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queen, and dreamed that her sway would not speak it.
endure for ever. Contiguous was a room
in which sat alone, at twilight, the same
woman; unaltered, almost, in face and
form, but with six more years upon her
life. She sat without an admirer, with
out one flatterer; she thought of that
first ball, and of the changes which had
befallen every one who was present at
that time her memory ran over all the
bright scenes where she once had been,
and her comment upon all, was a long,
deep sigh.

In a small, neat parlour sat a father
surrounded by a happy family. I have
seen in life, the man who sat to my fancy
for this picture in this strange dream:
he was the noblest man, that ever yet
was placed on earth, to find his way to
heaven. It was on Sunday morning;
and he had been hearing his children
repeat the catechism, and answer various
questions connected with it; and they
were now waiting for the last bell to ring,
before going to church. He looked
round with a placid smile upon the little
circle, his cheerful wife, his two beauti-
ful young daughters, his innocent, fair,
smiling boys, with the little presents
which he had given them, for having
said their catechism without an error-
and the good man's heart was happy;
he thought of no coming evil, for he
knew no past sin. In the same room,
unchanged in its appearance, on Sunday
morning, a few years afterward, sat the
same man,
but he sat alone. His wife
had fallen from a window and had been
killed. One of his daughters had mar-
ried a vagabond against her parents'
will, and died in misery; the other was
living hopelessly insane in a distant hos-
pital. Of his sons, the eldest had pe-
rished in a duel, which he had compelled
himself; the youngest had been confined
in prison for the crime of forgery, and
he had just heard that he had hanged
himself in his cell. And, as the father
thought of all these things, and of the
former innocence and perfect purity of
his children, of his instruction and la-
bours for their benefit, and his hopes
that they would be virtuous and distin-
guished, and a blessing and a comfort to
himself and their mother, there was a
smile of agony upon his cheek and a look
of unutterable anguish in his tearful
eye. His heart was broken.

There were standing near to one another, a young maiden and a boy. And they loved madly, but dared not, could

She stood as fair and

timid as the Boreal light; he was about
to leave her, and as she, knowing not
what she did, put her hand fearfully in
his, at that touch he quivered through
his whole frame; and they stood with
downcast eyes, trembling unrestrainably,
like the magnetic needle when an elec-
tric cloud is passing through the air.
And I looked at Time, and seemed to say
to him, "art thou or love more potent?”
and he let a few, a very few sands pass
through his glass, and I looked again
before me; the two were together in
another room; she sat by the fire, talking
with some earnestness, and he lay upon
a sofa, executing a long, interminable
yawn. Time looked at me,
and smiled;
and the scene passed away.

Next, we were in a city on the first of May, and it was Sunday. A long row of children, little boys walking with little girls, were passing, neat and clean in their simple dresses, from a Sundayschool to the adjoining church, each with a small bunch of flowers in the hand; and they were as lovely, and the bloom upon their hearts was as fresh, as that upon the roses they carried. And I watched them tripping carelessly along, and smiling and nodding to one another, till the last couple turned round the corner and passed out of view. I thought that it was with a repressed emotion and something of a reluctant effort, that Time turned down his glass, that twenty years might do their work; but I arrested his hand. "Not that," I cried. "In mercy hide that change.”

And I saw, afterward, innumerable strange reverses which the dropping of a few of Time's little sands could work in the life of man. I saw the young aspirant for poetic fame, rushing confidently on the scene, and I saw his subsequent fate. I saw the fate of the rich carouser and the cautious merchant, of the happy and the miserable: a victorious general returning home with the freedom of his country in his hand, worshipped and deified, and ten years afterward pelted in the streets. But I hastened to the last scene.

