As God chooses," she said, passing her withered hand over the girl's tumbled hair. "Now listen, my little Paula," she resumed, after a pause. "I have been thinking that as you might find the time long in my absence, I shall arrange with the Demoiselles Dumoulin for you to resume your studies after my departure." The Demoiselles Dumoulin were two old maids who kept a select boarding-school in the town, and Paula had been their pupil for several years; but lessons had ceased with her sixteenth birthday last spring, to her own no small satisfaction, for life seemed ever so much pleasanter now that she was no longer obliged to spend hours daily over tiresome scales and still more wearisome exercises. And now all at once she was told that she was to resume her studies. Back to school!" she ejaculated blankly.

"Not as a boarder of course; you will continue to live here with Veronica, and merely go there for some hours daily. It will be a great advantage for you to perfect yourself in music, drawing, and languages. Who knows whether you may not have to depend upon these accomplishments some day? And," continued Madame Raymond, softly patting her granddaughter's hand, "you will not be quite alone-Dr Bechard has been kind enough to promise that you shall spend every Sunday afternoon with them."

Paula made an involuntary grimace: she had some experience of what Sunday afternoons at the Bechards' were like, and scarcely felt exhilarated at the prospect.

"Dr Bechard always goes to sleep after dinner, and Madame Bechard is very deaf," she remarked, not with any intention of complaint, but merely as though

stating an unpleasant but incontrovertible fact.

"But Alphonse Bechard is not deaf-neither does he go to sleep, I presume; and his father says that he will soon be coming home from Geneva now that he has finished his studies. Alphonse is a very nice young man "-and as she said this Madame Raymond looked a little anxiously at her granddaughter, and there was a faint point of interrogation mixed up with her statement.

"Nice?" repeated Paula, musingly and а little doubtfully. She had seen very few young men as yet, and could therefore hardly be accounted a competent judge; nevertheless she felt dimly aware that the broad-shouldered, red-haired, freckled young man, with whom she had played as a child, and renewed acquaintance last spring, hardly came up to her ideal of manly perfection.

Presently she said aloud'Grandmamma, what sort of hair had my father?"

Good gracious, child!" said Madame Raymond, rather, bewildered at this abrupt change of subject, "what are you thinking of?"

"I mean, was it dark and curly like mine? or was it red like that of Alphonse Bechard? Was my father like that at his age?"

"Not at all," cried the grandmother with imprudent fervour.

Your poor dear father had light sunny curls that waved about his head like the picture of St Michael in the old Bible, and blue eyes that lighted up like stars whenever he spoke of the grand picture he meant to paint when he became a great artist. He was the handsomest man in the whole canton; every one said so. But there are not many men like my Paul," she continued more soberly, feeling

this glowing eulogium to have been injudicious with regard to the object just now in view; and anxious to mitigate the effect of her words, she hastened to add, "After all, good looks are of little account in a man, and those who are lucky enough to have found a true and honest heart should look no further. If only I could see you in the keeping of a good man I should not be so afraid of dying." "Don't talk about dying," said Paula, rubbing her cheek caressingly against her grandmother's hand; "don't-I cannot bear it. You will come back to me, granny dearest; say you will?"

"I shall come back. to you, dead or alive," said the old woman solemnly, drawing up her small spare figure

with unwonted diguity, while a far-off visionary look came into her light-blue eyes-such a look as sometimes comes to those who have nearly reached the crossing. "Surely I shall come back. I do not feel as though I could rest in my grave far away from you. I will be buried at home under the shade of that large laburnum tree -you know the spot?"

Paula only nodded, for there was a great lump in her throat which prevented her from speaking just then.

The mere appearance of General Donnerfels was calculated to convey terror and dismay. Small children would frequently burst into tears at sight of him, dogs into dismal howls; and even grown-up human beings, with wellbalanced minds, were apt to turn aside from their path in order to avoid meeting this formidable individual, who in his person seemed to combine the characteristics of half-a-dozen ferocious specimens of the zoological world. His fierce rolling eye had an unpleasant resemblance to that of a man-eating tiger; his large yellow teeth, ever disclosed in a snarling grin akin to the smile of a hyena, were not unlike wild-boar tusks; there was a suggestion of walrus in his heavy drooping moustache, and of bird of prey about the prominent RoAu illustrious officer in the German army, he owed his fame to a singularly hard and despotic character, which seemed to develop with each step of promotion. A harsh captain, a cruel

man nose.

No one

major, and a ferocious colonel, the epithet fiendish was scarcely too strong to be applied to him by the time he had attained his generalship. He had distinguished himself in several campaigns, and achieved a noteworthy victory in the Franco-German war. ever dared to disobey General Donnerfels, and that, I think, was the true secret of his success, though some facetious person used to say that it was easy for him to gain a victory, and that the sight of his ugly face alone had put to flight some ten thousand Frenchmen at Sedan. Horrible stories were told of his cruelty to the troops, of his callousness to human suffering, and absolute indifference to human life. He had received dozens of decorations as reward of his services, and had been extolled in scores of newspapers as a prominent military authority. In short, General Donnerfels was admired and envie: in exact proportion as he was feared and detested. No human being

(except perhaps his mother) had felt or even professed affection for him; and, spite of his wealth, no woman had been found brave enough to unite her lot to his.

