by the countess and Doctor le Bris, enter a carriage on leaving the church, and drive out of Paris on their way to Italy. Throughout the journey, the count pays unremitting and respectful attentions to the invalid, who accepts them coldly, without thanks. Towards the little Gomez, towards the noble old mother-in-law, she displayed all the sweet womanly graces of mother and daughter. With the doctor, she is friendly and confiding, as with an elder brother. To her husband she showed more than the caprices of a womanmore than the querulousness of an invalid. One day, when he asked after her health, she answered, with a calmness just colored by a sneer, that she was getting on finely-her suffering was on the increase! He felt the bitterness of the reproach, and felt that he had no right to protest. Under pretense of viewing the landscape, he turned his head to the window, and she saw tears fall on the carriage wheels. Three months of Italian travel improved neither her health nor her humor. At Nice, the population was made up of consumptive patients like herself; the festal gayety of Florence mocked her suffering-was at discord with her dying estate; the Campo Santo of Pisa, the sombre master-piece of Orcagua, frightened her morbid imagination; Rome, with its empty palaces, and deserted streets, and ancient ruins, seemed like a sepulchre, and they went to Naples.

At the table d'hôte of their hotel, in this last-named city, the doctor and the count chanced to meet with a rosycheeked young Englishman, who told them that two years before he was in the last stages of consumption. The physicians had given him up. He only sought an easy place to die in, and went to the south side of the Isle of Corfu to await his last hour. The climate, quiet, and abstinence from medicine, had made him a well man.

It would appear from M. About's graphic account of its various attractions, that the Isle of Corfu has not only hygienic advantages far superior to those of the vaunted resorts for pulmonary sufferers in Italy and the South of France, but that it is a delightful and equally desirable residence for that large class of unfortunates who suffer from chronic or transient feebleness of purse. The climate is paradisiacal, so

ciety good, and expenses of living at a minimum.

Our travelers, accordingly, sail for Corfu, where they install themselves in a fine old half-ruined country mansion.

Meantime, the old Duke de la Tour d'Embleuse was busy, with the means furnished by the price of his daughter, in renewing his experience of the pleasures of Paris. With appetite excited by long abstinence, he soon seeks its gratification in scenes of low debauchery, to the disgrace of his rank. To raise him from such degradation, the Baron de Sanglié, knowing that an attempt at complete reform would be idle, introduced him to circles on the confines of the respectable world, where its external refinements and forms of decency are preserved. Here the old rake becomes acquainted with, and soon enamored of, the beautiful Madame Chermidy. Under the skillful processes of this woman, who takes a vengeful pleasure in doing mischief to the family whose daughter, by persisting to live, robs her of her love and impedes the fulfillment of her plans, he assigns over to her the inscription of rente which he had received from the count; and finally brings to her, what, before all things, she was anxious to see, the letters written by Germaine, the countess, and the doctor, to the duchess.

She had been kept informed by the doctor, with whom she arranged a correspondence before his departure, of Germaine's condition, which was always represented as nearly hopeless-i. e., very promising for the hopes of the ambitious Arlesienne. But the letters to the duchess showed matters in a somewhat different, and, to her, much less cheerful light. Without exactly contradicting the reports sent her by the doctor, they represented Germaine as possessed of a curious degree of vitality; for, after resisting a severe attack of illness at Corfu, she was strong enough to write a long letter to her mother, containing warm expressions of love for young Gomez and her mother-in-law. The name of her husband, though unaccompanied by any expressions of tenderness, occurred with a suspicious frequency in this epistle, as did, also, allusions to his mistress, doubly disagreeable to the fair reader, as being, in the first place, uncomplimentary, and then, as indicating some

thing like jealousy on the part of the writer. It was, furthermore, evident, from this letter, that Germaine was clinging to life with a new energy of will and wish, as though the world was found to contain new objects worth living for. Had she come to love the really noble nature of her husband, in spite of the external show of indifference which her pride bade her to preserve toward a man who had based his courtship of her on the calculation of her death? Could Don Diego come to love her? Such were among the perplexing questions suggested by perusal of this correspondence. The physician writes that iodine may possibly help the patient, and sends for an inhaling apparatus of Chartroule. The dowager writes for another servant, from Paris, to take the place of old Gil, one of the Villanera domestics who had accompanied the party, and of whose faithful attentions Germaine makes grateful mention, but who returns to Paris on account of ill health.

