a return of that love which impels me to undertake it? I want no absolute promise any more than a conditional one. I know Diane to be a mere girl, on whom, before her time, have fallen some of life's greatest difficulties. I want to help her through these; but with what a different feeling would I undertake the task were hope of winning her at stake, I leave you to guess. I simply adore her very name, let alone the person herself. Think, then, what love would achieve where friendship is ready to do so much."

The poor governess took to her tears again.

"How well, monsieur, I enter into your feelings, and how justified are you in entertaining them. If you only knew Diane as I do, you would worship her very tread; for I, a woman, have never known anything so adorable. She is loyalty itself. Her sense of duty and justice is beyond her years; and her loving heart, where it yields, is so gentle, so feminine, so pure so good, that the reward of its bestowal is a prize noble men would have every right to pride in."

I rose a hundred per cent in my estimation after this, for had I not been selected as the chosen confidant of this lovely paragon of beauty and virtue ?

"As I told you before," the governess went on, "I was not aware that you had laid any claim on Mademoiselle Diane's affections, and as she has told me nothing on the subject, I can give you no encouragement whatever; but it is fair that you should know how you stand, and I will let you know, if I can, how matters are."

my

"I thank you with all heart," I said; "though, believe

an ally in me."

She was just going to leave the room, when remembering the postscript in Diane's letter, I said to Mademoiselle Garoux, Will you kindly give Diane a direct message from me, which, though perhaps enigmatical to you, will, I think, be understood by her, as it only refers to a little conversation we had last night, and say that the sky is always blue for me while I deserve her favour ?"

"I will," said the governess, and left the room, out of which I accompanied her.

On my return I had scarcely time to reflect upon the extraordinary position which in twentyfour hours I had created for myself, when the servant again came in, and in an airy way said, "Monsieur has many visitors this morning."

"Who wants to see me now?" "A gentleman this time," he said, with a smile.

"Give me his card."
"Here it is."

"Le Comte de Maupert, Sénateur," was what I read. Good heavens! had he met the governess? That was my first thought. I do not care, was the second.

"Ask him to come up," I said. I was too astonished to think of anything, or determine on any action, before the door opened and there entered a handsome, gentlemanlike person, with the red rosette of a Commander of the Legion of Honour at his button-hole, and a very long ebony stick in his hand.

He was plainly dressed in a tightly fitting frock-coat buttoned. up to the collar, and wore a black neck-tie in the shape of a bow, with the ends showing on each side of the coat.

His hair had a touch of grey, and a small imperial gave his face

a longer cut than perhaps his square chin would otherwise have allowed; and altogether his expression was, if not positively amiable, that rather of a good-natured than of a bad-tempered man.

I felt rather as if I were in presence of some kind male relative about to rebuke me than in that of a rival, and the person I at that moment hated more cordially than any other in the world. Standing at the door, hat in hand, he said "It is very good of you to receive me, monsieur, though I was sure you would not refuse me an interview, seeing that your intimacy with several members of the family of Mademoiselle de Breteuille has probably suggested to you already the motives of my visit to you this morning."

I made up my mind on hearing this to listen rather to the end than to make any premature remarks, and begged the Count to take a chair.

When he had seated himself, and finding I preserved a discreet silence, he went on

"I have the honour of being engaged to marry Mademoiselle de Breteuille. Happening to hear that a family dinner to which I was bidden, but cannot unfortunately attend this evening at that young lady's aunt, is to have the addition of your presence, I have come perfectly frankly, and, as you see, with absolute confidence in an English gentleman's honour and high breeding, to request a favour from you."

"But, sir," I quickly remarked, "this dinner was arranged before your engagement, which you now announce to me, was even thought of; I beg that you will bear that in mind."

"I am aware of it, he replied; "but the young lady whom I hope to marry

At this word I gave a frown;

the Count looked at me, squared his chin, and repeated-" whom I hope to marry, does not find it in her power to forego the pleasure she anticipates of dining there, and as your acquaintance with our country may have told you, it is not usual for young persons who are affianced to go out where their betrothed is not one of the company."

I remained stolidly silent.

"As, of course, I could not say as much to Mademoiselle de Breteuille, I have come, very simply as you see, to ask you to make the sacrifice which it would be wrong to urge on my fiancée, seeing how much she had set her heart on this outing."

"Monsieur le Comte," I observed, "your visit does me great honour, and I assure you I appreciate the candour of your request as much as I do your generosity in not depriving a young girl of so modest a recreation as a family dinner at her aunt's."

I could not help this somewhat sarcastic thrust, for indeed I felt disgusted with the cunning selfishness of this old sinner, as I considered him, wishing to deprive Diane of her evening's amusement, and maybe her last chance of seeing me.

"You mistake me," said the Count; "nothing is further from my thoughts. I have told you exactly what I mean, and I mean every word I have said, neither more nor less."

"And have you considered how rude my behaviour would appear to Madame de Chantalis, who has purposely asked me to meet Mademoiselle Diane?"

"Do you know Mademoiselle de Breteuille so well," asked the Count, as to call her by her Christian name ? Her father tells me he has never met you. Her mother

made your acquaintance last night, and, if I remember well, Mademoiselle de Breteuille made her entrée dans le monde yesterday for the first time."

