approached. He shook hands with IT. I Il "Our notary, too," continued the unhappy lady, "is unfortunately confined by illness. But my son-I have not been successful in seeking him out yet. He will advance the money." On the same morning, a matronly ladylike person, recently arrived from a northern province, was seated alone in an obscure apartment of the Hotel de Clair Fontaine. Her health was evidently impaired, and grief had committed sad ravages on her once handsome face. She was trying to peruse and comprehend the copy of a law-deed; but her tears fell too fast to read, and her heart was too full of trouble to understand the writing before her. A respectful tap was heard at the door, and presently a person, bearing a huge box of papers, presented himself. He took exactly three steps into the room, and having made an elegant bow, advanced to the table, where he deposited the box; out of which the excessive neatness of his dress, and superlative precision of his manner, might have led one to believe he had just stepped. "Madame Folarte ?" inquired the notary; for such he was. The lady bowed, and motioned the visi tor to a seat. "I trust I have the pleasure to see you in perfect health," began the lawyer. "I take the liberty of intruding myself upon you concerning a matter of trifling impor tance." Madame Folarte's whole frame was convulsed with a sudden shudder; for the man, as he spoke, cast his eyes on the deed that lay on the table. "Then this is the last day!" she ejaculated. "Pardon me, madame, I shall have the honor to occupy your valuable time precisely twenty minutes." The notary then took a watch from his waistcoat pocket, and placed it beside him. "By twelve o'clock, to-day ?" "I may not find him by that time. I have been here four days without seeing him. I have sent frequently. He is seldom at home." "Bless me, how extremely unlucky; the court of assize broke up at seven last evening for the session, and unless we proceed against you before mid-day, we shall not be able to arrest you till the next sitting. Hence you see, madame, you must be so extremely obliging as to pay in the cash before then, or we shall not have time to procure the necessary letters of execution." "What will be the consequence ?" exclaimed Madame Folarte, bursting into tears. "By a quarter past eleven, we shall have procured the writs; and at twelve, the bailiff with his follower will have the honor of calling for you. But, bless me, a most lucky circumstance: I have an appointment with a client, who is in St. Pelagie.t Will you allow me to do myself the pleasure of offering you a seat in my cab? The bailiff can ride behind." Madame Folarte, completely stupified with the horrors that too surely awaited her, was unable to answer. "Indeed, I shall be most happy," continued the imperturbable lawyer. "About twelve-perhaps five minutes later-we shall be with you. Permit me to hope that, provided the money shall not have been paid into court by that time, you will have made your out-door toilet. And now, madame, nothing remains for me but the pleasure of wishing you good day." The pattern of legal politeness then left the room with the languishing air of a dancer making his adieus to his partner. While this scene was being enacted, I was conducted by my second self into the shop of the jeweller of whom the tiara I intended to present to Estelle had been ordered. The chief assistant stretched his long neck over the row of customers that "I know too well the object of your be-lined the counter, to say, "The tiara Moning here. In a word, you must tell the sieur ordered is ready. Monsieur shall be creditor-Monsieur Durand, I believe attended to as soon as it is possible." He that I have not been able to raise the money." "It gives me infinite pain to hear you say so. Allow me to offer you a pinch of snuff-it is genuine, believe me." thought he was going to receive ready money, for a chair was promptly handed. WE preferred standing at the door. The debtors' prison of Paris. "Here are the jewels," said the man as to have left him a moment's comparative he approached; "they are of the finest happiness; he appeared to have sunk into water, and elegantly set. The price two obliviousness. Thrice miserable state, to thousand francs only." render forgetfulness a blessing! For the first time IT spoke, and I heard my own voice as if from another's lips. I shuddered. The bargain was made. Twenty-five louis were to be paid at once, the rest in fifteen days. The shopman retired to pack up the purchase. Several carriages had stopped in the street on account of some obstruction. Suddenly a