Madame Chermidy, seriously alarmed at the state of things, takes into council her femme de chambre and confidante. This girl is the namesake and distant relation of her mistress, and attached to her with a canine devotion. Her love and fidelity in that direction absorb all that is good, or that simulates goodness, in her half-savage nature. In her early life, when she resided at Toulon, she had made strange acquaintances, whom she had not entirely lost sight of on coming to Paris. Accordingly she finds, without much difficulty, a person of the name of Mantoux, who, after the expiration of a term of service in the galleys at Toulon, is rather unsuccessfully trying to earn an honest livelihood, as a locksmith, at Corbeil, near Paris. He is quite ready to go to Corfu as body-servant in a family, one of whose members is very ill. Should the lady die, he will receive an annuity of 1,200 francs. The femme de chambre takes occasion, incidentally, to remark, that sick persons have sometimes been killed by arsenic being accidentally mingled with their drinks.

On the recommendation of the bewitching Chermidy, this man is readily approved by the weak old duke, and immediately proceeds to the Villa Dandolo in the Isle of Corfu, whither we will follow him.

When he is installed in his functions,

he manages, adroitly enough, to administer to Germaine, daily, a very weak solution of arsenic in wine and water. The fragile inhaling apparatus of Dr. Chartroule, which he had brought, proved to be broken when unpacked, but another was obtained, as soon as possible, and to its use Dr. le Bris attributed the perceptible improvement of his patient's health. A slight color began to tint her pale cheeks; the very skeleton that she had been began to take on flesh; her fine golden hair no longer wreathed a death's-head; when they bore her out to the garden she inspired the genial air with a longer breath; latterly, she permitted the count to read to her, as she lay there, reclined in her long chair, and seemed almost interested in what he read.

One day, after he had been reading for some time, he observed that she had fallen asleep. He laid aside the book, and, softly approaching, knelt by her side. He bowed his face fondly over the slumberer, but dared not touch her lips. A sentiment of delicacy, of shame and deep self-reproach, to think how he had become her husband, forbade him to catch, by stealth, a kiss from his wife.

We must pass rapidly over the next month or two and the next fifty pages. Suffice it to say, that the strength and beauty of our heroine have steadily increased. Auscultation shows that the lungs are rapidly healing. The delighted doctor, though allowing a larger part to Providence than young physicians are apt to, cannot sing sufficient praises to iodine. The villain, Mantoux, who has received a hint and a threat, in an anonymous letter, from the Faubourg St. Honoré, plies his minute doses of arsenic, and wonders, even more than the doctor, that the cure goes

on.

A charming courtship is going on between husband and wife. Her humor has improved with her health; she is glad and grateful for the constant proofs of his devotion; the recollections of the marriage contract and the wedding ceremony are less painfully vivid. Still, a little remnant of wounded pride, a jealous doubt of the share that Parisian woman yet has in his heart; and, perhaps, more than that, the natural shyness of an inexperienced young girlfor she is nothing more-restrain the undisguised display of her affection. On his part, Don Diego having been so

long rebuffed, conscious that he has no right to complain, timid as the strong are when in love, respectfully waits for encouragement to avow his passion.

One day they gave a dinner to some pleasant Corfu neighbors who had become their friends. The conversation at dessert chanced to turn on the British East Indian policy, and this very naturally led one of the guests to mention the news just brought by the last steamer, of the "affair at Ky-Tcheou, where the Chinese had killed two missionaries and the commandant of a French ship-the Naiade, Captain Chermidy!" Don Diego turned suddenly pale; the old countess rose from table, and the guests went into the drawing-room. Poor Germaine felt that the decisive moment of her life had come, and that Villanera, not le Bris, could now alone preserve it. She escaped from the company as soon as she could, leading away her husband into the garden.

Here follows a conversation, a forgiveness of the past, a mutual avowal, and, altogether, as pretty a love scene as was ever enacted by twilight under the soft sky of the Ionian Isles. It does great credit to M. About, as a literary artist, and forces one to think better of his heart. As for pure, sweet, naïve, beautiful, loving Germaine-we envy the privilege of the delighted Don Diego, as he tenderly kisses her two little hands, which, a moment afterwards, are locked about his neck, as she draws down his head, till his lips meet hers-for the first time.

She regained her chamber, overcome by glad emotions. Hope and an eager desire for continued life and health grew strong in her. She wanted to hasten her cure; she grew impatient of the doctor's caution. If it is the iodine that is so healing in its virtues, why not inhale the life-giving fumes in full, long breaths?

