"In this crowd, Vicomte," said Enguerrand, "there must be many old acquaintances of yours?" 66 Perhaps so; but as yet I have only The Duchesse stood at the door to comte de Mauléon, all the while seeming receive her visitors. Duplessis was to lend an attentive ear to the whispered seated near the entrance, by the side voice of the Minister by his side, Alain of a distinguished member of the Im- passed on into the ball-room. He was perial Government, with whom he was fresh enough to feel the exhilaration of carrying on a whispered conversation. the dance. Enguerrand (who had surThe eye of the financier, however, turned vived that excitement, and who habitually towards the doorway as Alain and Enguer- deserted any assembly at an early hour rand entered, and, passing over their fa- for the cigar and whist of his club) had miliar faces, fixed itself attentively on made his way to De Mauléon, and there that of a much older man whom Enguer- stationed himself. The lion of one genrand was presenting to the Duchesse, eration has always a mixed feeling of and in whom Duplessis rightly divined curiosity and respect for the lion of a the Vicomte de Mauléon. Certainly if no generation before him, and the young one could have recognized M. Lebeau in Vandemar had conceived a strong and althe stately personage who had visited most an affectionate interest in this disLouvier, still less could one who had crowned king of that realm in fashion heard of the wild feats of the roi des vi- which, when once it is lost, is never to veurs in his youth reconcile belief in such be regained; for it is only youth that can tales with the quiet modesty of mien hold its sceptre and command its subwhich distinguished the cavalier now re-jects. plying, with bended head and subdued accents, to the courteous welcome of the brilliant hostess. But for such difference in attributes between the past and the present De Mauléon, Duplessis had been pre-seen new faces." pared by the conversation at the Maison Dorée. And now, as the Vicomte, yielding his place by the Duchesse to some new-comer, glided on, and, leaning against a column, contemplated the gay scene before him with that expression of countenance, half sarcastic, half mournful, with which men regard, after long estrangement, the scenes of departed joys, Duplessis felt that no change in that man had impaired the force of character which had made him the hero of reckless coevals. Though wearing no beard, not even a moustache, there was something emphatically masculine in the contour of the close-shaven cheek and resolute jaw, in a forehead broad at the temples, and protuberant in those organs over the eyebrows which are said to be significant of quick perception and ready action; in the lips, when in repose compressed, perhaps somewhat stern in their expression, but pliant and mobile when speaking, and wonderfully fascinating when they smiled. Altogether, about this Victor de Mauléon there was a nameless distinction, apart from that of conventional elegance. You would have said, "That is a man of some marked individuality, an eminence of "He has got on by always clinging to some kind in himself." You would not the skirts of some one stronger than himbe surprised to hear that he was a party- self to yours, I daresay, when, being a leader, a skilled diplomatist, a daring sol- parvenu despite his usurped title of dier, an adventurous traveller, but you Baron, he aspired to the entrée into clubs would not guess him to be a student, an and salons. The entrée thus obtained, author, an artist. the rest followed easily: he became a milWhile Duplessis thus observed the Vi-lionnaire through a wife's dot, and an am As he thus spoke, a middle-aged man, decorated with the grand cross of the Legion and half-a-dozen foreign orders, lending his arm to a lady of the same age radiant in diamonds, passed by towards the ball-room, and in some sudden swerve of his person, occasioned by a pause of his companion to adjust her train, he accidentally brushed against De Mauléon, whom he had not before noticed. Turning round to apologize for his awkwardness, he encountered the full gaze of the Vicomte, started, changed countenance, and hurried on his companion. "Do you not recognize his Excellency?" said Enguerrand, smiling. "His cannot be a new face to you." "Is it the Baron de Lacy?" asked De Mauléon. "The Baron de Lacy, now Count d'Epinay, ambassador at the court of and, if report speak true, likely soon to exchange that post for the portefeuille of Minister." "He has got on in life since I saw him last, the little Baron. He was then my devoted imitator, and I was not proud of the imitation." bassador through the wife's lover, who is a power in the state." "But he must have substance in himself. Empty bags cannot be made to stand upright. Ah! unless I mistake, I see some one I knew better. Yon pale, thin man, also with the grand cross, surely that is Alfred Hennequin. Is he too a decorated Imperialist? I left him a socialistic republican." "But I presume, even then an eloquent avocat. He got into the Chamber, spoke well, defended the coup-d'état. He has just been made Préfet of the great department of the —, a popular appointment. He bears a high character. Pray renew your acquaintance with him; he is coming this way." "Will so grave a dignitary renew acquaintance with me? I doubt it." But as De Mauléon said this, he moved from the column and advanced towards the Préfet. Enguerrand followed him, and saw the Vicomte extend his hand to his old acquaintance. The Préfet stared, and said, with frigid courtesy, "Pardon me, some