"Don't interrupt me, sir," said he, hastily, as the old captain made an effort to address him. "Don't interrupt me, sir. Which difficulties," continued he, as he took up the thread of his dictation" which difficulties are considerably increased by the obtrusive habit of tendering advice by persons in whose judgment I place no reliance, and whose conduct, when they leave me, is open to the suspicion of being prejudicial to the public service. Amongst such offenders, the chief is a retired captain of the 8th regiment of Chasseurs, called Hugues Le Bart.

"Why, general, it is of me-- me myself you are speaking !" broke in the captain.

"An officer," continued the other, perfectly heedless of the interruption,

into whose past services I would strenuously recommend some inquiry; since, neither from the information which has reached me with regard to his habits, nor, from the characters of his intimates, am I disposed to regard him as well affected to the Government, or in other respects, trustworthy. How do you do, captain? who is our young friend here?" continued he, with a smile and a bow towards us.

"In what way am I to understand this, general? Is it meant for a piece of coarse pleasantry

"For nothing of the kind, sir," interrupted the other, sternly. "That you have been a witness to the words of a confidential communication is entirely attributable to yourself; and I have only to hope you will respect the confidence of which an accident has made you a participator. Meanwhile, I desire to be alone."

The manner in which these words were uttered was too decisive for hesitation, and the old man bowed submissively and withdrew. As I was about follow the general called out

"I have none, sir. "Your mother, then, or your friends, I care not what they be. What letter is that you are crumpling in your fingers?" broke he in, suddenly. "To General Danitan, sir.' "Give it me, said he, half-snatching it from me.

"

He tore it hastily open and read it, occasionally looking from the paper to myself, as he went on. He then leaned over the table, where the secretary sat, and showed him the letter. conversed eagerly for some seconds together, and then the general said

They

"Your friends have recommended you for a post in the chancellerie militaire;' is that your liking, lad?"

"I should be proud to think myself capable of doing anything for my own support," was my answer.

"D'Artans, see to him; let him be enrolled as a supernumerary, and lodged with the others. This gentleman will instruct you in your duty," added he to me; while, with a slight nod to wards the door, he motioned me to withdraw.

I retired at once to the antechamber, where I sat down to think over my fu ture prospects, and canvass in my mind my strange situation.

Troops of officers in full and halfdress, orderlies with despatches, aidsde-camp in hot haste, came and went through that room for hours; and yet there I sat unnoticed and unrecognised by any, till I began to feel in my isola tion a sense of desertion and loneliness I had never known before.

It was already evening when D'Artans joined me, and taking my arm familiarly within his own, said

"Come along, Jasper, and let us dine together."

The sound of my own name so overcame me, that I could scarcely restrain my tears as I heard it. It was a memory of home and the past, too touching to be resisted!

THERE could not have been a readier process of disenchantment to me, as to all my boyish ambitions and hopes, than the routine of my daily life at this pe riod. I was lodged, with some fourteen others, in an old Pension in the Rue des Augustins, adjoining the bureau in which we were employed. We repaired each morning at an early hour to our office, and never left it till late in the evening-sometimes, indeed, to a late hour of the night. Neither the manners nor the habits of my companions inspired me with a desire to cultivate their intimacy. They were evidently of a low class by birth; and with tastes even inferior to their position. They construed my estrangement to the true cause, and did not scruple to show that I was not a favourite amongst them. In ridicule of my seeming pretensions, they called me the "Count," and never passed me without an obsequious mock salutation, which I returned as punctiliously, and not appearing to detect its sarcasm. With experience of life and mankind, isolation is probably a condition not devoid of certain pleasures-it may minister to a kind of proud self-reliance and independence of spirit; but to a boy it is one of unalloyed misery. There is no heavier infliction than the want of that free expansion of the heart that comes of early friendship. Youth is essentially the season of confidence; and to restrain its warm impulses, and dam up the flow of its affections, is to destroy its best and highest charm. I will not venture to assert that I was not myself much to blame for the seclusion in which I lived. I probably resented too forcibly what I need scarcely have noticed, and felt too acutely what, at worst, were but trifling annoyances. Some of this may be attributed to me constitutionally, but even more to the nature of my bringing up. All my boyish impulses were stimulated by affection; whatever I attempted, was in a wish to gain praise; all my am

bitions were, to be loved the more. In my loneliness I sought out M. de Gabriac, but in vain. His lodging on the Place was now occupied by another, who could give no tidings of him whatever. I wrote to my mother and to Raper, but without receiving a reply. I then tried M. Jost, and received a few lines to say, that my friends had taken their departure some months before from Reichenau, but in what direction he knew not. This letter put the finishing stroke to my sense of utter desolation. It was indeed not possible to conceive a more forlorn and friendless being than I now was. By my superior in the office I was held in little favour or esteem. I was indeed, in many respects, less capable than many of my colleagues, and it is not impossible that my apparent pride may have contrasted with my real deficiency. All these causes pressed upon me together, and made up a series of annoyances which came very little short of downright unhappiness.

