the Bois, and would not have acquired | visits to the theatre or the houses of that look so intelligent — more than in- friends. telligent so poetic."

"But regard that air of unmistakable distinction, regard that expression of face-so pure, so virginal: comme il faut she must be."

As Alain said these last words, the lady, who had turned back, was approaching them, and in full view of their gaze. She seemed unconscious of their existence as before, and Lemercier noticed that her lips moved as if she were murmuring inaudibly to herself.

She did not return again, but continued her walk straight on till at the end of the alley she entered a carriage in waiting for her, and was driven off.

"Quick, quick!" cried Lemercier, run ning towards his own coupé; "we must give chase."

It was only within the last few weeks that such visits had been made.

The younger lady was in delicate health, and under the care of an English physician famous for skill in the treatment of pulmonary complaints. It was by his advice that she took daily walking exercise in the Bois. The establishment consisted of three servants, all Italians, and speaking but imperfect French. The garçon did not know whether either of the ladies was married, but their mode of life was free from all scandal or suspicion; they probably belonged to the literary or musical world, as the garçon had observed as their visitor the eminent author M. Savarin and his wife; and, still more frequently, an old man not less eminent as a musical composer.

"It is clear to me now," said Lemer

Alain followed somewhat less hurriedly, and, agreeably to instructions Lemercier, as the two friends reseated themcier had already given to his coachman, the Parisian's coupé set off at full speed in the track of the strange lady's, which was still in sight.

selves in the carriage, “that our pearly ange is some Italian singer of repute enough in her own country to have gained already a competence; and that, perhaps on account of her own health or her friend's, she is living quietly here in the expectation of some professional engagement, or the absence of some foreign lover."

In less than twenty minutes the carriage in chase stopped at the grille of one of those charming little villas to be found in the pleasant suburb of A; a porter emerged from the lodge, opened the gate; the carriage drove in, again stopped at the door of the house, and the two gentlemen could not catch even a glimpse of the lady's robe as she de- "It is possible enough; and in that scended from the carriage and disap-case the Englishman may profit little by peared within the house. the information I have promised to give him.”

"I see a café yonder," said Lemercier; "let us learn all we can as to the fair unknown, over a sorbet or a petit verre.”

Alain silently, but not reluctantly, consented. He felt in the fair stranger an interest new to his existence.

They entered the little café, and in a few minutes Lemercier, with the easy savoir vivre of a Parisian, had extracted from the garçon as much as probably any one in the neighourhood knew of the in

habitants of the villa.

It had been hired and furnished about two months previously in the name of Signora Venosta; but according to the report of the servants, that lady appeared to be the gouvernante or guardian of a lady much younger, out of whose income the villa was rented and the household maintained.

It was for her the coupé was hired from Paris. The elder lady very rarely stirred out during the day, but always accompanied the younger in any evening

"Lover! do you think that?" exclaimed Alain, in a tone of voice that betrayed pain.

"You have promised the Englishman?" "Do you not remember last night that he described the lady, and said that her face haunted him and I

"Ah! I remember now. know of this Englishman? suppose."

What do you
He is rich, I

"Yes, I hear he is very rich now; that an uncle lately left him an enormous sum of money. He was attached to the English Embassy many years ago, which accounts for his good French and his knowledge of Parisian life. He comes to Paris very often, and I have known him some time. Indeed he has instrusted to me a difficult and delicate commission, The English tell me that his father was one of the most eminent members of their Parliament, of ancient birth, very highly connected, but ran out his fortune and died poor; that our friend had for some years to maintain himself, I fancy, by his pen; that he is considered very

able and, now that his uncle has enriched him, likely to enter public life and run a career as distinguished as his fa

ther's."

I have much to say on this subject, which I defer till I can better collect my own thoughts on it - at present they are confused and struggling. The great “Happy man! happy are the English," | Maestro has been most gracious. said the Marquis with a sigh; and as the In what a radiant atmosphere his genius carriage now entered Paris, he pleaded lives and breathes! Even in his cynical the excuse of an engagement, bade his moods, his very cynicism has in it the friend good-bye, and went his way mus-ring of a jocund music - the laugh of ing through the crowded streets.

CHAPTER VIII.

LETTER FROM ISAURA CICOGNA TO MA-
DAME DE GRANTMESNIL.

VILLA D', A

Figaro, not of Mephistopheles.