Upon the carpet of a chamber, there was gambolling a little child; a child that felt no thought that was not holy, and knew no word that was not pure. Its heart was a shrine of heavenly remembrances, a dwelling-place of love and adoration. It looked upward, to adore; it looked around, to love. There

rested in its mind neither the world's light madness which is called folly, nor the world's deep madness which is called wisdom: but innocent in its ignorance, pure in its inexperience, holy in its helplessness, with no knowledge but that which it brought from the bosom of its Father and its God; it played and tossed its arms, and "mispoke half-uttered words;" amused with a trinket or a toy, it laughed laughed with its whole face, as infants only do, for in severer manhood that emblem of light-heartedness, the smile, retreats to its last citadel, the mouth. Presently there came into the room a man, whose youthful features were repulsive from the harshness of old and saddened feelings, and whose brow was dark with the soberness of thought. He looked severe and unhappy; and the frolic gentleness of that little child was so repugnant to his care-wearied spirit, that, as it clung about his feet and looked up in his scornful face, he almost flung the infant from him with contempt. Checking an exclamation of rebuke against this cold-hearted man, which rose involuntarily to my lips, I turned to Time and said, "who are these discordant beings?" My interpreter moved slowly away from me, and as he was passing from my sight exclaimed, "Thy past and thy present self." With a groan, I awoke in darkness.

MADAME FIRMIANI.

IN TWO CHAPTERS.

CHAPTER I.

THERE are many narratives, so rich in incident, and so dramatic by the numberless turns of fortune they embrace, that they hurry the reader on by their own peculiar and intrinsic interest, and will bear to be told, all simply or elaborately, by any lip, without the subject losing the minutest of its graces. But there are some events in our existence whose vivid reality can only be represented by the accents of the heart; there are certain details of by-gone things, whose slender fibres, to speak anatomically, can only be demonstrated under the most delicate, and, at the same time, the most vigorous shades of thought; there are portraits which must be endowed with a soul, and which convey no fancy unless you can realise the finest

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features of their evanescent physiognomy; those things which cannot be done or told without a harmony of time, and place, a juncture of fate, a moral fitness, or predisposition of temper. Such an union of mysterious influences was absolutely necessary to recount this simple history, by which the author desires to interest those thoughtful and melancholy hearts, which live on soft and tender emotions. But if the writer, like a surgeon by the bedside of a dying friend, feels a respect for the subject on which he is engaged in the same manner should the reader participate in this inexplicable sentiment, and be imbued with that vague and soothing sadness, which, without tangible cause, spreads its violet-coloured tints. around us; that weakness of the heart whose gentle sorrows are not disagreeable to us. If, perchance, you are dreaming of some dear friends lost to you for ever; if you are alone, at midnight, or the hour of closing day, you may go on with this story; but at any other time you would fling it aside at the first page. If your heart has never been softened by sorrow, if you have never buried some sister, or fair-browed girl, these pages will be incomprehensible to you. To some hearts, they will be redolent of perfume; to others they will appear as vapid, prosing, and spiritless as those of Florian. In short, you must have enjoyed the rapture of tears; you must have felt the mute sorrow of a remembrance which passes away as lightly and involuntarily as it came, accompanied by a precious, but indistinct and distant phantom; and that your heart should be full of those recollections which make us sigh for what the grave has robbed us of, and then smile while we conjure up the joys that were. Believe me, that I would not, for the wealth of England, extort from poetry the slightest of its illusions to embellish this narrative. This is a true story, on which you can display the pearls of your sensibility—if you possess any.

A few years ago there was no person in Paris whose character and position was so mysterious as that of Madame Firmiani. That she was very rich, her style of living denoted, but no one knew from whence her wealth was derived; her name signified that she was married, but no one had ever seen her husband; in fact there were as many opinions

about, as there were mouths that spoke of her. Like many women of noble, but proud spirits, which make a sanctuary of their own hearts, and despise the world, she incurred the danger of misconstruction by others, and more particularly by the Count de Valesnes, an old nobleman of Touraine, in 1830. He had just arrived from his country mansion, was a punctiliously honourable gentleman, and had an only nephew on whom he doted, whom he destined for his heir, and who bore the name of Octave de Champs. Country people have an awkward custom of stamping with their reprobation those young men who alienate their estates; now Octave de Champs, all at once, and without consulting his uncle, or any of his connexions, had disposed of his patrimony to some unknown person, who had put it in charge of a poor family in the neighbourhood, and who would have demolished the old castle of Villaines, had it not been for the urgent instances which the old uncle made for delay. To augment the wrath of the old gentleman against his nephew, a friend-in fact, a distant relative of Octave and his uncle -dropped in one day, quite by chance of course, and informed him of his nephew's ruin. According to his statement, Monsieur Octave de Champs, after having dissipated his fortune on a certain Madame Firmiani, was reduced to become a teacher of mathematics, until the death of his uncle, whose fortune he expected, and to whom he dared not avow his indiscretions.

