when I assure you that the Vicomte Alvares is no other than-Almeria Belmont."

Mrs. Melville and Constance could hardly believe the evidence of their senses, so perfect had been the disguise, so perfectly had the assumed character been represented. Mrs. Melville still indulged a secret suspicion that the character of Almeria was the feigned, and that of the Vicomte Alvares the real, one.

Their doubts were resolved by the entrance of a servant with a card.

"Mr. Reginald Villiers-at home?-Certainly," said Mrs. Melville. "Ask him to walk up."

The pretended vicomte turned deadly pale, and trembled with such visible agitation, that the woman was seen at once beneath her masculine disguise.

“Oh, heavens!" she exclaimed, seizing Mrs. Melville's hand," do not, I entreat you, dear madam, do not betray me! I know well the horror I should inspire, if Mr. Villiers were to recognize me in this unfeminine disguise. Promise me, oh! promise me," she said wildly, and appealing alternately to Mrs. Melville and Constance, "that you will not betray me!" "On one condition," said Mrs. Melville.

"Any condition!" exclaimed Almeria.

"Well, my condition is that you return home and substitute some other costume for this one so entirely foreign to every idea of womanly propriety. Trust me, my dear Miss Belmont, you were about to make a sad mistake in giving such a theme for the tongue of scandal."

"Most gladly do I accept the terms," said Almeria, "and I leave Madame de St. Clair as a hostage

for their fulfilment, while I return home for the purpose. The metamorphosis shall be effected, and I can return within an hour."

Distasteful as the proposition was to Madame de St. Clair, there was no alternative, for the arrangements had been made by Almeria, and the equipage, which served them both for the occasion, was hers.

Reginald entered, as the pretended Vicomte Alvares bowed himself out. The deceit was quite as successful as it had been with Mrs. Melville and Constance. Reginald only returned with civility the bow of the young coxcomb, as he supposed him, and bestowed not another thought upon him.

Music and conversation filled up the hour of Almeria's absence so pleasantly, that even Madame de St. Clair was surprised when the bell announced her return.

To assure Mrs. Melville of her good faith, Almeria did not content herself with sending up a messenger to her friend, but came in person to the parlor to seek her.

The dress for which she had exchanged her brilliant Spanish costume, if less becoming, was still more rich, and certainly far more appropriate to her sex. The guise of a fortune-teller, which she had adopted, admitted of any and every ornament, provided symbols of magical art were used to a sufficient extent in its decorations, and these had not been spared. Egyptian hieroglyphics, and all that was odd or mysterious, had been exhausted on it, and the costume, in its way, was quite as perfect as the one she had first

appeared in, for several had been successfully tried before the eventful evening arrived.

Reginald joined in the commendations bestowed upon the felicitous choice of her costume. Almeria thanked him with gentle timidity for the compliment he paid to her taste.

"I am so much indebted to you," she said, "for this amiable commendation, that I will reward you for it."

With the golden wand, the sceptre of her magic power, she drew a charmed imaginary circle around him.

"You are now," she continued, "within the influence of my spells. Beware how you attempt to break through them, lest some mischief befall you.

'I charm thy life

From the weapons of strife,
From stone and from wood,
From fire and from flood,
From the serpent's tooth,

And the beast of blood!""

Reginald caught the end of the golden wand as it was again circling around him.

"I cannot permit you to finish your incantation," he said, "lest your magical charm which begins with the fairest promise, should terminate with the direst malediction that the fertile brain of a poet ever imagined. I hope you are content, as I am, to leave it as it is."

The lateness of the hour warned him, as well as the costumés, that mardi gras was drawing to a close,

and that it was time to depart. When the morning of Ash Wednesday arrived, it may be surmised who, if they thought an apology for the omission necessary, had headaches to plead as a reason for their absence from the church services, and who had not.

CHAPTER XIX.

LONGCHAMPS.

THE abbey founded by Isabella of France, sister of St. Louis, has long since been numbered among the legendary places of the past. The melodious voices of its nuns, the chief attraction to the splendid and fashionable visitors who resorted to it in the days of Passion Week, when they chanted the lamentations and the tenebræ, have long since been hushed in the deep stillness that will never more be awakened by them, and the places "that knew them, now know them no more."

The abbey itself has crumbled into dust, and strangers are naturally led to inquire the meaning of the long and glittering files of elegant equipages that are still seen, at the same period of the year, wending their way through the Champs Élysées and the Bois de Boulogne to the spot, where once the sweet voices were heard resounding, in sacred song, in the chapel of the abbey.

The very name of Longchamp, once exclusively appropriated to the abbey, has changed its signification, for instead of being recognized as the object