My circumstances, too, were not calculated to dispel these gloomy tendencies. Beyond our maintenance, which was of the very humblest kind, our whole pay was five hundred francs yearly, and as this was paid in paper money, it reduced the actual amount more than one-fourth. By the very strictest economy, and by many an act of self-denial, I was enabled to keep myself out of debt, but it was an existence of continued watchfulness and care, and in which, not even the very cheapest pleasure found a place. My colleagues, indeed, talked of cafés, restaurants, excursions, and theatres, as of matters of daily habit, but in what way they compassed such enjoyments I knew not. The very freedom of their language on these themes cast an air of contemptuous mockery over my humbler existence that assuredly did not diminish its bitterness.

My inexpertness frequently com

pelled me to remain in the office long after the rest. The task allotted to me was often of greater length, and many times have I passed a considerable part of the night at my desk. On these occasions, when I had finished, my head was too much excited for sleep, and I then sat up and read-usually one of the volumes Raper had given me-till morning. These were my happiest hours; but even they were alloyed by the weariness of an exhausted and tired intellect. So thoroughly apart from the world did I live so completely did I hug my solitary existence at this period, that of the events happening around I positively knew nothing. With cafés and their company, or with newspapers, I had no intercourse; and although at moments some street encounter, some collision between the mob and the National Guard, would excite my curiosity, I never felt interest enough to inquire the cause, or care for the consequences.

At the

Such incidents grew day by day more common firing; was frequently heard at night in different parts of the capital, and it was no rare occurrence to see carts with wounded men conveyed to hospital through the streets, at early morning. That the inhabitants were fully alive to the vicinity of some peril was plain to see. slightest sign of tumult, at the least warning, shops were closed and shut ters fastened, doors strongly barricaded, and armed figures seen cautiously peering from casements and parapets. At one time a single horseman at fall gallop would give the signal for these precautions; at others, they seemed the result of some instinctive apprehension of danger, so rapidly and so silently were they effected. Amid

all these portents, the daily life of Paris went on as before. It was just as we hear tell of in the countries where earth. quakes are frequent, and where in almost every century, some terrible convulsion has laid a whole city in ruins, the inhabitants acquire a strange indifference to peril till the very instant of its presence, and learn to forget calamities when once they have passed.

As for myself, so accustomed had I become to these shocks of peril, that I no longer went to the window when the uproar beneath betokened a conflict, nor even cared to see which side were conquerors in the affray. It was in a mood of this acquired indifference

that I sat reading one evening in my office long after the others had taken their departure; twice or thrice had loud and prolonged shouts from the street disturbed me, but without exciting in me sufficient of curiosity to see what was going forward, when, at last, hearing the rumbling sound of artillery trains as they moved past, I arose and went to the window. To my surprise, the streets were densely crowded, an enormous concourse filling them, and only leaving a narrow lane through which the wagons could pass. That it was no mere procession was clear enough, for the gunners carried their matches lighted, and there was that in the stern air of the soldiery that bespoke service. They wheeled past the church of St. Roch, and entered a small street off the Rue St. Honore, called La Dauphine, where, no sooner had they passed in, than the sappers commenced tearing up the pavement in front of the guns, and speedily formed a trench of about five feet in depth before them. While this was doing, some mounted dragoons gave orders to the people to disperse, and directed them to move away by the side streets ; an order so promptly obeyed, that in a few minutes the long line of the Rue St. Honore was totally deserted. From the position at La Dauphine to the Tuilleries I could perceive that a line of communication was kept open, and orderlies passed at a gallop frequently from one side to the other. Another circumstance, too, struck me the windows, instead of being crowded by numbers of eager spectators, were strongly shuttered and barred, and when that was impossible, the glass frames were withdrawn, and bed matresses and tables placed in the spaces. Along the parapets, also, vast crowds of armed men were to be seen, and the tower and battlements of St. Roch were studded over with soldiers of the National Guard, all armed and in readiness. From the glances of the artillerymen beneath to the groups above, it required no great prescience to detect that they stood opposed to each other

as enemies.

It was a calm mellow evening of the late autumn. The air was perfectly still, and now the silence was unbroken on all sides, save when, from a distance, the quick tramp of cavalry might be momentarily heard, as if in the act of

forcing back a crowd, and then a faint shout would follow, whose accents might mean triumph or defiance.

I was already beginning to weary of expectancy, when I perceived, from the movement on the house-tops and the church tower, that something was going forward within the view of those stationed there. I had not to look long for the cause, for suddenly the harsh sharp beat of a drum was heard, and immediately after the head of a column wheeled from one of the side streets into the Rue St. Honore. They were grenadiers of the National Guard, and a fine body of men they seemed, as they marched proudly forward, till they came to a halt before the steps of St. Roch. Handkerchiefs were waved in salutation to them from windows and housetops; and cheering followed them as they went. A single figure at the entrance of "La Dauphine," stood observing them with his glass; he was an artillery officer, and took a long and leisurely survey of the troops, and then directed his eyes towards the crowded roofs, which he swept hastily with his telescope. This done, he sauntered carelessly back and disappeared.