M. de Valesnes instantly posted off to Paris, without writing to Octave, in order to learn all the particulars respecting his intended heir's actual position. The old gentleman still kept up his connexions with the noble families of the Faubourg St. Germain, where in two days he heard so many truths, slanders, and falsehoods about Madame Firmiani, that he made up his mind to procure an introduction to her under the title of M. de Rouxellay, the name of one of his estates. He was formerly a mousquetaire of the guard, had moved in his youth among ladies of the highest rank, with whom he had been very successful; his address was polished and courteous in the extreme; his language was elegant and refined; and although he loved the Bourbons with a noble frankness, and believed in God, as all gentlemen do, he was by no means so absurd a specimen

of the old school, as the radicals of his department represented him.

"Madame," said he to the Countess de Frontenac, as he offered her his arm, as they entered Madame Firmiani's, "how I pity my nephew, if this woman be really his mistress! How can she live in this exquisite luxury while she knows that he is languishing in a garret? She can have no soul! What a fool Octave must have been to have given the purchase-money of Villaines for the caresses of a heartless

"But suppose he lost his property at play," observed the old lady.

"In that event, madame," said the old soldier, "he might at all events console himself with having had the pleasure and excitement of the game."

"Do you think, then, that he has had no enjoyment here?" asked the countess. Stop; look at Madame Firmiani."

66

The most enchanting recollections of the sexagenarian uncle were eclipsed by the appearance of his nephew's mistress. His anger expired in the gracious compliment which the sight of Madame Firmiani drew involuntarily from him. By one of those chances which only happen to lovely women, she was in an attitude and mood of mind, when every charm shone with an especial lustre, owing, perhaps, to the soft gleam of the tapers, the exquisite simplicity of her toilette, or to some indescribable reflection of the elegant and tasteful luxury which surrounded her. One must have studied and analysed all the imperceptible revolutions of a soirée in a Parisian saloon to appreciate the imperceptible colours which throw a shadow and a change upon a woman's features. There is a moment, in which, satisfied with the effect of her dress, with a wit and a fancy unusually brilliant and animated, happy in the knowledge of being the conspicuous object of admiration, and finding herself the queen of a circle filled with the choicest spirits of the age, she revels in the full consciousness of the influence of her beauty, grace, and wit; and then she enriches herself with the sparkle of each eye that gazes at her, but whose mute homage is only prized as a sacrifice to the superior claims of the one beloved being whose image is enshrined in her heart of hearts. In moments like these, a woman seems to be invested, like a magician, with a species of supernatural power. She is coquettish without being aware of it;

and inspires love all around her, with which her heart is secretly intoxicated, while she throws an atmosphere of light and life about her, made up of smiles that enrapture, and glances that fascinate. If this splendid transfiguration, which is the work of the soul, can give such a charm even to the plain; with what a surpassing beauty must it not shine forth in a woman naturally elegant, with faultless, fair, and rosy limbs, and sparkling eyes; and, above all, dressed with a taste which artists might admire and imitate, and which even the rivals of her own sex admitted.