This piqued me, for I certainly was not in the humour to stand lecturing, but I said nothing.

"I thought, monsieur," he continued, "that I had come here to ask a favour of a gentleman and a friend of my fiancée's relatives-no more. If you have another title, I must make my bow and retire."

I got up frantic, and looking at the man from top to toe as he stood up in response to my movement, I said-

"You have appealed to me as an English gentleman and a man of honour. Being the latter yourself, you no doubt will understand me; but not being an Englishman, our codes may slightly differ. As an Englishman, I distinctly refuse to learn from a stranger what, being a friend, as you justly surmise, of Mademoiselle de Breteuille's relatives, I have not yet learnt regarding that young person's position towards you."

He gave me an ugly look, which only urged me on.

"Pray, believe I do not doubt your word in any one particular; but until officially announced to me, I ignore your engagement altogether."

"And you decline my request?" "I do, on the ground which I have stated, and on a still higher ground-viz., that the little I have seen of the lady in question has been enough to prove to me that she is the soul of loyalty, and can be absolutely trusted to do nothing derogatory either to herself or to the position in which you tell me she is now placed as regards yourself."

"That position," said the Count, with a faint smile, "must have

been known to you, as I met a moment ago a loyal messenger from a trusted friend."

"Who," I continued snarlingly, "would shake the foundations of her projected marriage to a heap of ruins, were her pride to be insulted by the knowledge that her future trustful husband had committed the singular blunder, for a man of your experience, to pay me the visit which you will permit me not to return.'

"Un rival!" hissed the Count. "Even there you are wrong, for I know nothing of Mademoiselle Diane's sentiments towards me; and as an Englishman again, I would try and find that out before I could call myself by such an honourable appellation.

This was, I thought, a capital home-thrust; but the Count apparently had weighed matters in the meanwhile, and gauged correctly that for the present, at least, there was no secret understanding between Diane and myself—a point, no doubt, he had exclusively been anxious to ascertain; satisfied apparently with this knowledge, he made me a stiff bow, remarking that he regretted having disturbed me, while he quite understood that national differences of perception fully accounted for my not seeing matters in the light he had hoped

I would look at them.

He took his departure, and I was left to my reflections, which, it need not be remarked, were of a confused and at first not altogether pleasant character.

The above reported conversations sufficiently indicate their nature, and I need not, therefore, dilate more upon them here; but their purport presently grew brighter, and bright above everything rose the knowledge that Diane trusted me, as evinced by her letter; that against the mischief which the

governess's visit to my rooms might cause both Mademoiselle Garoux and her lovely charge, I held in my hands so sure a card, that I knew the Count would not venture to betray his secret; and lastly, that out of the Count's visit, which at first looked uncommonly like depriving me, on honourable grounds, of the happiness of meeting Diane again, I had come out a free man to act as I pleased, and as a faithful lover who had not committed his mistress. Anger soon made way to satisfaction, fear to hope, on a calm review of all the morning's proceedings. Feeling, however, that air was the one thing most likely to soothe my fevered head, I went out, only to return at five o'clock to another epistle, which gave me a start, as this time it was in the hand of the Comtesse de Chantalis.

"To put me off!" was my first exclamation. The brutal Count has done his work, I thought, and here, with an official notification of his betrothal, comes the end of all my hopes. I was in despair, and for some minutes dared not open the note.

I did so, however, in the end, and this is what it contained.

There was no heading, and the note appeared written in a hurry; but then Madame de Chantalis did everything in a hurry, and all she did was characteristic.

"Why could you not tell me yesterday the cause of your animation ? I know all. Diane has told me. Fortunate mortal! Be sides, if she had not, I would have known. I have eyes, and saw you last night; but beware! the young person has wings, and has jumped this morning, not into the arms of her 'future,' but into those of Hymen. If your torch is burning at that altar, it may be well for you

and for her not to meet this evening; but as I never betray a secret when I do not know it, I am quite content that you should come and divert me, since the radiant expression of your gratitude at being asked to dine with me and Raymond may, unless otherwise explained, have been after all intended for me, and I have positively declined old Maupert's desire to deprive me of your company. What have you done to that worthy nephew in posse, that he should wish you out of the way? or what is more to the point, where on earth have you seen him? Where did you meet? But these questions are too numerous for a butterfly like you to sit down and answer. Your only chance decidedly of satisfying me is by coming to-night, devoting yourself to me, and asking Diane something about the weather by way of polite and distant regard for a silent fiancée, whose attraction is too busy to dine with her at

MARIE DE BREteuille's, COMTESSE DE CHANTALIS."

I made a bound to the bell, and another to the writing-desk.

"DEAR COUNTESS," I wrote, " 'Nothing in the world will deprive me of my dinner with you this evening; and though Mademoiselle Diane is about to enter those holy bonds which you and Raymond make me thirst for, since they appear so delightful as represented by your two selves, you must recollect I cannot refuse to so beautiful a niece a share of the admiration I have for her aunt.

"Receive my humble and respectful homage, and expect me at seven."

"At last!" I exclaimed, when