One evening after her return to Paris, by an effort so involuntary that it seemed to her no effort she had commenced a tale without plan — without method — without knowing in one page what would fill the next. Her slight fingers hurried on as if, like the pretended spirit manifestations, impelled by an invisible agency without the pale of the world. She was intoxicated by the mere joy of inventing ideal images. In her own special art an elaborate artist, here she had no thought of art; if art was in her work, it sprang unconsciously from the harmony between herself and her subject as it is, perhaps, with the early soarings of the genuine lyric poets, in contrast to the dramatic. For the true lyric poet is intensely personal, intensely subjective. It is himself that he expresses that he represents-and he almost ceases to be lyrical when he seeks to go out of his own existence into that of others with whom he has no sympathy, no rapport. This tale was vivid with genius as yet untutored-genius in its morning freshness, full of beauties, full of faults. Isaura distinguished not the faults from the beauties. She felt only a vague persuasion that there was a something higher and brighter-a something more true to her own idiosyncrasy than could be achieved by the art that "sings other people's words to other people's music." From the work thus commenced she had now paused. And it seemed to her fancies that between her inner self and the scene without, whether in the skies and air and sunset, or in the abodes of men stretching far and near, till lost amid the roofs and domes of the great city, she had fixed and riveted the link of a sympathy hitherto fluctuating, unsubstantial, evanescent, undefined. Absorbed in her reverie, she did not notice the deepening of the short twilight, till the servant entering drew the curtains between her and the world without, and placed the lamp on the table beside her. Then she turned away with a restless sigh, her eyes fell on the MS., but the charm of it was gone. A sentiment of distrust in its worth had crept into her thoughts, unconsciously to herself, and the page open before her at an uncompleted sentence seemed unwelcome and wearisome as a copy-book is to a child condemned to relinquish a fairy tale half told, and apply himself to a task half done. She fell again into a reverie, when,

"We are come, Signorina," said Savarin, “to announce to you a piece of news, and to hazard a petition. The news is this: my young friend here has found a Mæcenas who has the good taste so to admire his lucubrations under the nom de plume of Alphonse de Valcour as to volunteer the expenses for starting a new journal, of which Gustave Rameau is to be editor-in-chief; and I have promised to assist him as contributor for the first two months. I have given him notes of introduction to certain other feuilletonistes and critics whom he has on his list. But all put together would not serve to float the journal like a short roman from Madame de Grantmesnil. Knowing your intimacy with that eminent artist, I venture to back Rameau's supplication that you would exert your influence on his behalf. As to the honoraires, she has but to name them."

"Carte blanche," cried Rameau, eagerly. "You know Eulalie too well, M. Savarin," answered Isaura, with a smile half reproachful, "to suppose that she is a mercenary in letters, and sells her services to the best bidder."

"Bah, belle enfant!" said Savarin, with his gay light laugh. "Business is business, and books as well as razors are made to sell. But, of course, a proper prospectus of the journal must accompany your request to write in it. Meanwhile, Rameau will explain to you, as he has done to me, that the journal in question is designed for circulation among readers of haute classe: it is to be pleasant and airy, full of bons mots and anecdote ; witty, but not ill-natured. Politics to be liberal, of course, but of elegant admixture

champagne and seltzer-water. In fact, however, I suspect that the politics will be a very inconsiderable feature in this organ of fine arts and manners; some amateur scribbler in the 'beau monde' will supply them. For the rest, if my introductory letters are successful, Madame de Grantmesnil will not be in bad company."

"You will write to Madame de Grantmesnil?" asked Rameau, pleadingly. Certainly I will, as soon

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"As soon as you have the prospectus, and the names of the collaborateurs,” interrupted Rameau. "I hope to send you these in a very few days."

While Rameau was thus speaking, Sa

and he took the MS., withdrew to a recess by the further window, and seated himself there, reading silently and quickly, but now and then with a brief pause of reflection.

Rameau placed himself beside Isaura on the divan, and began talking to her earnestly earnestly, for it was about himself and his aspiring hopes. Isaura, on the other hand, more woman-like than author-like, ashamed even to seem absorbed in herself and her hopes, and with her back turned, in the instinct of that shame, against the reader of her MS., Isaura listened and sought to interest herself solely in the young fellow-author. Seeking to do so, she succeeded genuinely, for ready sympathy was a prevalent characteristic of her nature.

it somewhere in Lamartine?"

"No," answered Isaura, half inaudibly, and with an effort to withdraw the paper. Savarin gently detained her hand, and looking earnestly into her tell-tale face, divined her secret.

"It is your own, Signorina! Accept the congratulations of a very practised and somewhat fastidious critic. If the rest of what you write resembles this sentence, contribute to Rameau's journal, and I answer for its success."