We went to dine with him last week; he invited to meet us Madame Swho has this year conquered all opposition, and reigns alone, the great SMr. T, a pianist of admirable promise your friend M. Savarin, wit, critic, I CAN never express to you, my beloved and poet, with his pleasant sensible wife, Eulalie, the strange charm which a letter and a few others whom the Mastro confrom you throws over my poor little lonely fided to me in a whisper, were authorities world for days after it is received. There in the press. After dinner S- sang is always in it something that comforts, to us magnificently, of course. Then something that sustains, but also a some- she herself graciously turned to me, said thing that troubles and disquiets me. I how much she had heard from the Mastro suppose Goethe is right, "that it is the in my praise, and so-and-so. I was perproperty of true genius to disturb all set- suaded to sing after her. I need not say tled ideas," in order, no doubt, to lift to what disadvantage. But I forgot my them into a hihger level when they settle nervousness; I forgot my audience; I down again. forgot myself, as I always do when once my soul, as it were, finds wing in music, and buoys itself in air, relieved from the sense of earth. I knew not that I had succeeded till I came to a close and then my eyes resting on the face of the grand prima donna, I was seized with an indescribable sadness-with a keen pang of remorse. Perfect artiste though she be, and with powers in her own realm of art which admit of no living equal, I saw at once that I had pained her; she had grown almost livid; her lips were quivering, and it was only with a great effort that she muttered out some faint words intended for applause. I comprehended by an instinct how gradually there can grow upon the mind of an artist the most generous that jealousy which makes the fear of a rival annihilate the delight in art. If ever I should achieve S―'s fame as a singer, should I feel the same jealousy? I think not now, but I have not been tested. She went away abruptly. I spare you the recital of the compliments paid to me by my other auditors, compliments that gave me no pleasure; for on all lips, except those of the Mastro, they implied, as the height of eulogy, that I had inflicted torture upon S so," said he, "she would be as foolish as a rose that was jealous of the whiteness of a lily. You would do yourself great wrong, my child, if you tried to vie with the rose in its own colour."

Your sketch of the new work you are meditating amid the orange-groves of Provence interests me intensely; yet, do you forgive me when I add that the interest is not without terror. I do not find myself able to comprehend how, amid those lovely scenes of nature, your mind voluntarily surrounds itself with images of pain and discord. I stand in awe of the calm with which you subject to your analysis the infirmities of reason and the tumult of passion. And all those laws of the social state which seem to me so fixed and immovable you treat with so quiet a scorn, as if they were but the gossamer threads which a touch of your slight woman's hand could brush away. But I cannot venture to discuss such subjects with you. It is only the skilled enchanter who can stand safely in the magic circle, and compel the spirits that he summons, even if they are evil, to minister to ends in which he foresees a good. We continue to live here very quietly, and I do not as yet feel the worse for the colder climate. Indeed, my wonderful doctor, who was recommended to me as American, but is in reality English, assures me that a single winter spent here under his care will suffice for my complete re-establishment. Yet that career, to the training for which so many years have been devoted, does not seem to me so alluring as it once did.

"If

He patted my bended head as he spoke, gaze on her splendid palaces, her gorwith that kind of fatherly king-like fond-geous shops, and believe that she will ness with which he honours me; and I give ear to doctrines that would annihitook his hand in mine, and kissed it late private rights of property; or who gratefully. "Nevertheless," said Savarin, can enter her crowded churches, and when the lily comes out there will be a dream that she can ever again instal a refurious attack on it, made by the clique public too civilized for religion? that devotes itself to the rose a lily clique will be formed en revanche, and I foresee a fierce paper war. Do not be frightened at its first outburst; every fame worth having must be fought for."

Is it so? have you had to fight for your fame, Eulalie? and do you hate all contest as much as I do?

Adieu. Excuse me for this dull letter. If I have written on much that has little interest even for me, it is that I wish to distract my mind from brooding over the question that interests me most, and on which I most need your counsel. I will try to approach it in my next. ISAURA.

From the Same to the Same.

Our only other gaiety since I last wrote was a soirée at M. Louvier's. That re- Eulalie, Eulalie ! - What mocking publican millionaire was not slow in at- spirit has been permitted in this modern tending to the kind letter you addressed age of ours to place in the heart of woto him recommending us to his civilities. man the ambition which is the prerogaHe called at once, placed his good offices tive of men? You indeed, so richly at our disposal, took charge of my modest endowed with a man's genius, have a fortune which he has invested, no doubt, right to man's aspirations. But what can as safely as it is advantageously in point justify such ambition in me? Nothing of interest, hired our carriage for us, and but this one unintellectual perishable gift in short has been most amiably useful. of a voice that does but please in uttering At his house we met many to me most pleasant, for they spoke with such genuine appreciation of your works and yourself. But there were others whom I should never have expected to meet under the roof of a Croesus who has so great a stake in the order of things estabfished. One young man - a noble whom he specially presented to me, as a politician who would be at the head of affairs when the Red Republic was established -asked me whether I did not agree with him that all private property was public spoliation, and that the great enemy to civilization was religion, no matter in what form?