shriek, loud, piercing, and to me familiar, entered my brain, and went straight to my heart! I saw a bitter smile pass over my companion's-my own countenance. A man, who had alighted from some vehicle, accosted us. He took off his hat. "I trust Monsieur will excuse a perfect stranger taking the liberty to address him; but a lady, whom I have the honor to escort to St. Pelagie, desired-before she fainted in my cab-to have the pleasure of speaking to Monsieur!" That lady was my mother, arrested for a debt I had neglected to pay! She came tottering along the pavement to embrace me, but in the attempt sank on the ground. Not at all affected by the scene, my ever ready double said in the calmest accents to the little man-"Take her away," and the official did as he was bid! A moment before, the jeweller's man put forth the trinket in one hand, but instantly drew it back on seeing the transaction without. His thoughts were easily guessed to be these: "A person who cannot afford to rescue his parent from prison, will hardly be able to pay a balance for jewellery." "What, sir; do you doubt my honor?" said, as I thought, my other self, with a su preme assumption of indignation. Twentyfive louis were thrown jingling on the counter, and the tradesman was conquered. The present for Estelle was gained. Even this was denied for any length of time; a faint voice from a bed which stood in a corner of the room awoke him to all the horrors of his lot. "Dear brother," it whispered, "you, too, are ill?" "No, no; not ill," said the youth hurri edly, as he approached the bed; "not ill, dear Lisette, but-” "Faint, sinking, François ?" then suddenly recollecting herself, she exclaimed, "Alas! you have not tasted food for two days!" She fell on the pillow, and bathed it in tears. "Lisette, Lisette, be of good heart," replied the brother. "Indeed I am not suffering on that account. Soon will these miseries be ended. Yes, yes," he continued, his eye brightening with a ray of hope, as he glanced towards the manuscript, "Monsieur Debit, the publisher, has promised-positively passed his word-that when complete, he will purchase my romance. Nay, the price is agreed on-two thousand francs. To-morrow evening we shall be possessed of two thousand francs! Think of that, sister." "Would we had one franc now," interrupted Lisette mournfully. "But you have at last made known our wretched state. Your letter to Folarte". "Name him not! He it is who has brought all these miseries upon us. All, all-my poverty, your illness. Oh, sister, he is unworthy of the sighs, the tears you have shed for him! Besides, his dishon esty to me, his attentions to the woman he calls Estelle, ought to" "François, this must not be; you think too hardly of our cousin. My heart is indeed breaking-not because he is lost to me, but because he is lost to himself. The terrible vice of gaming has for a time blackened his heart. But he will be here yet! know he will. My own heart tells me so." "Not while he has a louis left to gamble with. Let us not think of him. I will resume my task. Meanwhile two other victims of my errors were suffering the pangs of poverty in their severest acuteness. In a miserable attic, in the most wretched quarter of Paris, a young man-his form attenuated, his visage wan-was earnestly engaged in François had scarcely uttered those words making alterations in a romance of his own before we entered his room. On beholding composition. He had pursued the task as what he thought to be me, he threw himself long as his fast-failing strength would per- into an attitude of defiance; the girl shriekmit: but that was at length exhausted, and ed and hid her head under the bed-clothes. he covered his face with his thin starved- There was a pause. Lisette was the first to looking fingers, to rest upon them a head speak. "François, I, your sister, so dear to aching with mental anxiety and physical you, implore you to receive him with kindweakness. Poverty, the fiend whose gall-ness. He has come to relieve us-to pay ing influence he bitterly bewailed, seemed you." My other self smiled bitterly while placing a packet on the table. tion of society in the French capital renders as abundant as their characters are difficult to estimate. She was lively, without levi "If such be your intention," said the poor author, "leave us the money, and de-ty; gay, and not dissipated. Though her part." "I have none," was the answer. "Wretch!" continued François, sinking into the chair, overpowered with excitement and bodily weakness; "if you come here to glory in the misery thou hast caused, thy triumph shall be complete! I am starving, and Lisette is