His sole near relation was a ne hew-Bruno von Kettenburg, serving in the diplomatic corps somewhere in Southern Europe. General Donnerfels had never seen nor wished to see his sister's son, to whom nevertheless the whole property would revert, should he bimself die childless or intestate.

But General Donnerfeis had no id-a of dying just yet: with his iron constitution, which had never known a day's illness, he felt justified in 1oking forward to the enjoyment of the good things of this life for a long time yet to come; and it was with a sort of indignant incredulity that he began to make the discovery that he was not precisely the same man he had been twenty years previously. He could no longer brave the elements with the impunity of a youth; could not drink six bottles of wine at a sitting; and, above all, could not indulge his habit of flying into a passi ›n every half-hour without feeling seriously the worst of it.

At last there came a day when his system reeeived a shock it was not destined to recover. This shock may best be described as a d'ama in three acts, and with two breakages:

Act No. 1.—A careless servant breaks a valuable meerschaum pipe.

Act No. 2.-Careless servant carefully kicked down-stairs by General Donnerfels.

Act No. 3.-General Donnerfels breaks a blood-vessel.

The sequel to this drama was a threatening of hemorrhage to the lungs, rendered more alarm

ing by the bitter cold which had just set in, for it was December.

"Your Excellency requires a warmer climate," timidly suggested the first doctor, called in to attend this formidable patient. "Your Excellency had better go to Nice."

Go to the devil!" roared the General in the voice of a mad bull.

The doctor went to the door, which he made all haste to close behind him.

"Go to Mentone," suggested another authority, summoned in a few days later. "I'll be d- -d first," snarled his Excellency, in true hyena-like fashion.

"I'm sure I've no objection," muttered this second doctor; but he muttered it between his teeth, and left the room almost as nimbly as his predecessor had done.

Then there came a doctor who was a brave man as well as a physician, and who was not to be scared by either bulls or hyenas.

"You are a dead man, General, unless you start for the South immediately." were the words of this third doctor.

"What the deuce do you mean?" thundered General Donnerfels, with eyes glaring yellow like those of a man-eating tiger.

But the doctor stood his ground, and was not even afraid of tigers.

"What I mean is simply that your constitution has received a severe shock since your last attack."

"Do you mean to say," snarled the General, "that my life is threatened becau-e of that little episode last week? Absurd! Why, I have kicked my servants down-stairs for the last forty years, and it has never yet disagreed with me."

"No doubt," said the doctor,

drily, "but there is a limit to every one's strength; and no man is as strong at sixty-five as he was at twenty. Another such attack may carry you off, especially in this cold weather. With a mild climate, sober living, and absolute avoidance of all violent emotion, you may recover; but I will answer for nothing if you neglect my warning."

conform to

of being about to the doctor's orders; but when the latter had taken his leave, he rang the bell, and with the veins swelling ominously on the forehead, informed the valet that "if the good-for-nothing rascal did not pack the portmanteau in time to start that evening, he would thrash the vile dirty vagabond fellow within an ace of his wretch

Madame Raymond, now estab lished for over two months at San Pino, a newly discovered sanitary resort on the Riviera, was already beginning to feel the beneficial effects of the change of climate. Her nights were no longer dis turbed by fever, she had recovered her appetite and almost lost her cough, and in the balmy sea-air took daily walks on the picturesque promenade overhanging the shore. If only her darling Paula had been there to enjoy it all!that was the ever-recurring burden of her letters; but, please God, their separation would not last very much longer. Half of the time was already past, for it was nearly Christmas now, and by the end of March she hoped the doctor would allow her to travel home. So wrote the good old lady, little dreaming that her northward journey was destined to take place at a far earlier date.

In a place like San Pino, frequented by sick and convalescent people, a certain number of professional beggars always haunt the public walks, endeavouring to make capital out of the compassion, the benevolence, the vanity, or ennui of the patients. Sick people often give alms from a fellow-feeling of

compassion; convalescent ones out of gratitude for regained health; idle peope give because they have nothing else to do; and vain ones in order to excite admiration. A few, a very few there are, who give out of pure unadulterated charity. These professional beggars have unusually sharp eyes as to all such motives, and at a glance can spot those subjects likely to be remunerative objects of their efforts. Knowing to a nicety what they have to expect from each of the guests, the beggars lose no time in cla-sifying them as benefactors of first, second, or third class.

Prominent in the first class of benefactors this year was an old lady to whom no hand was ever stretched in vain; and if the coin she gave each time was but a small one, the benevolent smile which accompanied it often enhanced the value in the eyes of the recipient. The other guests were all more or less charitable, and gave alms as benevolence or fancy dictated-all, with one exception: a tall, fierce, military-looking man arrived at San Pino about the middle of December, whom no beggar ever dared approach.

Upon no mendicant were smiles and coppers showered as plentifully as upon Tonino, a handsome