mistake." in the gay crowd, which immediately closed behind him, and Enguerrand saw him no more that evening. Duplessis ere this has quitted his seat by the Minister, drawn thence by a young and very pretty girl resigned to his charge by a cavalier with whom she had been dancing. She was the on daughter of Duplessis, and he valued her even more than the millions he had made at the Bourse. "The Princess," she said, "has been swept off in the train of some German Royalty; so, petit père, I must impose myself on thee." The Princess, a Russian of high rank, was the chaperon that evening of Mademoiselle Valérie Duplessis. "And I suppose I must take thee back into the ball-room," said the financier, smiling proudly, "and find thee partners.' "I don't want your aid for that, Monsieur; except this quadrille, my list is pretty well filled up.” "And I hope the partners will be pleasant. Let me know who they are,” he whispered, as they threaded their way into the ball-room. The girl glanced at her tablet. "Well, the first on the list is milord somebody, with an unpronounceable Engname." "Allow me, M. Hennequin," said Enguerrand, interposing, and wishing good-naturedly to save De Mauléon the awkwardness of introducing himself,-lish "allow me to re-introduce you to my kinsman, whom the lapse of years may well excuse you for forgetting, the Vicomte de Mauléon." Still the Préfet did not accept the hand. He bowed with formal ceremony, said, "I was not aware that M. le Vicomte had returned to Paris," and, moving to the doorway, made his salutation to the hostess and disappeared. "The insolent!" muttered Enguerrand. - "Hush!" said De Mauléon, quietly; "I can fight no more duels especially with a Préfet. But I own I am weak enough to feel hurt at such a reception from Hennequin, for he owed me some obligations-small, perhaps, but still they were such as might have made me select him, rather than Louvier, as the vindicator of my name, had I known him to be so high placed. But a man who has raised himself into an authority may well be excused for forgetting a friend whose character needs defence. I forgive him." There was something pathetic in the Vicomte's tone which touched Euguerrand's warm if light heart. But De Mauléon did not allow him time to answer. He went on quickly through an opening "Beau cavalier?" "No; ugly, old too thirty at least." Duplessis felt relieved. He did not wish his daughter to fall in love with an Englishman. "And the next?" "The next," she said, hesitatingly, and he observed that a soft blush accompanied the hesitation. "Yes, the next. Not English too?" "Oh no; the Marquis de Rochebriant." "Ah! who presented him to thee?" "Thy friend, petit père, M. de Brézé." Duplessis again glanced at his daughter's face; it was bent over her bouquet. "Is he ugly also?" "Ugly!" exclaimed the girl, indig nantly; "why, he is " she checked herself and turned away her head. Duplessis became thoughtful. He was glad that he had accompanied his child into the ball-room; he would stay there and keep watch on her and Rochebriant also. Up to that moment he had felt a dislike to Rochebriant. That young noble's too obvious pride of race had nettled him, not the less that the financier himself was vain of his ancestry. Perhaps he still disliked Alain, but the dislike was now accompanied with a certain, not hostile, interest; and if he became connected ant led the fair Valérie back to her fathwith the race, the pride in it might grower's side, she felt as if she had been liscontagious. They had not been long in the ballroom before Alain came up to claim his promised partner. In saluting Duplessis, his manner was the same as usual — not more cordial, not less ceremoniously distant. A man so able as the financier cannot be without quick knowledge of the human heart. "If disposed to fall in love with Valérie," thought Duplessis, "he would have taken more pains to please her father. Well, thank heaven, there are better matches to be found for her than a noble without fortune, and a Legitimist without career." In fact, Alain felt no more for Valérie than for any other pretty girl in the room. In talking with the Vicomte de Brézé in the intervals of the dance, he had made some passing remark on her beauty; De Brézé had said, "Yes, she is charming; I will present you,” and hastened to do so before Rochebriant even learned her name. So introduced, he could but invite her to give him her first disengaged dance; and when that was fixed, he had retired, without entering into conversation. tening to the music of the spheres, and that the music had now suddenly stopped. Alain, alas for her! was under no such pleasing illusion. Her talk had seemed to him artless indeed, but very insipid, compared with the brilliant conversation of the wedded Parisiennes with whom he more habitually danced; and it was with rather a sensation of relief that he made his parting bow, and receded into the crowd of bystanders. Meanwhile De Mauléon had quitted the assemblage, walking slowly through the deserted street towards his apartment. The civilities he had met at Louvier's dinner-party, and the marked distinction paid to him by kinsmen of rank and position so unequivocal as Alain and Enguerrand, had softened his mood and cheered his spirits. He had begun to question himself whether a fair opening to his political ambition was really forbidden to him under the existent order of things, whether it necessitated the employment of such dangerous tools as those to which anger and despair had reconciled his intellect. But the pointed way in which he had been shunned or slighted by the