316

"MY DEAR FRIEND-You have acquainted me with your disastrous position, and you have told me that your only hope is in me. Alas! my own resources are insufficient to meet the exigency, but I shall endeavor (with little hope, I avow) to find some one who shall assist us in this matter. It is possible that I may be successful; and, depend upon it, I shall endeavor to the utmost of my power to save you from failure. If I am to succeed in realizing the sum absolutely necessary at this time, I shall do so this morning, and shall bring it to you exactly at twelve o'clock, in the Orleans Gallery, where you will please to wait on me. I do not wish to call at your house with it, because I wish to spare you the pain of a somewhat embarrassing visit. If I am not there precisely at the hour, the game is up; I shall have failed, and you must consequently lose no time in carrying out your design of departing. When you have gone out of the way, your creditors will be more accommodating. You understand why I do not wish to be myself the bearer of bad news. I do not wish to be seen with you in the critical moment, lest my uncle, to whom, I believe, you are due some twenty thousand francs, should hear of it, and whose avarice would prompt him never to forgive me, if he supposed me to have aided in your flight. In case of misfortune, dispose of "Thy friend indeed,

me.

"LUCIEN BONAPARTE."

"Here I am now, at the fatal moment when my fate must be decided," said M. Dupin, as he walked hastily up and down the gallery. "I have reached the middle of that rapid current down which has glided so many fortunes: nothing can now arrest me. I have achieved my ruin by that vanity which impelled me to conceal my situation when I had still time enough to resign myself to an honorable fate. All my plans to sustain myself are crushed under foot, if Lucien's intervention is impotent. If he does not bring me a hundred thousand francs, which I am compelled to pay to-day, then I am gone." Whilst he made these cruel reflections, the banker looked twenty times at his watch, for the hour seemed to glide slowly on, notwithstanding his sufferings, and although the departure of each minute was to him the flight of hope. The indicator marked the hour at last-the fatal term which sealed the fate of the unfortunate man; and as he beheld the inexorable sign he felt a cold perspiration burst from his aching brain. “The

complished.". Still the despairing man walked from one end to the other of the gallery. He looked at all the passages, seemed anxious to leave the place, and still his footsteps lingered. It was only when his watch marked twenty-five minutes past twelve that the unfortunate Dupin hurried from the Palais-Royal. At the same moment his friend entered the Orleans Gallery, five minutes before the time fixed; for it was really five minutes less than twelve, but the banker had regulated his watch by the report of the cannon.

As Dupin walked from the Palais-Royal, he stepped into bankruptcy. A post-chaise had been hired, as a precaution in case of failure, and he sprung into it, and dashed off at full gallop, just as Lucien, who had carried him a cheque for a hundred thousand francs, was puzzling himself to find some motive for his absence. Would Lucien have believed the secret to have lain in that lucifer-match, the first effect of which had been a commercial disaster!

At the same hour a beautiful lady, in most elegant attire, swept gracefully into the passage Delorme. She made two or three very quick turns, and as she did so, an observer might easily have remarked upon her charming face an expression of mingled surprise, impatience, and anger. "It is very singular," said she, in a tone of evident vexation; "my watch is correct, since I have just received it from my watchmakers in the Palais-Royal; it is ten minutes past twelve. M. Leopold ought to have been here, to have accompanied me to the museum, and yet he has not made his appearance."

The surprise, impatience, and anger of the lady redoubled each moment, and truly they seemed to have sufficient cause to do so. Young, beautiful, rich, a widow, and surrounded by admirers, Madame de Luceval had especially distinguished from the crowd of her adorers M. Leopold de Versy. She had led him to hope, a little before to-day, that she might consent to resume for him the chains of Hymen, and in the meantime she had very willingly accepted his arm to visit the exhibition of the Louvre-a precious and enviable favor, which Leopold had accepted with gratitude; and yet, at the hour specified, he had failed to meet her.

"I expected to be outdone in punctuality," added Madame de Luceval, in a tone of vexation, "but I am mistaken. He has indeed a sufficiency of presumption!" she exclaimed, tossing her head. "He does not pride himself upon exactitude certainly; and if he puts off this way, at this point of our correspondence, what shall it

817

be when he has assumed the title of husband? M. Luceval had this same fault, and I know what I have suffered. My re-marrying only to fall into the same meshes would be rather a monotonous succession of events. I vow that my second husband shall differ from the first somewhat, and if it is our fate that we must suffer all sorts of wrongs and neglects from the haughty messieurs, I shall desire at least the benefit of variety." It will be seen that Madame de Luce. val was not very exacting. The watch, consulted for the last time, marked eighteen minutes past twelve. "My patience is exhausted," said the beautiful widow. "The most rigorous politeness only accords a quarter of an hour to your lagtardies, and in this case, where I ought to have found eager impatience, it is too much of me to have exceeded that space. To wait any longer would be a loss of time indeed."

