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higher than the lips, and leaves the eyes and forehead dark, threatening, and uncertain. Altogether, there was a character, it might be of insanity, it might be of guilt, in the face, which was formidable.

Lucille wished herself at home, but there was that in the blood of the Charrebourgs which never turned away from danger, real or imaginary, when once confronted.

"So you are Lucille de Charrebourg?" said the figure, looking at her with that expression of malice, which is all the more fearful that it appears causeless.

"Yes, madame, that is my name; will you be so good as to tell me, beside, the name of the lady who has been kind enough to desire an interview with

me?"

"For a name, my dear, suit yourself; call me Sycorax, Jezebel, or what you please, and I will answer to it."

"But what are you?"

"There again I give you a carte blanche; say I am a benevolent fairy; you don't seem to like that? or your guardian-angel? nor that neither! Well, a witch if you please, or a ghost, or a fortune-teller-ay, that will do, a fortune-teller-so that is settled."

"Well, madame, if I may not know either your name or occupation, will you be good enough at least to let me hear your business."

"Surely, my charming demoiselle ; you should have heard it immediately had you not pestered me with so many childish questions. Well, then, about this Monsieur Le Prun?"

"Well, madame?" said Lucille, not a little surprised.

"Well, my dear, I'm not going to tell you whether this Monsieur Le Prun is an angel, for angels they say have married women; or whether he is a Bluebeard-you have heard the story of Bluebeard, my little dear-but this I say, be he which he may, you must not marry him.”

"And pray who constrains my will?" exclaimed the girl, scornfully, but at the same time inwardly frightened.

"I do, my pretty pigeon; if you marry him, you do so forewarned, and if he don't punish you I will."

"How dare you speak in that tone to me?" said Lucille, to whose cheek the insolent threat of the stranger called a momentary flush of red; "you punish me, indeed, if he does not! I'll not permit you to address me so; be

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All this time the woman was laughing inwardly, and fumbling under her white robe, as if in search of something.

"I say he may be an angel, or he may be a bluebeard, I don't pretend to say which," she continued," with a perfectly genuine contempt of Lucille's vaunting, "but I have here an amulet that never fails in cases like this; it will detect and expel the devil better than blessed water, vera crux, or body of our Lord, for these things have sometimes failed, but this can never. With the aid of this you cannot be deceived. If he be a good man its influence will be ineffectual against him; but if, on the other hand, he be possessed of evil spirits, then test him with it, and you will behold him for a moment as he is."

"Let me see it, then."
"Here it is."

She drew from under the white folds of her dress a small spiral bottle, enamelled with some Chinese characters, and set in a base and capital of chased gold, with four little spiral pillars at the corners connecting the top and bottom and leaving the porcelain visible between. It had, moreover, a stopper that closed with a spring, and altogether did not exceed two inches in length, and in thickness was about the size of a swan's quill. It looked like nothing earthly, but what she had described it. For a scent-bottle, indeed, it might possibly have been used; but there was something odd and knowing about this little curiosity, something mysterious, and which seemed as though it had a tale to tell. In short, Lucille looked on it with all the interest, and if the truth must be spoken, a good deal of the awe which its pretensions demanded.

"And what am I to do with this little bauble?" she asked, after she had examined it for some moments curiously.

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When you want to make trial of its efficacy, take it forth, look steadily in his face, and say, 'I expect to receive the counterpart of this;' that is all. If he be a good man, as who can say, the talisman will leave him as it finds him. But if he be, as some men are, the slaves of Satan, you will see, were it but for a second, the sufferings and passions of hell in his face. Fear

not to make trial of it, for no harm can ensue, you will but know the charac ter you have to deal with."

But this is a valuable bauble, its price must be considerable, and I have no money."

"Well, suppose I make it a present to you."

"I should like to have it-butbut.

"But I am too poor to part with it on such terms, and you too proud to take it is that your meaning? Never mind, I can afford to give it, and, proud as you are, you can afford to take it. Hide it until the time to try him comes, and then speak as I told you."

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"Well I will accept it," said Lucille, coldly, but her voice trembled and her face was pale; "and this I know, if there be any virtue of any sort in the toy, it can only prove Monsieur Le Prun's goodness. Yes, he is a very kind man, and all the world, I am told, speaks of his excellence."

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"Very probably," said the stranger, "but mark my words, don't marry him; if you do you shall see me again." Holloa, devil! are you deaf?” thundered a sucering voice from a crag at the opposite side, "Come, come, it's time we were moving."

