ing, stepped forward on hearing this proposition.

"Another day?" said he with a cruel sneer. "Before another day arrives, I shall doubtless be in prison for this morning's work. But no matter; if the gentleman is less ready to fight than he was to insult me, let him leave the field."

The scornful tone and insinuation brought a flush of shame and anger to the brow of the younger Noell. He detested himself for the momentary weakness he had shown, and a fierce flame of revenge kindled in his heart. "Murderer!" he exclaimed, "my brother's blood calls aloud for vengeance. May Providence make me its instrument!"

Dominique replied not. Under the same conditions as before, the two young men took their stations. But the chances were not equal. Dominique retained all his coolness; his opponent's whole frame quivered with passionate emotion. This time, neither was in haste to fire. Advancing slowly, their eyes fixed on each other, they reached at the same moment the limits of their walk. Then their pistols were gradually raised, and, as

if by word of command, simultaneously discharged. This time both balls took effect. The one that struck Dominique went through his arm, without breaking the bone, and lodged in his back, inflicting a severe but not a dangerous wound. But Martial Noell was shot through the head.

The news of this bloody business soon got wind, and the very same day it was the talk of all-Toulouse. Martial Noell had died upon the spot; his brother expired within forty-eight hours. The seconds got out of the way, till they should see how the thing was likely to go. Dominique's wound prevented his following their example, if he were so disposed; and when it no longer impeded his movements, he was already in the hands of justice. Frantic with grief on learning the fate of his beloved sons, Anthony Noell hurried to Toulouse, and vigorously pushed a prosecution. He hoped for a very severe sentence, and was bitterly disappointed when Dominique escaped, in consideration of his wounds and of his having been the insulted party, with the lenient doom of five years' imprisonment.

Five years of absence from home may glide rapidly enough away, when passed in pursuit of pleasure or profit; dragged out between prison walls, they appear an eternity, a chasm between the captive and the world. So thought Dominique as he reentered Montauban, at the expiration of his sentence. During the whole time, not a word of intelligence had reached him from his home, no friendly voice had greeted his ear, no line of familiar handwriting had gladdened his tearless eyes. Arrived in his native town, his first inquiry was for his father. Pascal Lafon was dead. The fate of his wife and son had preyed upon his health; the prison air had poisoned the springs of life in the strong, free-hearted man. The physician declared drugs useless in his case, for that the atmosphere of liberty alone could save him; and he recommended, if unconditional release were impossible, that the prisoner

should be guarded in his own house. The recommendation was forwarded to Paris, but the same post took a letter from Anthony Noell, and a few days brought the physician's dismissal and an order for the close confinement of Lafon. Examinations followed each other in rapid succession, but they served only to torment the prisoner, without procuring his release; and after some months he died, his innocence unrecognised. The cause of his death, and the circumstances attending it, were loudly proclaimed by the indignant physician; and Dominique, on his return to Montauban, had no difficulty in obtaining all the details, aggravated probably by the unpopularity of the judge. He heard them with unchanging countenance; none could detect a sign of emotion on that cheek of marble paleness, or in that cold and steadfast eye. He then made inquiries concerning Anthony Noell.

That

magistrate, he learned, had been promoted, two years previously, and now resided in his native town of Marseilles. At that moment, however, he happened to be at an hotel in Montauban. He had never recovered the loss of his sons, which had aged him twenty years in appearance, and had greatly augmented the harshness and sour severity of his character. He seemed to find his sole consolation in the society of his daughter, now a beautiful girl of seventeen, and in intense application to his professional duties. A tour of inspection, connected with his judicial functions, had now brought him to Montauban. During his compulsory absences from home, which were of annual occurrence and of some duration, his daughter remained in the care of an old female relation, her habitual companion, whose chief faults were her absurd vanity, and her too great indulgence of the caprices of her darling niece.

