economized upon the two fancy ball dresses, thus amply sufficed for the humble wants of these poor people until the return of spring, when they had reason to hope that their honest labors might be crowned with success.

The day following these events, Antoine begged permission to accompany Madame Laval in her usual visit, to express his gratitude to his young benefactress. He was still pale and haggard, but he was cleanly dressed, and had evidently taken special pains to make himself presentable. On entering the room where Constance was sitting alone, he remained modestly standing near the door, and looked earnestly at her, until his eyes filled with tears, that found their channels in his hollow cheeks.

"You have been the good angel you look like, young lady," he said, his voice choking with strong emotion. "You have saved a family from famine, and an immortal soul from perdition! May that God who has rescued me, through your goodness, from misery and crime, ever watch over and bless you!"

CHAPTER XV.

A MASQUERADE.

"THERE was a sound of revelry by night." Not the joyous and light-hearted mirth that invites the young, the gay, the careless to its jocund merriment, but that frenzied gayety which often serves as a cloak to hide the scorpion passions stinging the breast within, while the lips smile and smile again, as if in derision of their own mockery.

But amid the mad orgies of a bal masqué de l'opera, there needed no such smiles, if they suited not the taste and temper of those who participated in the scene. The faces were concealed by those varied and unnatural masks, which seemed to have taxed all the ingenuity of their contrivers to render them as grotesque, as strange, as wild as the tumultuous revel in which they were so conspicuously displayed.

Turks, Jews, and Arabs, the Chinese and Esquimaux, Franciscan monks in sackcloth, Lady Abbesses with rosaries, imps and angels, women in sailors' costume, and men in the guise of women, all were mingled together in the fury of the dansomania, which was fast rising to its greatest height.

Amid this innumerable and ever-increasing throng, whose uproarious propensities seemed only repressed by their awe of the gens d'armes stationed at intervals throughout the scene of action, and who were invested with authority to banish such of this goodly assembly as should in their opinion pass the prescribed limits of decorum, were seen two young men, simply concealed from the gaze of the multitude by the ordinary disguise of a black domino.

They had retired a little from the crowd, which they were surveying through their opera glasses, though they seemed only for a moment at a time, to enter into the spirit of the scene. Apparently their thoughts and conversation were engaged on graver topics.

"La messe et la chasse! Victor," said one of these young men to his companion, as they were approached by a monk of La Trappe arm in arm with an outlaw of Sherwood forest dressed in Lincoln green with baldric and bugle. "La messe et la chasse! our worthy sovereign Charles X. should certainly be here to behold these superb representatives of his favorite occupations."

"I must beg leave to differ with you in opinion, citizen,” said a mask standing near, and availing himself of the license permitted on these occasions to join in the conversation. "I must beg leave to differ with you as to the propriety and expediency of introducing majesty among us at a moment when pleasure should reign supreme. For my own part, I am too happy for once to be relieved from the presence of royalty."

"A propôs of royalty," interposed another member

of this select company, who had imagined the quaint device of investing his person in a huge balloon of striped green silk, emulating a gigantic melon, while his red vest appearing through an opening in front was garnished with shining black buttons resembling the seeds of the ripe fruit; "à propôs of royalty, have either of you attended the exposition of manufactures that took place this morning? Par bleu ! I wonder that a cook had the spirit to run himself through with a sword instead of his spit, without the provocation of insult or injury, and only because he could not serve majesty with fish, in the days of the grand monarque, and that I, Jean Ferron, should have made up my mind to survive the insult I received from this same royalty some hours ago."

"What was it, Mignon ?" inquired a jaunty sailor lad, whose brown curls floating beneath the tarpaulin hat, betrayed the coquettish wearer of this most modest and delicately selected costume. "What was it, Jean? Come, enlighten and enliven the company with a history of your adventures; for you have been as stupid as a melon ever since you have been here, acting your part to admiration. I have only been hoping that you would transgress the bounds of propriety, that the gens d'armes might have the pleasure of bowling your verdant rotundity out of the salle."

"Why if you command," returned the melon, looking with a loving leer at the dashing sailor lad, “I might be willing to run some risk of being turned out, and I must moreover answer your question, albeit your speech is not seasoned with such a spice of polite

ness as is tasteful to my palate. But if your feet, which are still patting an echo to the music, can remain quiet a moment, I will begin."

66 Begin and make an end at once then," said the sailor lad impatiently, "for I should like to hear if your adventure was like my own, though I fear me your tale will not be worth the gallopade I am losing while listening to your prate."

The melon, thus amicably encouraged, proceeded: "I attended the exposition this morning, to present to his Majesty a fusil; one which had cost me the labor of months, one in short "-and here the melon puffed out his green sides and drew himself proudly up,-"a fusil, in short, worthy of Jean Ferron. Sire, said I, when his Majesty at length made the long expected tour of the rooms,-Sire! said I, with all humility, and dropping on one knee, permit a poor fabricant the honor, great and unmerited as it is, of offering to your Majesty's acceptance a fusil on which I have lavished all my art, to render it worthy of the distinction I hope it will receive at your gracious hands."

"His Majesty eyed the superb fusil for a moment as I held it up, and then what-what do you suppose? No-you never can suppose! My brain reels when I think of what ensued. He said, so carelessly that the last words faintly reached my ear as he passed rapidly on, "Thank you, friend, your fusil would be of no use to me; I always have mine made in England.’’

"Bravo!-Bravissimo!" shouted the sailor lad. "A proper pendant this for my embroidered silk hose which I presumed to offer to the Duchess de Berri, as