The summons came from a broad, short, swarthy fellow, with black moustache and beard, arrayed in a suit of dusky red. He had one hand raised high above his head beckoning to her, and with the other he furiously shook the spreading branch of a tree beside him; the prominent whites of his eyes, and his grinning teeth, were, even at that distance, seen conspicuous; and so shaggy, furious, and unearthly did he seem, that he might well have represented some wild huntsman or demon of the wood. It seemed, indeed, as though a sort of witches' dance were to be held that night in the old park of Charrebourg, and that some of the preternatural company had reached the trysting-place before their time.

The ill-omened woman in white hastily gathered up her mantle, without any gesture or word of farewell. With hurried strides her tall figure glided off toward the apparition in red, and both speedily disappeared among the hazy cover at the other side.

The little hollow was now deserted, except for Lucille. It was not till

they had quite vanished, and that she was left there alone, that she felt something akin to terror steal over her, and hurried from the scene of her strange interview as from a haunted spot. A little way up the rising bank Gabriel was awaiting her return, sorely disappointed that fortune had in nowise made her debtor to his valour.

Long before she reached home the sun had gone down, and the long dusky shadows had given place to the thin, cold haze of approaching night. Often as she glided onward among rocks and bushes she felt an instinctive impulse, something between terror and aversion, prompting her to hurl the little spiral phial far from her among the wild weeds and misty brakes, where, till doomsday, it might never be found again. But other feelings, stranger in their kind, determined her at least to defer the sacrifice, and so she reached her chamber with the mysterious gift fast in her tiny grasp.

Here she again examined it, more minutely than before; it contained neither fluid nor powder of any sort, and was free from any perfume or odour whatsoever; and excepting that the more closely she inspected it, the more she discovered in its workmanship to excite her admiration, her careful and curious investigation was without result. As she carefully folded up the curious souvenir, and secreted it in the safest corner of her safest drawer, she thought over the interview again and again, and always with the same result as respected the female who had bestowed it, namely, that if not actually a lady, she had at least the education and the manners of a person above the working classes.

That night Lucille was haunted with ugly dreams. Voices were speaking to her in threats and blasphemies from the little phial. The mysterious lady in white would sit huddled up at the foot of her bed, and the more she smiled the more terrible became her scowl, until at last her countenance began to dilate, and she slowly advanced her face closer and closer, until, just as her smiling lips reached Lucille, she uttered a yell, whether of imprecation or terror she could not hear, but which scared her from her sleep like a peal of thunder. Then a great coffin was standing against the wall with Monsieur Le Prun in it dead and shrouded, and a troop of choris

ters began singing a requiem, when on a sudden the furious voice she had heard that evening screamed aloud, "to what purpose all this hymning, seeing the corpse is possessed by evil spirits;" and then such looks of rage and hatred flitted over the livid face in the coffin, as nothing but hell could have inspired. Then again she would see Monsieur Le Prun struggling, his face all bloody and distorted, with the man in red and the strange lady of the talisman, who screamed, laughing with a detestable glee, "Come bride, come, the bridegroom waits." Such horrid dreams as these haunted her all night, so much so that one might almost have fancied that an evil influence had entered her chamber with the little phial. But the songs of gay birds pruning their wings, and the rustle of

the green leaves glittering in the early sun round her window, quickly dis pelled the horrors which had possessed her little room in the hours of silence and darkness. It was, notwithstanding, with a sense of fear and dislike that she opened the drawer where the little phial lay, and unrolling all the paper envelopes in which it was carefully folded, beheld it once more in the clear light of day.

"Nothing, nothing, but a grotesque little scent-bottle-why should I be afraid of it ?—a poor little pretty toy.”

So she said, as she folded it up again, and deposited it once more where it had lain all night. But for all that she felt a mysterious sense of relief when she ran lightly from her chamber into the open air, conscious that the harmless little "toy" was no longer present.

V. THE CHATEAU DES ANGES.

The next day Monsieur Le Prun returned. His vanity ascribed the manifest agitation of Lucille's manner to feelings very unlike the distrust, alarm, and aversion which, since her last night's adventure, had filled her mind. He came, however, armed with votive evidences of his passion, alike more substantial and more welcome than the gallant speeches in which he dealt. He brought her, among other jewels, a suit of brilliants which must have cost alone some fifteen or twenty thousand francs. He seemed to take a delight in overpowering her with the costly exuberance of his presents. Was there in this a latent distrust of his own personal resources, and an anxiety to astound and enslave by means of his magnificence-to overwhelm his proud but dowerless bride with the almost fabulous profusion and splendour of his wealth? Perhaps there was, and the very magnificence which dazzled her was prompted more by meanness than generosity.