Dominique showed singular anxiety to learn every particular concerning Anthony Noell's household, informing himself of the minutest details, and especially of the character of his daughter, who was represented to him as warmhearted and naturally amiable, but frivolous and spoiled by over-indulgence. On the death of his sons, Noell renounced his project of sending her from home, and the consequence was, that her education had been greatly neglected. Madame Verlé, the old aunt already mentioned, was a well-meaning, but very weak widow, who, childless herself, had no experience in bringing up young women. In her own youth she had been a great coquette, and frivolity was still a conspicuous feature in her character. As M. Noell, since his sons' death, had shown a sort of aversion for society, the house was dull enough, and Madame Verlé's chief resource was the circulating library, whence she obtained a constant supply of novels. Far from prohibiting to her niece the perusal of this trash, she made her the companion of her unwholesome studies. The false ideas and highflown romance with which these books teemed, might have made little impression on a character fortified by sound principles

and a good education, but they sank deep into the ardent and uncultivated imagination of Florinda Noell, to whose father, engrossed by his sorrows and by his professional labours, it never once occurred to check the current of corruption thus permitted to flow into his daughter's artless mind. He saw her gay, happy, and amused, and he inquired no further; well pleased to find her support so cheerfully the want of society to which his morose regrets and gloomy eccentricity condemned her.

One of Dominique's first cares, on his return to Montauban, was to visit his parents' grave. Although his father died in prison, and his memory had never been cleared from the slur of accusation, his friends had obtained permission, with some difficulty, to inter his corpse beside that of his wife. The day was fading into twilight when Dominique entered the cemetery, and it took him some time to find the grave he sought. The sexton would have saved him the trouble, but the idea seemed a profanation; in silence and in solitude he approached the tomb of his affections and happiness. Long he sat upon the mound, plunged in reverie, but with dry eyes, for the source of tears appeared exhausted in his heart. Night came; the white tombstones looked ghastly pale in the moonlight, and cast long black shadows upon the turf. Dominique arose, plucked a wild-flower from his mother's grave, and left the place. He had taken but three steps when he became aware he was not alone in the churchyard. A tall figure rose suddenly from an adjacent grave. Although separated but by one lofty tombstone, the two mourners had been too absorbed and silent in their grief to notice each other's presence. Now they gazed at one another. The moon, for a moment obscured, emerged from behind a cloud, and shone upon their features. The recognition was mutual and instantaneous. Both started back. Between the graves of their respective victims, Anthony Noell and Dominique Lafon confronted each other.

A dusky fire gleamed in the eyes of Dominique, and his features, worn and emaciated from captivity, were distorted with the grimace of intense

The magistrate gazed at his inveterate foe with a fixed stare of horror, as though a phantom had suddenly risen before him. Then, slowly raising his hand, till it pointed to the grave of his sons, his eye still fixed, as if by fascination, upon that of Dominique, a single word, uttered in a hollow tone, burst from his quivering lips.

"Murderer!" he exclaimed.

Dominique laughed. It was a hideous sound, a laugh of unquenchable hatred and savage exultation. He approached Noell till their faces were but a few inches apart, and spoke in a voice of suppressed fierce

ness.

"My father and my mother," he said,expired in grief, and shame, and misery. By your causeless hate and relentless persecution, I was made an orphan. The debt is but half paid.

You have still a child. You still find happiness on earth. But you yet shall lose all-all! Yet shall you know despair and utter solitude, and your death shall be desolate, even as my father's was. Remember! We shall meet again."

And passing swiftly before the magistrate, with a gesture of solemn menace, Dominique left the cemetery. Noell sank, pale and trembling, upon his children's grave. His enemy had found him, and security had fled. Dominique's last words, "We shall meet again!" rang in his ears, as if uttered by the threatening voice of hostile and irresistible destiny. Slowly, and in great uneasiness, he returned into the town, which he left early the next day for Marseilles. To his terrified fancy, his daughter was safe only when he watched over her. So great was his alarm, that he would have resigned his lucrative and honourable office sooner than have remained longer absent from the tender flower whom the ruthless spoiler threatened to trample and destroy.