Having said this, Madame de Luceval walked home, and Leopold, who arrived, all impatience, ten minutes before the hour appointed, had plenty of time to cool himself in the passage. It was now his turn to indulge in bitter reflections. "Has she forgotten? Will she come ? Is she playing with me? Is some other than I the happy he? But no, it cannot be―" Leopold paused and pondered for a few seconds; then shaking his head dubiously, he exclaimed, “Ah, these widows! with them a person never knows how to reckon; they have so much experience, and so much latitude of action." Four o'clock at last sounded at the Tuileries. "At least," said Leopold, with a very faint smile, "I shall find her again at home, where she invited me to dine. I shall not have lost more than a part of this precious day after all. A dinner, too, almost in tete-a-tete, for we shall have nobody with us but her deaf old uncle." Leopold accordingly walked briskly to the house of Madame Luceval.

"My mistress has gone out," said the maidservant, as she held the door in her hand. "Indeed! Then I shall wait for her; I have done so since morning," said Leopold.

"But madame may be very late before she returns home," said the femme de chambre, looking down at her pretty foot, as she beat lightly on the ground with it.

"She always comes home to dinner," said Leopold.

“Not always,” said the girl, saucily. “Madame went out just about an hour ago, and she said that she would dine in the city."

"Gone to put the finish to me!" thought Leopold, as he walked rapidly and angrily

away.

Each was as much piqued as the other, and instead of explaining fully, they shut themselves up in the silence of wounded dignity, which very often destroys the flowers of love. And what was the result of this little quarrel? Just this-that the projected marriage was irrevocably broken up, and that Madame Luceval sought from that moment a husband whose exactitude would be secure from every light suspicion. Who would have anticipated such results from a cannon discharged before its time-not the signal-gun of two hostile armies lying grinning at each other, or of two fleets ranged in order of battle, but the insignificant little cannon of the Palais-Royal, fired by an urchin who wanted to mystify the sun with a lucifer-match!

Doubtless the report of the cannon of the Pa lais Royal produced other consequences as serious and dramatic as those which we have recounted; but we have nothing more to advance than a petition for pardon in favor of the artilleryman, for certainly the urchin knew not what he did.

Ir I were King of my fatherland,
On some bright eastern shore,

I would not stand with armed band
A blood-stain'd son of war;

My flag should be on the olive-tree,
My people's wants my own,
Never should right give way to might,
Or good men sink unknown.

The sword might rust in mouldering dust,
Each warlike trapping fade-
For peace is more the wide world o'er,
Than conquest's gory trade;

My constant care would be to share

An equal right to all,

Not make the store of great men more,
By taking from the small.

And sable stole of Cyprus lawn,
Over thy decent shoulders drawn.
Come, but keep thy wonted state,
With even step, and musing gait,
And looks commercing with the skies,
Thy rapt soul sitting in thine eyes:
There, held in holy passion still,
Forget thyself to marble, till,
With a sad leaden downward cast,
Thou fix them on the earth as fast:

And join with thee calm Peace, and Quiet,
Spare Fast, that oft with Gods doth diet,

And hears the Muses, in a ring,

Aye round about Jove's altar sing.

THE beautiful plate which accompanies our present issue tells its own tale, and imparts a lesson to the impressiveness of which language could but little add. Penitence for wrong-doing, inspired by kindly yet judicious and firm parental discipline, and the joy of forgiveness based upon sincere amendment, are indicated in a striking manner by the painter's touch. There is a world of instruction in the sentiments expressed in the attitude and looks of these participants of the family scene, which unquestionably it entered into the

purpose of the artist to represent. Winterhalter is a German by birth; but by long residence has been naturalized in England, where he enjoys great reputation as a painter of graceful and unpretending compositions, and especially of portraits. His fine drawing and delicate execution make him a favorite artist with the aristocracy. He must now be somewhat advanced in life. The present is an early picture, more decidedly German in its line and accessories than his more recent picturés.