on her death bed." "I cannot help either," was the reply. "Cousin," murmured the girl, grasping the hand of that which represented my person, "hear me. The money you borrowed of my brother will save him-myself nothing can save; my disease lies too deep for human riches or human skill. He has sacrificed all for my sake; let him not perish; he has not tasted food for two days. Give him some money!" "It is all gone-lost." "All! Sell something to buy bread for my dear brother. Yes, yes; I know you will. Have you nothing that will fetch money?" "Nothing." "Hypocrite! liar!" shouted François, with unnatural energy; "that case contains jewels, possibly a present for". "For whom?" asked the maiden, almost frantic with joy at so near a prospect of relief. My representative, deliberately taking up the packet, said, "For Estelle !" There was a terrible shriek! Our exit was impeded on the stairs by a man ascending them. François was heard to exclaim in the greatest agony, "Help! help! She has swooned; she is dead!" house was constantly resorted to by the most notorious dissipants of both sexes in Paris, yet her own fair fame had never bee materially impaired. She countenanced gaming, without practising it; and forwarded almost every kind of intrigue, adroitly escaping from each adventure without reproach. Young, handsome, a widow, and consequently her own mistress, Estelle's bitterest enemy could say no worse of her than that she was a consummate coquette. There were music and dancing. Screened off from the rest of the room was an écarté table, at which Cornet, Coquin, and two others, were seated at play. Ir led me behind the screen, from which we looked on upon the game, unobserved by others. Estelle suddenly tripped away from a group of dancers to greet one of the card-players. "Ah!" she ejaculated, with a smile that seemed to radiate over the whole of her expressive_form-" ah! when did you return from London, my dear Theodore ?" Her "dear" Theodore! "Hast thou been to the top of St. Paul's? Did you hear Grisi? or have the London fogs spoiled her voice? Hast brought over a new cab and an English tiger? But I had forgotten," continued Estelle, giving her head a pettish toss; "I am affronted with you. You have put down your mustachios, and you know I admired them." "True; but my allegiance to your taste cost me, on two occasions, my liberty. I was twice mistaken for a London swindler." Questions now poured in upon the traveller from all sides; till, putting both hands I began to hope that the imaginary being to his ears, he exclaimed, "Silence! ere I who now seemed to control my actions had am stunned. You shall know all in time. done its worst, in exhibiting to me the dire-I intend arranging some hasty notes for pubful effects of my crimes. But it was not so.lication, and it will be a most interesting I was doomed to follow IT to the house of book, believe me. Having been received feasting and revelry-to Estelle's soirée. with the greatest hospitality in many excelWhat a contrast was here presented to the lent private families, I shall be able to give wretched abode so lately visited! Smiling extremely entertaining sketches of the lafaces, laughing voices, and gay forms flitted dies' foibles, with some satire on the vices across my sight and rang in my ears; whilst and ill-breeding of the men. I shall draw recollections of misery, want, death, rankled up a lucid detail of the present state and in my bosom. Yes, so it was. My heart prospects of the country, for I conversed in and conscience were still left to gall and English with the principal secretary of the accuse me; but my will, with the power to Interior for more than half an hour. At a answer its dictates, had passed to another. table d'hôte, I heard authentic anecdotes of The bitterness of remorse corroded my the court, and took great pains to be intromind, unmitigated by the few pleasures de- duced to several literary characters. In rivable from participation in guilt. short, my work will be a valuable record of every particular relating to the British empire; and I mean to call it” Estelle Lemartine was one of those equivocal persons whom the peculiar constitu "What?" interrupted a dozen voices. "A Fortnight in London."" eager | ing apartment. I followed without a moment's delay. Jewels and presents from England lay scattered on the table. I saw At this moment Estelle beheld us. She ran that which convinced me my happiness was up to my other self with a greater appear- wrecked. Cornet, who was behind, burst ance of delight than she had evinced even into a loud laugh; Estelle screamed at my towards Theodore. She