Months passed away, and spring returned. On a bright morning of May-in parched Provence the pleasantest season of the year-a motley cavalcade approached Marseilles by the Nice road. It consisted of two large waggons, a score of horses, and about the same number of men and women. The horses were chiefly white, cream-coloured, or piebald, and some of them bore saddles of peculiar make and fantastical colours, velvetcovered and decorated with gilding. One was caparisoned with a tigerskin, and from his headstall floated streamers of divers-coloured horsehair. The women wore riding-habits, some of gaudy tints, boddices of purple or crimson velvet, with long flaunting robes of green or blue. They were sunburned, boldfaced damsels, with marked features and of dissipated aspect, and they sat firmly on their saddles, jesting as they rode along. Their male companions were of corresponding appearance; lithe vigorous fellows, from fifteen to forty, attired in various hussar and jockey costumes,

with beards and mustaches fantastically trimmed, limbs well developed, and long curling hair. Various nations went to the composition of the band. French, Germans, Italians, and Gipsies made up the equestrian troop of Luigi Bartolo, which, after passing the winter in southern Italy, had wandered north on the approach of spring, and now was on its way to give a series of representations at Marseilles.

A little behind his comrades, upon a fine gray horse, rode a young Florentine named Vicenzo, the most skilful rider of the troop. Although but five-and-twenty years old, he had gone through many vicissitudes and occupations. Of respectable family, he had studied at Pisa, had been expelled for misconduct, had then enlisted in an Austrian regiment, whence his friends had procured his discharge, but only to cast him off for his dissolute habits. Alternately a professional gambler, a stage player, and a smuggler on the Italian frontier, he had now followed, for up

wards of a year, the vagabond life of a horse-rider. Of handsome person and much natural intelligence, he covered his profligacy and taste for low associations with a certain varnish of good breeding. This had procured him in the troop the nickname of the Marchese, and had made him a great favourite with the female portion of the strollers, amongst whom more than one fierce quarrel had arisen for the good graces of the fascinating Vi

cenzo.

The Florentine was accompanied by a stranger, who had fallen in with the troop at Nice, and had won their hearts by his liberality. He had given them a magnificent supper at their albergo, had made them presents of wine and trinkets-all apparently out of pure generosity and love of their society. He it was who had chiefly determined them to visit Marseilles, instead of proceeding north, as they had_originally intended, by Avignon to Lyons. He marched with the troop, on horseback, wrapped in a long loose coat, and with a broad hat slouched over his brow, and bestowed his companionship chiefly on Vicenzo, to whom he appeared to have taken a great affection. The strollers thought him a strange eccentric fellow, half cracked, to say the least; but they cared little whether he were sane or mad, so long as his society proved profitable, his purse well filled, and ever in his hand.

The wanderers were within three miles of Marseilles when they came to one of the bastides, or countryhouses, so thickly scattered around that city. It was of unusual elegance, almost concealed amongst a thick plantation of trees, and having a terrace, in the Italian style, overlooking the road. Upon this terrace, in the cool shade of an arbour, two ladies were seated, enjoying the sweet breath of the lovely spring morning. Books and embroidery were on a table before them, which they left on the appearance of the horse-riders, and, leaning upon the stone parapet, looked down on the unusual spectacle. The elder of the two had nothing remarkable, except the gaudy ribbons that contrasted with her antiquated physiognomy. The younger, in full flush of youth, and seen amongst the bright

blossoms of the plants that grew in pots upon the parapet, might have passed for the goddess of spring in her most sportive mood. Her hair hung in rich clusters over her alabaster neck; her blue eyes danced in humid lustre; her coral lips, a little parted, disclosed a range of sparkling pearls. The sole fault to be found with her beauty was its character, which was sensual rather than intellectual. One beheld the beautiful and frivolous child of clay, but the ray of the spirit that elevates and purifies was wanting. It was the beauty of a Bacchante rather than of a Vestal – Aurora disporting herself on the flower banks, and awaiting, in frolic mood, the advent of Cupid.