This time he came accompanied by a gentleman, the Sieur de Blassemare, who appeared pretty much what he actually was a sort of general agent, adviser, companion, and hanger-on of the rich Fermier-General.

The Sieur de Blassemare had his titres de noblesse, and started in life with a fair fortune. This, however, he had seriously damaged by play, and he was now obliged to have recourse to that species of dexterity, to support his luxuries, which, employed

He

by others, had been the main agent
in his own ruin. The millionaire and
parvenu found him invaluable.
was always gay, always in good hu-
mour; a man of birth and breeding,
well accepted, in spite of his suspected
rogueries, in the world of fashion-an
adept in all its ways, as well as in the
mysteries of human nature; active, in-
quisitive, profligate; the very man to
pick up intelligence when it was need-
ed-to execute a delicate commission,
or to advise and assist in any pro-
ject of taste. In addition to all these
gifts and perfections, his fund of good
spirits and scandalous anecdote was in-
exhaustible, and so Monsieur Le Prun
conceived him very cheaply retained
at the expense of allowing him to cheat
him quietly of a few score crowns at an
occasional game of picquet.

This fashionable sharper and voluptuary was now somewhere about fiveand-forty; but with the assistance of his dress, which was exquisite, and the mysteries of his toilet, which was artistic in a high degree, and above all, his gaiety, which never failed him, he might easily have passed for at least six years younger.

It was the wish of the benevolent Monsieur Le Prun to set the Visconte quite straight in money matters; and as there still remained, like the electric residuum in a Leyden vial after the main shock has been discharged, some few little affairs not quite dissipated in the explosion of his fortunes, and which, before his re-appearance even in the

back-ground of society, must be arranged, he employed his agile aid-decamp, the Sieur de Blassemare, to fish out these claims and settle them.

It was not to be imagined that a young girl, perfectly conscious of her beauty, with a great deal of vanity and an immensity of ambition, could fail to be delighted at the magnificent presents with which her rich old lover had that day loaded her.

She spread them upon the counterpane of her bed, and when she was tired of admiring them, she covered herself with her treasures, hung the flashing necklace about her neck, and clasped her little wrists in the massive bracelets, stuck a pin here and a brooch there, and covered her fingers with sparkling jewels; and though she had no looking-glass larger than a playing-card in which to reflect her splendour, she yet could judge in her own mind very satisfactorily of the effect. Then, after she had floated about her room, and curtsied, and waved her hands to her heart's content, she again strewed the bed with these delightful, intoxicating jewels, which flashed actual fascination upon her gaze.

At that moment her gratitude effervesced, and she almost felt that, provided she were never to behold his face again, she could-not love but like Monsieur Le Prun very well; she half relented, she almost forgave him; she would have received with good-will, with thanks, and praises, anything and everything he pleased to give her, except his company.

Meanwhile the old Visconte, somewhat civilised and modernised by recent restorations, was walking slowly to and fro in the little bowling-green, side by side with Blassemare.

“Yes,” he said, "with confidence I give my child into his hands. It is a great trust, Blassemare; but he is gifted with those qualities, which, more than wealth, conduce to married happiness. I confide in him a great trust, but I feel I risk no sacrifice."

A comic smile, which he could not suppress, illuminated the dark features of Blassemare, and he looked away as if studying the landscape until it subsided.

"He is the most disinterested and generous of men," resumed the old gentleman.

Ma foi, so he is," rejoined his companion; "but Mademoiselle de Charrebourg happened to be precisely the person he needed; birth, beauty, simpli

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And will make one of the handsomest as she will, no doubt, one of the most loving wives in France," said Blassemare, gravely.

"And he will make, or I am no prophet, an admirable husband,” resumed the Visconte; "he has so much good feeling and so much.

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"So much money," suggested Blassemare, who was charmed at the Vis coute's little hypocrisy; "ay, by my faith, that he has; and as to that little bit of scandal, those mysterious reports, you know," he added, with a malicious simplicity.

"Yes, I know," said the Visconte, shortly.

"All sheer fiction, my dearVisconte," continued Blassemare, with a shrug and a smile of disclaimer.

"Of course, of course," said the Visconte, peremptorily.

"It was talked about, you know," persisted his malicious companion,

about twenty years ago, but it is quite discredited now-scouted. You can't think how excellently our good friend the Fermier-General is established in society. But I need not tell you, for of course you satisfied yourself; the alliance on which I felicitate Le Prun proves it."