He addressed to me these tremendous questions with an effeminate lisp, and harangued on them with small feeble gesticulations of pale dainty fingers covered with rings.

I asked him if there were many who in France shared his ideas.

"Quite enough to carry them some day," he answered, with a lofty smile. "And the day may be nearer than the world thinks, when my confrères will be so numerous that they will have to shoot down each other for the sake of cheese to their bread."

the thoughts of others. Doubtless I could make a name familiar for its brief time to the talk of Europe a name, what name? a singer's name. Once I thought that name a glory. Shall I ever forget the day when you first shone upon me; when, emerging from childhood, as from a 'dim and solitary bypath, I stood forlorn on the great thoroughfare of life, and all the prospects before me stretched sad in mists and in rain? You beamed on me then as the sun coming out from the cloud and changing the face of earth; you opened to my sight the fairy-land of poetry and art; you took me by the hand and said, " Courage! there is at each step some green gap in the hedge-rows, some soft escape from the stony thoroughfare. Beside the real life expands the ideal life to those who seek it. Droop not, seek it; the ideal life has it sorrows, but it never admits despair; as on the ear of him who follows the winding course of a stream, the stream ever varies the note of its music, now loud with the rush of the falls, now low and calm as it glides by the level marge of smooth banks; now sighing through the stir of the reeds, now babbling with a fretful joy as some sudden curve on the shore stays its flight among gleaming pebbles;

That day nearer than the world thinks! Certainly, so far as one may judge the so to the soul of the artist is the voice outward signs of the world at Paris, it of the art ever fleeting beside and before does not think of such things at all. him. Nature gave thee the bird's gift of With what an air of self-content the beau-song raise the gift into art, and make tiful city parades her riches! Who can the art thy companion.

"Art and Hope were twin-born, and they die together."

here."

You remember that I was then at Sorrento by the order of my physicians. Never shall I forget the soft autumn day when I sat amongst the lonely rocklets to the left of the town-the sea before me, with scarce a ripple; my very heart steeped in the melodies of that poem, so marvellous for a strength disguised in sweetness, and for a symmetry in which each proportion blends into the other with the perfectness of a Grecian statue. The whole place seemed to me filled with the presence of the poet to whom it had given birth. Certainly the reading of that poem formed an era in my existence;

quietly, "You are right, child; we, the French of our time, are the offspring of See how faithfully I remember, me- revolutions that settled nothing, unsettled thinks, your very words. But the magic all: we resemble those troubled States of the words, which I then but dimly un- which rush into war abroad in order to derstood, was in your smile and in your re-establish peace at home. Our books eye, and the queen-like wave of your suggest problems to men for reconstructhand as if beckoning to a world which ing some social system in which the lay before you, visible and familiar as calm that belongs to art may be found at your native land. And how devotedly, last: but such books should not be in with what earnestness of passion, I gave your hands; they are not for the innomyself up to the task of raising my gift cence and youth of women, as yet uninto an art! I thought of nothing else, changed by the systems which exist." dreamed of nothing else; and oh, how And the next day you brought me Tasso's sweet to me then were words of great poem, the Gerusalemme Liberata, praise. "Another year yet," at length and said, smiling, "Art in its calm is said the masters, "and you ascend your throne among the queens of song." Then - then I would have changed for no other throne on earth my hope of that to be achieved in the realms of my art. And then came that long fever: my strength broke down, and the Mastro said, "Rest, or your voice is gone, and your throne is lost forever." How hateful that rest seemed to me! You again came to my aid. You said, "The time you think lost should be but time improved. Penetrate your mind with other songs than the trash of Libretti. The more you habituate yourself to the forms, the more you imbue yourself with the spirit, in which passions have been expressed and char- to this day I cannot acknowledge the acter delineated by great writers, the more completely you will accomplish yourself in your own special art of singer and actress." So, then, you allured me to a new study. Ah! in so doing did you dream that you diverted me from the old ambition? My knowledge of French and Italian, and my rearing in childhood, which had made English familiar to me, gave me the keys to the treasure-houses of three languages. Naturally I began with that in which your masterpieces are composed. Till then I had not even read your works. They were the first I chose. How they impressed, how they startled me! what depths in the mind of man, in the heart of woman, they revealed to me! But I owned to you then, and I repeat it now, neither they nor any of the works in romance and poetry which form the boast of recent French literature, satisfied yearnings for that calm sense of beauty, that divine joy in a world beyond this Be this as it may, it was in this poem world, which you had led me to believe it so pre-eminently Christian that I found was the prerogative of ideal art to bestow. the something which I missed and craved And when I told you this with the rude for in modern French masterpieces, even frankness you had bid me exercise in yours -a something spiritual, speaking talk with you, a thoughtful melancholy to my own soul, calling it forth; distinshade fell over your face, and you said guishing it as an essence apart from mere