called IT her dear wild appearance; and a cold, writhing smile Albert, with a great deal more apparent fer- passed over my own counterfeit. My flashvor than when she addressed the other as ing eyes exchanged one look with Theoher dear Theodore! She laid her hand up- dore, another with Cornet. Those glances pon Irs shoulder, was grateful for the jew-arranged every thing-there was to be a els, and betrayed every token of affection, but in the midst of these expressions, slid away to waltz with my rival, "You here?" ejaculated Cornet, starting suddenly back and frowning angrily upon my representative. "And why not?" said my voice calmly. "Did I not appoint to come?" "Let us withdraw from this throng, and I'll tell you why you ought not to be here," was the reply, as we sat down at the deserted écarté table. "Folarte, you are a madman. Nay worse; I dare not say how much worse. I know all; though I should be the last to speak. I am a gambler by profession. 1 have helped to ruin many. I have won by fair means or foul the last centime from the foolish wretch, whose corpse has, an hour after, been dragged out of the Seine ; I have seen the starving wife cling in frantic supplication to the arm of her husband, and piteously beg for one franc of the sum that jingled in his pocket, which I knew roulette and loaded dice would soon make mine; but," he continued, "I have never before beheld such a spectacle as your conduct preA mother in prison, a cousin and his betrothed sister; one starving, the other dying, perhaps dead; and you, the cause of all this, here-among the gay, paying homage to beauty, and buying its favors with the liberty of your parent and the bread of your cousins; indulging your passion, at the expense of every feeling that makes us human, for a woman who metes out her love by the length of her lovers' purses. My own crimes are, indeed, many and great, but none of them unnatural!" sents. duel! "The plains of Grenelle in an hour," said my voice, as if to ratify the engagement. Theodore bowed. Cornet was prevailed on, after some difficulty, to become my second. On our way to the rendezvous, we called at his lodgings for pistols. During our walk, my mind was fully occupied. It had leisure; for Cornet was busily talking to my coporeal self about the preliminaries of the field. From the time of the occurrence opposite the jeweller's until that moment, I had almost taken the extraordinary separation, as it were, of my existence as a matter of course. Now I was about to undergo an ordeal that would expel any illusion from my mind, if I had a doubt; but I had none. "There it is," thought I; "Ican see it. Yet how? I behold my own eyes as if in another's head. Whence, then, do I derive the power that makes me see it? Incomprehensible! perhaps IT will be struck with the adversary's ball. Will that hurt me?—what a question!" We arrived at Grenelle in time. There was just light enough. The morning was beginning to break; and every thing was managed with great exactness. The seconds were evidently used to it; both being gamblers by profession, this was a part of their business. The figure of myself took a station marked out by Cornet, and carefully examined the weapon. The precise moment had arrived. "Fire," shouted Cornet. Suddenly I felt a tremendous blow, as if a heavy club had violently struck my left shoulder. My throat was instantly dried up I cried for water. I had fallen. I was shot, and at that instant I no longer beheld the reflection of my own form! Sanity had, however, only returned for an instant, for the pain rendered me unconscious; and on being removed to my lodg The torturing remorse this lecture inflicted upon my heart was doubly increased by its being made by a man I knew to be one of the veriest wretches in creation. At this moment Theodore and Estelle whirled past in a rapid waltz, during which the tiara fell from her head. It became entang-ings, fever succeeded. I lay in a state of led with their feet, and she kicked it out of the way. Ir rose to pick up the jewels; on looking around, the two waltzers had disappeared. They had whirled into an adjoin partial insensibility for nine weeks, and meantime, my case had been reported to the School of Doctors, who called it "monomania." Of that, I return thanks to heaven, I was completely cured; but what rejoices me | popular writers in France, and several of most is, that every thing is forgiven. My his romances have been translated into Engmother is restored to liberty. Lisette had lish. only swooned in the attic, when her brother exclaimed she was dead; and has recovered. François is no longer poor. It