When the countess entered her room, an hour afterwards, she found the apparatus broken on the floor, and Germaine burning with a violent fever. The doctor was frightened at the excited condition of his patient, which seemed hardly to be accounted for solely by an immoderate use of iodine. The next morning, he recognized an inflammation of the lungs; and was in despair. Physicians from the town were sent for. One of them timidly suggested a gleam VOL. X.-6

of hope; "perhaps," he said, "it is an adhesive inflammation, which will reunite the cavities, and repair all the injuries caused by her original malady." Poor le Bris shook his head: you might as well say to an architect that the shock of an earthquake would restore a tottering house to its equilibrium! Not only the members of her family, but all the friendly neighbors, who had become warmly attached to her, were filled with sorrow, and disputed the privilege of doing the slightest services for the sufferer. Mantoux, alone, was full of wild cheerfulness, as he thought of his annuity, and would walk about to view a little property that lay near the villa, and on which he had set his heart, as on an assured and pleasant retreat for his virtuous old age.

The fever set in the first of September. On the sixth, Dr. le Bris wrote to the duke-" When you receive this letter, she will be no more. Break the news carefully to the duchess." The same day, Mantoux wrote a few words to the femme de chambre of Madame Chermidy. The letters reached Paris the twelfth.

The duke received his as he was going out to make his daily visit to the Rue du Cirque. Its contents confused his poor, muddled brain, and he hurried to his dear Honorine for explanation and sympathy. He never had seen Madame Chermidy so beautiful; she was brilliant with joy. "Good-day, duke, and good-by," she said. "You wonder where I am going?-I am going to Corfu. You have lost your daughter? -Yes, I know; and I have found my son and the Count Villanera. Do I love him?-My poor duke, I have always loved him. He is free, now, and so am I. I shall be countess. want some money?-No! very well; but, remember, you can only have it from us for the future. Good-by!"

Do you

The wretched old man left the house, and ran about half-wildly in the streets. The loss of Honorine-the proof that she had never loved him-threatened to deprive him of the small stock of sense he had hitherto preserved. Toward nightfall he was met by the Baron Sanglié, who, by questioning, found out, at last, the story of the letter, and the affair of the morning in the Rue du Cirque. He led the duke home, informed the duchess, as he best could, of the sad news, and applied himself to heal the duke of

the violence of his folly. He succeeded, by gentleness and good-sense, in making him see Madame Cherinidy in her true colors. Recovered from his illusions, the old man, for the next few days, paid those sympathetic attentions to his heart-stricken wife, which were becoming to their common grief. He also took unwonted interest in household details, recognized the necessity of .some purchases, borrowed 2,000 francs of the baron to defray the expenses, and started for Corfu on the 20th September, without taking leave of any

one.

On the 8th, Germaine, to the surprise of her physicians, passed the crisis of the fever, and entered on a rapid convalescence. The faint gleam of hope burst into genial, life-giving light. The earthquake's shock had righted the house. Le Bris could hardly contain his transports. Mantoux grew melancholy, and inwardly cursed the Corfu apothecaries for adulterating their poisons. On the 22nd, the duchess, in Paris, received a compound letter from all the party, which informed her of her daughter's radical

cure.

Madame Chermidy landed at Corfu the same day. She took a carriage next morning, and drove to the Villa Dandolo. The doors were open, no one at home. Had the Villaneras already returned to France? She descended into the garden, and saw, at a little distance, a lady in white. What is this? That is not the color of a house in mourning. A little child appears in the alley, is frightened at sight of a stranger, and runs toward the white lady. The Chermidy pursues her son, and in a moment stands before Germaine, face to face. The first shock of disappointment, proportioned to the height of ambitious hope from which she fell, seemed for a moment to stun her. But hatred soon rose uppermost in the tumult of passions. As she regarded her successful rival, blooming with youth and happiness, she thought of the little Corsican poniard, which was always an ornament of her chimney-piece. Then her glances alternated from the slight form of the young countess to the waves that bathed the wall of the deserted garden. Germaine had never before seen the Arlesian; but, a few words of conversation, aided by the rare instinct of womanly love

and jealousy, quickly told her that she was in presence of her enemy. Passion roused her nature, and inspired her with a strange energy. The interview might have had a tragic close, had it not been interrupted by the arrival of the doctor, who, with a mixture of firmness and easy gallantry that could not be resisted, offered the intruder his arm and led her away.

Madame Chermidy was not, however, one to be thus easily frustrated of her purpose. She must see the count. If he refused a meeting, she would make scandal; she would publish the story of his marriage; the world should know that the heir of the Villaneras was a Chermidy. She found a pretty house and garden to let, near the Villa Dandolo-the same little estate that Mantoux so coveted. She hired it the 24th, furnished it the 25th, took possession the morning of the 26th, and wrote word to let Don Diego know of her neighborhood.