The Visconte made a sort of wincing smile and a bow. He saw that Blassemaure was making a little scene out of his insincerities for his own private entertainment. But there is a sort of conventional hypocrisy which had become habitual to them both. It was like a pair of blacklegs cheating one another for practice with their eyes open. So Blassemare presented his snuff-box, and the Visconte, with equal bonhommie, took a pinch, and the game was kept up pleasantly between them.

Meanwhile Lucille, in her chamber, the window of which opened upon the bowling-green, caught a word or two of the conversation we have just sketched. What she heard was just sufficient to awaken the undefined but anx ious train of ideas which had become

connected with the image of Monsieur Le Prun. Something seemed all at once to sadden and quench the fire that blazed in her diamonds; they were disenchanted; her heart no longer danced in their light. With a heavy sigh she turned to the drawer where the charmed vial lay; she took it out; she weighed it in her hand.

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After all," she said, "it is but a toy. Why should it trouble me? What harm can be in it?"

She placed it among the golden store that lay spread upon her coverlet. But it would not assimilate with those ornaments; on the contrary, it looked only more quaint and queer, like a suspicious stranger among them. She hurriedly took it away, more dissatisfied, somehow, than ever. She inwardly felt that there was danger in it, but what could it be? what its purpose, significance, or power? Conjecture failed her. There it lay, harmless and pretty for the present, but pregnant with unknown mischief, like a painted egg, stolen from a serpent's nest, which time and temperature are sure to hatch at last.

The strangest circumstance about it was, that she could not make up her mind to part with or destroy it. It exercised over her the fascination of a guilty companionship. She hated but could not give it up. And yet, after all, what a trifle to fret the spirits even of a girl!

It is wonderful how rapidly impressions of pain or fear, if they be not renewed, lose their influence upon the conduct and even upon the spirits. The scene in the glen, the image of the unprepossessing and mysterious pythoness, and the substance and manner of the sinister warning she communicated, were indeed fixed in her memory ineffaceably. But every day that saw her marriage approach in security and peace, and her preparations proceed without molestation, served to dissipate her fears and to obliterate the force of that hated scene.

It was, therefore, only now and then that the odd and menacing occurrence recurred to her memory with a depressing and startling effect. At such moments, it might be of weakness, the boding words, "Don't marry him; if you do you shall see me again," smote upon her heart like the voice of a spectre, and she felt that chill, succeeded by vague and gloomy anxiety, which superstition ascribes to the passing presence of a spirit from the grave.

VOL. XXXVI.-NO. CCXIV.

"I don't think you are happy, dear Lucille, or may be you are offended with me," said Julie St. Pierre, turning her soft blue eyes full upon her handsome companion, and taking her hand timidly between her own.

They were sitting together on a wild bank, shaded by a screen of brushwood, in the park. Lucille had been silent, abstracted, and, as it seemed, almost sullen during their walk, and poor little timid Julie, who cherished for her girlish friend that sort of devotion with which gentler and perhaps better natures are so often inspired by firmer wills, and more fiery tempers, was grieved and perplexed.

"Tell me, dear Lucille, are you angry with me?"

"I angry! no, indeed; and angry with you, my dear, dear little friend! I could not be, dear Julie, even were I to try."

And so they kissed heartily again and again.

"Then," said Julie, sitting down by her, and taking her hand more firmly in hers, and looking with such a loving interest as nothing could resist in her face, " you are unhappy. Why don't you tell me what it is that grieves you? I dare say I could give you very wise counsel, and, at all events, console you. At the convent the pensioners used all to come to me when they were in trouble, and, I assure you, I always gave them good advice."

“But I am not unhappy."
"Really?"

"No, indeed."

"Well, shall I tell you? I thought you were unhappy because you are going to be married to my uncle."

"Folly, folly, my dear little prude. Your uncle is a very good man, and a very grand match. I ought to be delighted at a prospect so brilliant."

Even while Lucille spoke, she felt a powerful impulse to tell her little companion all her fondness for Dubois, her aversion for Monsieur Le Prun, the scene with the strange woman, and her own forebodings; but such a confession would have been difficult to reconcile with her fixed resolution to let the affair take its course, and at all hazards marry the man whom, it was vain to disguise it from herself, she disliked, distrusted, and feared.

"I was going to give you comfort by my own story. I never told you before that I, too, am affianced." "Affianced! and to whom?"

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