Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 459

made no remark on this, as she removed the almost untasted meal, nor on the quite as unusual fact, that the wine carafe was already half emptied, and her master himself restless, dreamy, and preoccupied. Concluding, however, from these symptoms, that a fierce struggle between generosity and avarice was going on in M. Derville's breast, she quietly determined on bringing an auxiliary to the aid of generosity, that would, her woman's instinct taught her, at once decide the conflict.

No doubt the prosperous ship-broker was unusually agitated. The old woman's news had touched a chord which, though dulled and slackened by the heat and dust of seventeen years of busy, anxious life, still vibrated strongly, and awakened memories that had long slept in the chambers of his brain, especially one pale Madonna face, with its soft, tear-trembling eyes that---- 'Ciel!' he suddenly exclaimed, as the door opened and gave to view the very form his fancy had conjured up: 'Ciel! can i