The poor man, meantime, was not lying upon roses. That he was thoroughly cured of his passion, Germaine was convinced, when she watched his countenance as she narrated to him the visit she had received from his former mistress.

At the same time, he could not forget that his wrong-doing had been as great as hers; nor would he forget that she was a woman, and a woman whom for three years he had loved. He could accord her a gentle pity. Germaine thought none the less of her husband for these sentiments, expressed with delicacy and manliness, and was even ready to assent to his seeing the Chermidy for the last time, and persuading her of the fruitlessness of her pursuit. The old countess took a different view of the affair, and put her absolute veto on the proposition: "This creature," she said, "has held you fast for three years. I know that you do not love her now; but you do not despise her enough to convince me that you are thoroughly cured. I will not expose you to a relapse. You need not shake your head. Flesh is weak, my son; I know it by your experience, in lack of my own. I know what men are, though they never courted me. But when one has frequented the theatre for fifty years, one learns something of stage-tricks.. And so, my dear son, you will not go to the Chermidy's, not even to give her a final dismissal;

....

or, if you choose to go there in spite of me, you will find neither your mother nor your wife when you come back."

The old lady was one who kept her promises. Don Diego knew her character, and renounced the discussion; but, for the next three days, he was ill at ease. The doctor took him in charge, and set to work to destroy his obstinate illusions regarding the Arlesian. He finally completes the proofs of her real character, by breaking confidence and showing a letter to himself, in which, under a thin disguise of metaphor, she offers le Bris 500,000 francs if he will see to Germaine's speedy decease. Pity, respect, and whatever of tenderer feeling had remained subtly mingled with them, yield place to disgust and hor

ror.

And now arrives the broken old duke. His coming was a painful surprise to his daughter, and a cruel lesson to Don Diego. But Madame Villanera, who had never had cause to esteem him, was well pleased to have at hand, by way of argument, the wretched victim of Madame Chermidy, and triumphed as she drew his story from the garrulous dotard. He had been raving of his Honorine for several hours, when a servant brought in the letter from Madame Chermidy to Don Diego. The count showed it to the doctor, and asked his advice. The doctor thought the best thing to be done was to buy her off, and departed for the neighboring house with full powers to arrange for raising the siege.

But the enemy holds firm. She rejects all proposals, and, to close the negotiations, hands to the envoy a paper, which she requests him to read and give to the count. He read: "This is my last will and testament. On the eve of voluntarily quitting a life which the desertion of M. le comte Villanera has rendered odious to me, I, Honorine Lavenaze, widow Chermidy, being of sound body and mind, do give and bequeath all my estate, real and personal, to Gomez, Marquis de los Montes de Hieros, only son of the Count de Villanera, my former lover-"

The trick was not altogether novel. The doctor smiled his incredulity. "And why," asked the lady, "should I not kill myself?" "Because, my dear madame, it would give too much pleasure to three or four worthy persons of our acquaintance. Adieu, madame,”

The conversation takes a new turn. After reproaches cast upon Mantoux for permitting the recovery of Germaine, which that unsuccessful practitioner bears with humility, it is arranged that he shall return to the villa, listen carefully to the conversation at dinner, and, in case the count does not come in the evening, as he is still expected to, then to present himself again.

During the dinner, the duke kept his eyes fixed on Mantoux. The feeble rays of his sinking intellect seemed to concentrate themselves on any object that bore any relation to his Honorine. He remembered to have seen this man in the Rue du Cirque. After dinner he drew him away to his chamber, and there implored him to tell where she was hidden.

They have all seen her!" he cried"the doctor and the count have seen her, and my daughter, too, has seen her! They keep me from her: find her for me!

She will kill herself! She has sent her will to my son-in-law. They laugh; but I know her better than they do. She certainly will kill herself. Why not? She has killed me. You remember that dagger which was on her mantelpiece in Paris. She struck it through my heart one day. To-night she will strike it through her own, if I do not reach her in time. Take me to her. You know where she is." Mantoux solemnly declared that he did not, and managed to escape from the old man's importunities.

At midnight, when all in the house were quiet, he softly stole out and took his way to the appointed rendezvous. As he went along by the hedges, he fancied more than once that a shadowy something was gliding after him under the trees. He even turned back upon his path to see whether it was a reality or a creation of his guilty fears; but, discovering nothing, took courage again and went on toward a light that shone from a single window in Madame Chermidy's room. The femme de chambre was waiting for him at the door, and

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