happened thus: "Here," said Albert, as he gave me his manuscript, "are heads of the events I have just been relating. The disorder, hideous as it was, I have always looked upon as a fortunate one. By its agency, I saw the folly, wickedness, and heartless cruelty of the mad career I was running. The duel arrested the progress of a delusion that must have otherwise ended in incurable and total derangement: the shock dismissed my imagined attendant; whilst the quantity of blood taken from me, to ward off a fatal fever which hourly impended, prevented its The delusion effected a moral The notary who hurried my mother to prison had shamefully accumulated costs, and misrepresented the case to his client. On learning the truth, Monsieur Durand immediately abandoned his action, and also provided good tenants for both our farms, the one at Guisnes, the other for that in the commune of Ardengon. He has given us ample time for payment of the debt, to recover which the rascally notary persuaded return. him to sue. From the moment of my sud- cure; the bullet and lancet a physical one; den and heartless departure from François' for they cured me of a horrible monomiserable home, his circumstances improv-mania." ed. The person I met on the stairs was the publisher Debit. He had heard of my cousin's extreme poverty, and not having seen him for many days, thought something had happened, and sought him out. On the spot, he purchased and paid for the copyright of the romance, and the poor author's fortune was made. A physician was instantly provided for Lisette, and she soon recovered. It was a beautiful day last year, early in autumn, before harvest work in this northern region had commenced, that a young and merry party None but those who have experienced crossed the bleak hills of one of the remote Shet land Isles, from the most northerly dwelling of them, can know the soothing, calm, happiman in her majesty's dominions, towards the parness-imparting influences of repentance. ish church-for so is here the custom-to witIt is a sudden change from the purgatory of ness the ceremony of marriage between two of sin to the beatitude of virtue. That it is their number. The bride was a lovely girl, in which makes me feel so happy. Yet I have one trouble left- have wronged Lisette too deeply ever to hope forgiveness. ALBERT FOLARte. Thus much of this history is narrated by its hero. I received it from his own hands in a manuscript I have translated almost literally, which will account for the French construction of some of the sentences. I will now proceed to relate the sequel. her nineteenth year. She was in a simple dress of white-white shawl, white satin ribbons in her neat cap, and the rather unusual finery for a cottage maid (a present, however), of white kid gloves. Her whole appearance was strikingly prepossessing; and in face, figure, and demeanor, would, I thought, have adorned a much higher station. Her bridegroom was a few years older, and their courtship had been even from the days of childhood. Some circumstances had occurred to defer their union for a few months beyond the time intended, but at length Whoever has traversed from Guisnes they stood before the minister who was to join to the picturesque little village of Arden- their lot in one. Part of their landlord's family gon, about seven miles east of Calais, can- met them at church, to officiate as bride's-maid not have failed to observe-in a cross road and man; and the whole party, including a son turning off opposite a representation of the of a well-known and much-respected ornament of the law in Edinburgh, who happened to be on Crucifixion rudely carved in wood, with a heap of miniature crosses strewed at its visit to the island, soon retraced their steps to the hyperborean cottage, to spend the evening foot-a spacious house, having a garden in dancing, and other amusements suitable to of some extent, whose only boundary is a the occasion. Healths were pledged to the hapquadrangle of stately trees. That, reader, piness of the youthful pair of course, but we is the patrimonial residence of Albert Fo- rarely find intemperance sullying such meetings larte. He is now happily settled for life, in Shetland. The newly united couple were with Lisette as his helpmate. Madame Fo- poor in worldly goods, but he was a clever and adventurous fisherman, and she had been larte still lives in peace and contentedness brought up to be frugal and industrious, and with her son. The cousin, whom we have they had mutual love in strength and purity to called François, is now one of the most light them on their path through "the world that a |