two men who belonged to political life-to men who in youth had looked up to himself, and whose dazzling career of honours was Now, as they took their places in the quadrille, he felt that effort of speech had become a duty, if not a pleasure; and, of course, he began with the first common-identified with the Imperial system — replace which presented itself to his mind. "Do you not think it a very pleasant ball, Mademoiselle?" "Yes," dropped, in almost inaudible reply, from Valérie's rosy lips. "And not over-crowded, as most balls are." Valérie's lips again moved, but this time quite inaudibly. The obligations of the figure now caused a pause. Alain racked his brains, and began again— 66 They tell me the last season was more than usually gay; of that I cannot judge, for it was well nigh over when I came to Paris for the first time." animated his fiercer passions and his more perilous designs. The frigid accost of Hennequin more especially galled him; it wounded not only his pride but his heart; it had the venom of ingratitude, and it is the peculiar privilege of ingratitude to wound hearts that have learned to harden themselves to the hate or contempt of men to whom no services have been rendered. In some private affair concerning his property, De Mauléon had had occasion to consult Hennequin, then a rising young avocat. Out of that consultation a friendship had sprung up, despite the differing habits and social grades of the two men. One day, calling on Hennequin, he found him in a state of great nervous excitement. The avocat had received a public insult in the salon of a noble, to whom De Mauléon had introduced him from a man who pretended to the hand of a young lady to whom Hennequin was attached, and indeed almost affianced. The man was a notorious spadassin-a Again the conversation was interrupt- duellist little less renowned for skill in all ed by the dance, but the ice between the weapons than De Mauléon himself. The two was now broken. And when the affair had been such, that Hennequin's quadrille was concluded, and Rochebri-friends assured him he had no choice but Valérie looked up with a more animated expression than her childlike face had yet shown, and said, this time distinctly, "This is my first ball, Monsieur le Marquis." "One has only to look at Mademoiselle to divine that fact," replied Alain, gallantly. to challenge this bravo. Hennequin, From Fraser's Magazine. OF ANIMAL LIFE. brave enough at the bar, was no hero be- ON SOME GRADATIONS IN THE FORMS fore sword-point or pistol. He was utterly ignorant of the use of either weapon; his death in the encounter with an antagonist so formidable seemed to him certain, and life was so precious; an honourable and distinguished career opening before him, marriage with the woman he loved: still he had the Frenchman's point of honour. He had been told that he must fight; well, then, he must. He asked De Mauléon to be one of his seconds, and in asking him, sank in his chair, covered his face with his hands and burst into tears. "Wait till to-morrow," said De Mauléon; "take no step till then. Meanwhile you are in my hands, and I answer for your honour." On leaving Hennequin, Victor sought the spadassin at the club of which they were both members, and contrived, without reference to Hennequin, to pick a quarrel with him. A challenge ensued; a duel with swords took place the next morning. De Mauléon disarmed and wounded his antagonist, not gravely, but sufficiently to terminate the encounter. He assisted to convey the wounded man to his apartment, and planted himself by his bedside, as if he were a friend. "Why on earth did you fasten a quarrel on me?" asked the spadassin; “and why, having done so, did you spare my life; for your sword was at my heart when you shifted its point, and pierced my shoulder?" IN one of her many entertaining novels, Mrs. Trollope introduces an old lady describing the theory of La Marck on the Origin of Species. In the course of her description, the old lady exclaims, with not unnatural astonishment, "But the most extraordinary thing (excepting one) is, that when the fishes married, they had rats for children; and when the rats married, they had birds; or else the birds came first, and they were confined with rats; and then the rats had cats, I believe, and the cats had dogs, and the dogs monkeys, and the monkeys men and women." A year or two ago, the eloquent and estimable Bishop of Peterborough won a ready laugh from his audience at Carlisle by the following observation: "There is now a theory in fashion that religion is a development of clime and race, just as men were originally developed from oysters and so forth." other clerical orator, at the Nottingham Church Congress held in October of last year, pointed out the inherent fallacy of Darwinism by asking, "Who nursed the first child?" Great laughter followed the question; but whether his brethren were laughing with the speaker, or at him, it would be invidious to surmise. An Thousands of religious teachers in this country believe, or permit their hearers and disciples to believe, that some sixty centuries ago there was a special sudden creation of living organisms answering to "I will tell you, and in so doing, beg the unnumbered species which still occuyou to accept my friendship hereafter, on py the surface of our globe. The arguone condition. In the course of the day, ments which prove this opinion to be utwrite or dictate a few civil words of apol-terly untenable, have been stated over ogy to M. Hennequin. Ma foi! every and over again by men of genius, in lanone will praise you for a generosity so be-guage that even children can understand. coming in a man who has given such The very stones cry out, the rocks and proofs of courage and skill, to an avocat who has never handled a sword nor fired a pistol." That same day De Mauléon remitted to Hennequin an apology for heated words freely retracted, which satisfied all his friends. For the service thus rendered by De Mauléon, Hennequin declared himself everlastingly indebted. In fact, he entirely owed to that friend his life, his marriage, his honour, his career. "And now," thought De Mauléon, "now, when he could so easily requite me, now he will not even take my hand. Is human nature itself at war with me?" hollow mountains proclaim the truth. *The Attractive Man, chap. xxxiv. lived in salt water.