Have you, to your delight, ever met with a being whose voice of melody imprinted that soft charm on her accent which was equally conspicuous in her manners, and who knew when and how to speak, and be silent; whose attentions were paid with that delicacy and tact which set you at once and for ever at ease; whose expressions were felicitously chosen, and whose language was a model of style? The raillery of such a woman is a caress, and her criticism does not wound; she does not preach any more than she argues; and although she laughingly joins a discussion, she knows when to pause; her face is always affable and smiling; in her politeness there is no constraint; her anxiety to please is not servile or obsequious; never fatiguing you; and dismissing you satisfied with her and yourself. Her exquisite taste will be found impressed upon everything that surrounds her; in her presence all flatters the sight: and you breathe an air like that of your own country. This woman is always natural: there is no effort, nothing forced in her, and no pretension about her; her sentiments are ever expressed in the simplest language, because they are true; she is frank, and yet never offends any one's self-love. She receives men as Heaven has made them, pitying the vicious, pardoning faults, and sparing follies, humouring the foibles and fancies of all ages, and taking offence at nothing, because her womanly tact has enabled her beforehand to foresee everything; she obliges, before she attempts to console; she is tender in her gaiety; you love her irresistibly; and if such an angel should err, you feel yourself compelled to justify her. Such was Madame

Firmiani. When M. de Valesnes had conversed for a quarter of an hour with this woman, seated by her side, his nephew was absolved by him; and he perceived that, whether true or false, the connexion of Octave and Madame Firmiani involved some mystery. Looking through the long vista of years, he returned to the illusions which gilded the early days of his youth, and judging of Madame Firmiani's heart by her beauty, he concluded that a woman, so conscious of her dignity as she appeared to be, was incapable of a disgraceful action. There was such a deep calm in her black eyes; the lines of her face were so nobly drawn, and her features so purely regular, while the passion of which she was accused appeared to have so little influence over her heart, that the count, admitting the promises made to love and virtue by her physiognomy, could not avoid drawing the conclusion that his nephew must have committed some egregious blunder.

Madame Firmiani owned to twentyfive years of age; but the busy-bodies averred that, as she was married in 1817 in her sixteenth year, she must be twenty-eight in 1830. Yet these precisians, at the same time, admitted, that at no period of her life had she ever looked so desirable, or so completely feminine. The problematical Monsieur Firmiani, a very respectable octogenarian in 1817, could only endow her with his name and fortune. All acknowledged that her beauty was the most aristocratic in Paris. Still young, rich, an allaccomplished musician, witty, refined, and received in the most exalted hotels of the noble faubourg, from a regard for the Carignans, to which she belonged by her mother, she was sought after by too many gentlemen not to be the victim of that polished Parisian scandal, and those consummate calumnies, which are so adroitly conveyed behind a fan, or in a whispered remark at the opera. If some of her own sex forgave her for her wealth, others could not pardon her for the correctness and decency of her life; and nothing is more awkward, particularly at Paris, than suspicions without grounds or details, precisely because it is impossible to disprove them.

(To be continued.)

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suffers by his mere presence in such a place, and gather sufficient experience to free his life from that wanton dallying with principle, which is apt to fill a spendthrift's days with misery and crime. I was first tempted to Frascati's by a friend. We entered an extensive court-yard-ascended a broad stairway

Who, in old time, attired with snakes the door of an ante-chamber was

and whips

The vengeful Furies!"

Wordsworth.

In the course of curiosity-hunting, I passed away many an evening in the gorgeous saloons of the Rue Richelieu, where the government reaps a princely income from the ruin of her citizens; and I cannot think, though older and of more quiet temper, that the time I spent there was entirely lost. Indeed, many a lesson of worldly prudence may be learned, as it were, instinctively; and one who has but common firmness to resist the excessive enticements of the table, may linger in those Parisian halls, where the bright lights flash over the jewels of the fair and the wrinkles of the gambler, without feeling that character

V OL. I. (9.)

thrown open by servants in rich liveries, and we were ushered with all the etiquette of a palace into a large room brilliant with light, thronged with welldressed men, and rendered still more attractive by the elegant tournure of the women. This was the roulette chamber

the haunt of small gamblers, and in fact the room for general conversation; but as we wished to see the chief attraction of the house, we passed on to the adjoining apartment, and there found the business of the evening conducted with more ceremony and resolve. Four croupiers, pale from late watching, with lips as cold and expressionless as if cut from steel, and eyes as dead as a statue's, were seated about the middle of a large oblong table, which was covered with green cloth, bearing certain signs in

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