Rameau approached half incredulous, half envious.

"My dear child," resumed Savarin, drawing away the MS. from Isaura's coy, reluctant clasp, "do permit me to cast a glance over these papers. For what I yet know, there may be here more promise of fame than even you could gain as a singer."

The electric chord in Isaura's heart was touched. Who cannot conceive what the young writer feels, especially the young woman-writer, when hearing the first cheery note of praise from the lips of a writer of established fame ?

"Nay, this cannot be worth your reading," said Isaura, falteringly; "I have never written anything of the kind be fore, and this is a riddle to me. I know not," she added, with a sweet low laugh, "why I began, nor how I should end it." "So much the better," said Savarin;

Yes, I, poor, low-born, launching myself headlong in the chase of a name; I, underrated, uncomprehended, indebted even for a hearing to the patronage of an amiable trifler like Savarin, ranked by petty rivals in a grade below themselves, -I now see before me, suddenly, abruptly presented, the expanding gates into fame and fortune. Assist me, you! "But how?" said Isaura, already forgetting her MS.; and certainly Rameau did not refer to that.

"How!" echoed Rameau. "How ! But do you not see or, at least, do you not conjecture - this journal of which Savarin speaks contains my present and my future? Present independence, opening to fortune and renown. Ay, and who shall say? renown beyond that of the mere writer. Behind the gaudy scaffolding of this rickety Empire, a new social edifice unperceived arises; and in that edifice the halls of State shall be given to the men who helped obscurely to build it-to men like me." Here, drawing her hand into his own, fixing on her the most imploring gaze of his dark persuasive eyes, and utterly unconscious of bathos in his adjuration, he added — "Plead for me with your whole mind and heart; use your uttermost influence with the illustrious writer, whose pen can assure the fates of my journal."

Here the door suddenly opened, and following the servant, who announced unintelligibly his name, there entered Graham Vane.

CHAPTER X.

THE Englishman halted at the threshold. His eye passing rapidly over the figure of Savarin reading in the windowniche, rested upon Rameau and Isaura seated on the same divan, he with her hand clasped in both his own, and bending his face towards hers so closely that a loose tress of her hair seemed to touch his forehead.

The Englishman halted, and no revolution which changes the habitudes and forms of States was ever so sudden as that, which passed without a word in the depths of his unconjectured heart. The heart has no history which philosophers can recognize. An ordinary political observer, contemplating the condition of a nation, may very safely tell us what effects must follow the causes patent to his eyes. But the wisest and most farseeing sage, looking at a man at one o'clock, cannot tell us what revulsions of his whole being may be made ere the clock strike two.

As Isaura rose to greet her visitor, Savarin came from the window-niche, the MS. in his hand.

"Son of perfidious Albion," said Savarin, gaily, "we feared you had deserted the French alliance. Welcome back to Paris, and the entente cordiale."

"Would I could stay to enjoy such welcome. But I must again quit Paris." "Soon to return, n'est ce pas? Paris Is an irresistible magnet to les beaux esprits. A propos of beaux esprits, be sure to leave orders with your bookseller, if you have one, to enter your name as subscriber to a new journal."

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it."

Certainly, if M. Savarin recommends

"He recommends it as a matter of course; he writes in it," said Rameau.

"A sufficient guarantee for its excellence. What is the name of the journal?"

rupting Rameau's sullen and embarrassed reply.

Graham's brow slightly contracted. "Mademoiselle," he said, "is then to be united in the conduct of this journal with M. Gustave Rameau?" Isaura,

"No, indeed!" exclaimed somewhat frightened at the idea. "But I hope," said Savarin, "that the Signorina may become a contributor too important for an editor to offend by insulting her favourites, Tasso included. Rameau and I came hither to entreat her influence with her intimate and illustrious friend, Madame de Grantmesnil, to insure the success of our undertaking by sanctioning the announcement of her name as a contributor."

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Upon social questions- such as the laws of marriage ?" said Graham, with a sarcastic smile, which concealed the quiver of his lip and the pain in his voice.

"Nay," answered Savarin, "our journal will be too sportive, I hope, for matters so profound. We would rather have Madame de Grantmesnil's aid in some short roman, which will charm the fancy of all and offend the opinions of none. But since I came into the room, I care less for the Signorina's influence with the great authoress," and he glanced significantly at the MS.

"How so?" asked Graham, his eye following the glance.

"If the writer of this MS. will conclude what she has begun, we shall be independent of Madame de Grantmesnil."

"Fie!" cried Isaura, impulsively, her face and neck bathed in blushes-"fie! such words are a mockery."