The motley cavalcade moved on, the men assuming their smartish seat in the saddle as they passed under the inspection of the bella biondina. When Vicenzo approached the park wall, his companion leaned towards him and spoke something in his car. At the same moment, as if stung by a gadfly, the spirited gray upon which the Florentine was mounted, sprang with all four feet from the ground, and commenced a series of leaps and curvets that would have unseated a less expert rider. They only served to display to the greatest advantage Vicenzo's excellent horsemanship and slender graceful figure. Disdaining the gaudy equipments of his comrades, the young man was tastefully attired in a dark closely-fitting jacket. Hessian boots and pantaloons exhibited the Antinöus-like proportions of his comely limbs. He rode like a centaur, he and his steed seemingly forming but one body. As he reached, gracefully caracoling, the terrace on whose summit the ladies were stationed, he looked up with a winning smile, and removing his cap, bowed to his horse's mane. The old lady bridled and smiled; the young one blushed as the Florentine's ardent gaze met hers, and in her confusion she let fall a branch of roses she held in her hand. With magical suddenness Vicenzo's fiery horse stood still, as if carved of marble. With one bound the rider was on foot, and had snatched up the flowers; then placing a hand upon the shoulder of his steed, who at once started in a canter, he lightly,

and without apparent effort, vaulted into the saddle. With another bow and smile he rode off with his companion.

"'Twas well done, Vicenzo," said the latter.

"What an elegant cavalier!" exclaimed Florinda Noell pensively, following with her eyes the accomplished equestrian.

"And so distinguished in his appearance" chimed in her silly aunt. "And how he looked up at us! One might fancy him a nobleman in disguise, bent on adventures, or seeking intelligence of a lost lady-love."

Florinda smiled, but the stale platitude, borrowed from the absurd romances that crammed Madame Verlé's brain, abode in her memory. Whilst the handsome horse-rider remained in sight, she continued upon the parapet and gazed after him. On his part, Vicenzo several times looked back, and more than once he pressed to his lips the fragrant flowers of which accident had made him the possessor.

A small theatre, which happened then to be unoccupied, was hired by the equestrians for their performances, the announcement of which was soon placarded from one end to the other of Marseilles. At the first representation, Florinda and her aunt were amongst the audience. They had no one to check their inclinations, for Mr Noell, after passing many months with his daughter without molestation from Dominique, who had disappeared from Montauban the day after their mecting in the churchyard, had forgotten his apprehensions, and had departed on his annual tour of professional duty. At the circus, the honours of the night were for Vicenzo. graceful figure, handsome face, skilful performance, and distinguished air, were the theme of universal admiration. Florinda could not detach her gaze from him as he flew round the circle, standing with easy negligence upon his horse's back; and she could scarcely restrain a cry of horror and alarm at the boldness of some of his feats. Vicenzo had early detected her presence in the theatre; and the expression of his eyes, when he passed before her box, made her conscious that he had done so.

His

Several days elapsed, during which

Florinda and her aunt had more than once again visited the theatre. Vicenzo had become a subject of constant conversation between the superannuated coquette and her niece, the old lady indulging the most extravagant conjectures as to who he could be, for she had made up her mind he was now in an assumed character. Florinda spoke of him less, but thought of him more. Nor were her visits to the theatre her only opportunities of seeing him. Vicenzo, soon after his arrival at Marseilles, had excited his comrades' wonder and envy by appearing in the elegant costume of a private gentleman, and by taking frequent rides out of the town, at first accompanied by Fontaine, the stranger before mentioned, but afterwards more frequently alone. These rides were taken early in the morning, or by moonlight, on evenings when there was no performance. The horseriders laughed at the airs the Marchese gave himself, attributed his extravagance to the generosity of Fontaine, and twitted him with some secret intrigue, which he, however, did not admit, and they took little pains to penetrate. Had they followed his horse's hoof-track, they would have found that it led, sometimes by one road, sometimes by another, to the bastide of Anthony Noell the magistrate. And after a few days they would have seen Vicenzo, his bridle over his arm, conversing earnestly, at a small postern-gate of the garden, with the charming biondina, whose bright countenance had greeted, like a good augury, their first approach to Mar

seilles.

At last a night came when this stolen conversation lasted longer than usual. Vicenzo was pressing, Florinda irresolute. Fontaine had accompanied his friend, and held his horse in an adjacent lane, whilst the lovers (for such they now were to be considered) sauntered in a shrubbery walk within the park.

"But why this secrecy?" said the young girl, leaning tenderly upon the arm of the handsome stroller. " Why not at once inform your friends you accede to their wishes, in renouncing your present derogatory pursuit? Why not present yourself to my