* Let no one flatter | fossiliferous strata, have sometimes had The very evidence, however, which has led to this supposition unmistakably proves its futility. Examine the fossils of geological eras far distant from one another, and the earth will seem, to be sure, at the first glance to have changed the character of its population in the successive intervals. Forms familiar at one epoch, later on will have disappeared, and forms not to be found in the earlier periods will present themselves abundantly in the later. But examine the fossils of himself that they could have been carried recourse to supposing that there have to their tomb in the mountain by the been a large number of successive creaNoachian deluge. The deluge could not tions of plants and animals, and that the have dropped Oolitic shells on one moun- earth was cleared and made void of one, tain and Silurian shells on another. It before another was introduced. could not have inserted organisms of the carboniferous period into the middle of a hill, neither could it have laid them on the top, and then neatly covered them up with another thousand feet of stratification. If the deluge sprinkled shells and other remains on the hill surfaces, what sprinkled them below the surfaces, what kept up the sprinkling till the thickness of whole mountains became penetrated with the relics of life? No sane person, when brought face to face with the actual fossils, will believe that the Creator of geological periods immediately succeedthe universe made figures by original creation, of plants and animals, both terrestrial and marine, and shut them up in rocks of clay and flint and marble. Still less will any one believe Him to have originally created in stone the images of dismembered bodies and fragmentary limbs, in every degree of distortion and decay, down to the merest trace of organic structure. Yet what do we find among the sculptures of the rocks? Here the skeleton of a whale, there a grasshopper's wing, tree trunks, and fronds of ferns, gnawed bones and sharp teeth, bits of Lobster, shells of turtle, rats' tails and tigers' skulls, the burrow of the sea-worm, the foot-mark of the wader, and the very ripple of the tide. We find in the chalk the palatal teeth of shark with the crowns worn as though by long usage; we find "tests" of the sea-urchin denuded of their spines and covered with craniavalves and serpulæ and polyzoa. The catalogue of similar facts might be continued without end. The conclusion is inevitable that the formation of the earth's crust has been the slow work of countless ages. The fossil ripple mark was no miraculous effect of sudden creation, but produced by a rippling wave. The fossil zoophyte-case must once have been tenanted by a living zoophyte as the fossil integument of the sea-urchin by a living sea-urchin, and both must have lived in the waters of the ocean at periods of incalculable antiquity, before they were found fossil in the quarries of an inland range of hills. Persons who well knew, and were forced to admit, the succession of life during the formation of the vast series of * Lyell's Manual, p. 5. ing one another, and it at once becomes apparent that there is no point whatever in the world's history of which you can say, Here the old forms seem to have been swept off, and a new set introduced. There is not the slightest evidence of the sudden extinction of species or genera; à fortiori, none of the extinction of groups or whole creations. The disappearances are gradual; there is no concurrent disappearance of a large number of species. The new forms are gradually introduced; there is no simultaneous introduction of a large number. Between the organic structures of one age and those of an age directly subsequent, even where there are considerable differences, there is in every case also strong general resemblance. Descent with variation exactly explains this phenomenon. The doctrine of successive annihilations and creations leaves it unexplained and inexplicable. Would any wise master builder, who wished to make some slight improvement in the structure of his house, pull down the whole fabric and rebuild it from the foundations almost a counterpart of what it was before, and do this not once only, nor twice, but again and again, times without number? Yet men are not ashamed to attribute to the supremacy of the Divine wisdom a course of conduct which in any one of their own fellows they would recognize as extravagantly foolish. Adopt for one moment the favourite theory of special creative interpositions, and apply it to the history of the genus Lingula. The Lingula is a brachiopod with a horny shell of two nearly equal valves. Between the beaks of the two valves passes a long fleshy peduncle or foot stalk, by means of which the animal attaches itself to submarine bodies. Mus |