The grenadiers were soon followed by the line, and now, as far as my eye could carry, I beheld vast masses of soldiery who filled the street in its entire breadth. Up to this all was preparation. Not a sight, or sound, or gesture indicated actual conflict, and the whole might have meant a mere demonstration on either side, when suddenly there burst forth a crash like the most terrific thunder. It made the very street tremble, and the houses seemed to shake as the air vibrated around them; a long volley of musketry succeeded, and then there arose a din of artillery, shouts, and small arms, that made up the infernal chaos. This came from the quarter of the river, and in that direction every eye was turned. I hurried to the back of the house in the hope of being able to see something, but the windows only looked into a court surrounded by tall buildings. Ere I returned to my place the conflict had already begun. The troops of the National Guard advanced, firing by sections, and evidently bent on forcing their passage up the street; and their firing seemed as if meant in declaration of their intentions rather than aggressively, since

no enemy appeared in front; when, no sooner had the leading files reached the opening of La Dauphine, than the artillery opened with grape and round shot. The distance could scarcely have exceeded forty yards, and the withering fire tore through the dense ranks, forming deep lanes of death! Smoke soon enveloped the masses, and it was only at intervals I could catch sight of the moving body, which still moved up! There was something indsecribably dreadful in seeing the steady march of men to inevitable destruction; and even their slow pace (for such was it of necessity, from the numbers of dead and dying that encumbered their path) increased the horror of the spectacle. A deadly musketry poured down from the tower of St. Roch upon the gunners.

The whole fire from housetops and windows was directed at them; but, fast as they fell, others took their places, and the roll of the artillery never slackened nor ceased for an instant. The shot rattled like hail on the walls of the houses, or crashed through them with clattering destruction. Wild and demoniac yells, deathshouts, and cries of triumph, mingled with the terrible uproar. Above all, however, roared the dread artillery, in one unbroken thunder. At last the column seemed to waver - the leading files fell back-a moment's hesitation ensued. - a fresh discharge of grape, at less than pistol range, tore through them; and now the word was given to retire. Shouts and cries poured from the housetops and parapets. Were they of encouragement or derision ?-who can tell? The street

now presented the horrid spectacle of indiscriminate carnage-the guns were wheeled forward as the troops retired, cavalry charging on the broken masses while the guns were reloading. -the cavalcade of death rode past at a walk, the gunners firing steadily on, till the word was given to cease. The smoke cleared lazily away at last, and now no living thing was seen to stir in front: the long line of the Rue St. Honore presented nothing but the bodies of the dead. The housetops and parapets, too, were speedily deserted; for the houses were now forced by the infantry of the line, who, at every moment, appeared at the windows, and waved their shakos in token of victory. As I looked, a crash recalled my at

In the "History of British India," we occasionally meet with passages which, while varying from its epic tone, commend themselves to our judgment as not less deserving of admiration than the spirit-stirring triumphs of that brilliant narrative. Amongst the most engaging of such episodes is the "Sketch of Mairwara.' It tells of a wild and warlike race, famed for the ferocity of their forays a nation of Rob Roys and Robin Hoods-or something worse, partly Mussulmans, partly Hindoos, but so much laxer in their observances than either of these persuasions, as to be disavowed by both. Their mountain fastnesses were for ages the Adullam caves of the neighbouring lowlands, and, accordingly, their community grew up, recruited from the worst characters of the cities of the plain. Thus circumstanced, they became an or ganised robber-state, and continued for centuries, idle, independent, and unsubdued, plagued at frequent intervals by pestilence, or peeled by famine, until the year 1821, when they came into contact with our arms, and were reduced to subjection. Soon afterwards their districts were confided by the East India Company, with little either of interference or of aid, to the management of an officer, whose appointment affords a fresh instance of the marked discretion with which such selections are usually made, and who, in the perfect accomplishment of a task of signal difficulty, es

tablished his claim to be rated amongst the ablest officials of that well-served government. This was Colonel Henry Hall, C.B., at that time a captain acting with the army in Malwa and Rajpootana, under Sir David Ochterlony, and whose services and gallantry had attracted the notice, and elicited the commendations of his distinguished commander. Through the exertions of Colonel Hall, the robber system was put down, a native battalion was formed, roads were made, the passes were opened, traffic was encouraged, and a regular government was, for the first time, established throughout Mairwara. The Mairs for so are these people named-were won over to abandon their demoralising habits, and by their own acts, in their own councils, to abolish their pernicious usages. Slavery was prohibited; infanticide, which it had been found so difficult to check elsewhere, was completely put an end to, and their peculiar and most barbarous of all savage customs, that of selling their mothers and wives, was wholly given up. A form of trial by jury was introduced, a jail was erected, and maintained without cost to the Company, and a system for the administra tion of justice was established, which was inexpensive, and so efficacious that, since the year 1824, the punishment of death has been in no instance inflicted, and but three persons have been transported. To secure a supply of water -the great want of these districts