faults or weaknesses which your criti-
cisms pointed out I believe because
they are in unison with my own nature,
which yearns for harmony, and, finding
that, rests contented. I shrink from vio-
lent contrasts, and can discover nothing
tame and insipid in a continuance of
sweetness and serenity. But it was not
till after I had read La Gerusalemme
again and again, and then sat and brooded
over it, that I recognized the main charm
of the poem in the religion which clings
to it as the perfume clings to a flower-
a religion sometimes melancholy, but
never to me sad. Hope always pervades
it. Surely if, as you said, "Hope is twin-
born with art," it is because art at its
highest blends itself unconsciously with
religion, and proclaims its affinity with
hope by its faith in some future good
more perfect than it has realized in the
past,

human reason; soothing, even when it excited; inaking earth nearer to heaven. And when I ran on in this strain to you after my own wild fashion, you took my head between your hands and kissed me, and said, "Happy are those who believe! long may that happiness be thine !" Why did I not feel in Dante the Christian charm that I felt in Tasso? Dante in your eyes, as in those of most judges, is infinitely the greater genius, but reflected on the dark stream of that genius the stars are so troubled, the heaven so threatening.

Yes, Eulalie, you had bid

the giant tragedies of Shakespeare, have made Englishmen more willing to die for England. In fine, it was long before - I will not say I understood or rightly appreciated Shakespeare, for no Englishman would admit that I or even you could ever do so-but before I could recognize the justice of the place his country claims for him as the genius without an equal in the literature of Europe. Meanwhile the ardour I had put into study, and the wear and tear of the emotions which the study called forth, made themselves felt in a return of my former illness, with symptoms Just as my year of holiday was expiring still more alarming; and when the year I turned to English literature; and Shake- was out I was ordained to rest for perspeare, of course, was the first English haps another year before I could sing in poet put into my hands. It proves how public, still less appear on the stage. How childlike my mind still was, that my earli- I rejoiced when I heard that fiat, for I est sensation in reading him was that of emerged from that year of study with a disappointment. It was not only that, heart utterly estranged from the profesdespite my familiarity with English sion in which I had centred my hopes (thanks chiefly to the care of him whom I before call my second father), there is much in me accomplish myself for the arts of utthe metaphorical diction of Shakespeare which I failed to comprehend; but he seemed to me so far like the modern French writers who affect to have found inspiration in his muse, that he obtrudes images of pain and suffering without cause or motive sufficiently clear to ordinary understandings, as I had taught myself to think it ought to be in the drama. He makes Fate so cruel that we lose sight of the mild deity behind her. Compare, in this, Corneille's "Polyeucte" with the "Hamlet." In the first an equal calamity befals the good, but in their calamity they are blessed. The death of the martyr is the triumph of his creed. But when we have put down the English tragedy when Hamlet and Ophelia are confounded in death with Polonius and the fratricidal king, we see not what good end for humanity is achieved. The passages that fasten on our memory do not make us happier and holier; they suggest but terrible problems, to which they give us no solution.

In the "Horaces" of Corneille there are fierce contests, rude passions, tears drawn from some of the bitterest sources of human pity; but then through all stands out, large and visible to the eyes of all spectators, the great ideal of devoted patriotism. How much of all that has been grandest in the life of France, redeeming even its worst crimes of revolution in the love of country, has had its origin in the "Horaces" of Corneille. But I doubt if the fates of Coriolanus, and Cæsar, and Brutus, and Antony, in

terance by the study of arts in which thoughts originate the words they employ, and in doing so I had changed myself into another being. I was forbidden all fatigue of mind; my books were banished, but not the new self which the books had formed. Recovering slowly through the summer, I came hither two months since, ostensibly for the advice of Dr. C—, but really in the desire to commune with my own heart, and be still.

And now I have poured forth that heart to you-would you persuade me still to be a singer? If you do, remember at least how jealous and absorbing the art of the singer and of the actress is. How completely I must surrender myself to it, and live among books, or among dreams, no more. Can I be anything else but a singer? and if not, should I be contented merely to read and to dream?

I must confide to you one ambition which during the lazy Italian summer took possession of me I must tell you the ambition, and add that I have renounced it as a vain one. I had hoped that I could compose, I mean in music. I was pleased with some things I did — they expressed in music what I could not express in words; and one secret object in coming here was to submit them to the great Mastro. He listened to them patiently; he complimented me on my accuracy in the mechanical laws of composition; he even said that my favourite airs were touchants et gracieux."

66

And so he would have left me, but I stopped him timidly, and said, “Tell me