Graham gazed at her intently, and then turned his eyes on Savarin. He guessed aright the truth. "Mademoiselle then is an author? In the style of her friend, Madame de Grantmesnil ?”

"Bah!" said Savarin, "I should indeed be guilty of mockery if I paid the Signorina so false a compliment as to say that in a first effort she attained to the style of one of the most finished sovereigns of language that has ever swayed the literature of France. When I say,

meau.

Bowing ceremoniously to the editor in prospect, Graham said, half ironically, "May I hope that in the department of criticism you will not be too hard upon poor Tasso?"

"Never fear; the Signorina, who adores Tasso, will take him under her special protection," said Savarin, inter

be consoled if the journal does not gain the aid of Madame de Grantmesnil,' I mean that in these pages there is that nameless charm of freshness and novelty which compensates for many faults never committed by a practised pen like Madame de Grantmesnil's. My dear young lady, go on with this story-finish it. When finished, do not disdain any sug

CHAPTER XI.

As the fiacre bore to Paris Savarin and Graham, the former said, "I cannot conceive what rich simpleton could entertain so high an opinion of Gustave Rameau as to select a man so young, and of reputation, though promising, so undecided for an enterprise which requires such a degree of tact and judgment as the conduct of a new journal; and a journal, too, which is to address itself to the beau monde. However, it is not for me to criticise a selection which brings a godsend to myself."

"To yourself? You jest; you have a journal of your own. It can only be through an excess of good-nature that you lend your name and pen to the service of M. Gustave Rameau."

"My good-nature does not go to that extent. It is Rameau who confers a service upon me. Peste! mon cher, we French authors have not the rents of you rich English milords. And though I am the most economical of our tribe, yet that journal of mine has failed me of late; and this morning I did not exactly see how I was to repay a sum I had been obliged to borrow of a money-lender-for I am too proud to borrow of friends, and too sagacions to borrow of publishers when in walks ce cher petit Gustave with an offer for a few trifles toward starting this newborn journal, which makes a new man of me. Now I am in the undertaking, my amour propre and my reputation are concerned in its success; and I shall take care that collaborateurs of whose company I am not ashamed are in the same boat. But that charming girl, Isaura! What an enigma the gift of the pen is! No one can ever guess who has it until tried."

"The young lady's MS., then, really merits the praise you bestowed on it?"

"Much more praise, though a great deal of blame, which I did not bestow. For in a first work faults insure success as much as beauties. Anything better than tame correctness. Yes, her first work, to judge by what is written, must make a hit- —a great hit. And that will decide her career—a singer, an actress, may retire, often does when she marries an author. But once an author always an author."

"Ah! is it so? If you had a beloved daughter, Savarin, would you encourage her to be an author?"

marry an author; and French authors, at least in the imaginative school, make very uncomfortable husbands."

"Ah, you think the Signorina will marry one of those uncomfortable husbands M. Rameau, perhaps?"

"Rameau! Hein! nothing more likely. That beautiful face of his has its fascination. And to tell you the truth, my wife, who is a striking illustration of the truth that what woman wills heaven wills, is bent upon that improvement in Gustave's moral life which she thinks a union with Mademoiselle Cicogna would achieve. At all events, the fair Italian would have in Rameau a husband who would not suffer her to bury her talents under a bushel. If she succeeds as a writer (by succeeding I mean making money), he will see that her ink-bottle is never empty; and if she don't succeed as a writer, he will take care that the world shall gain an actress or a singer. For Gustave Rameau has a great taste for luxury and show; and whatever his wife can make, I will venture to say that he will manage to spend."

"I thought you had an esteem and regard for Mademoiselle Cicogna. It is Madame your wife, I suppose, who has a grudge against her?"

"On the contrary, my wife idolizes

her."

Savages sacrifice to their idols the things they deem of value. Civilized Parisians sacrifice their idols themselves, and to a thing that is worthless."

"Rameau is not worthless; he has beauty, and youth, and talent. My wife thinks more highly of him than I do; but I must respect a man who has found admirers so sincere as to set him up in a journal, and give him carte blanche for terms to contributors. I know of no man in Paris more valuable to me. His worth to me this morning is 30,000 francs. I own I do not think him likely to be a very safe husband; but then French female authors and artists seldom take any husbands except upon short leases. There are no vulgar connubial prejudices in the pure atmosphere of art. Women of genius, like Madame de Grantmesnil, and perhaps like our charming young friend, resemble canary-birds to sing their best you must separate them from their mates."

The Englishman suppressed a groan, and turned the conversation.

When he had set down his lively companion, Vane dismissed his fiacre, and walked to his lodgings musingly.