THE arrival in the metropolis of the king and queen of Naples, the parents of the Duchesse de Berri, mother of the heir of the throne, the young Henri V., restored the gayety that had begun to languish under the enervating influences of spring. The charms of reviving nature and vernal airs, though in striking contrast with the artificial glories and heated atmosphere of crowded assemblies, were not sufficiently attractive to supersede them, especially when so plausible an excuse for renewing their favorite amusements was offered to the gay world.

In order to dispense as far as possible with the courtly ceremonials which, the regal guests probably knew from experience, would, at such a season, confer as little real enjoyment on the receivers of these splendid courtesies as on the givers, they assumed fictitious names. The Count and Countess of Castellamare, as their majesties chose to style themselves, were with these comparatively simple titles to be presented to the courtly circles.

But this self-denying modesty was unavailing.

The politeness of the reigning sovereign was not to be so easily baffled, and the Neapolitan king and queen were so easily recognized beneath their unpretending titles as to recall the trite comparison of the ostrich when her head is buried in the sand, vainly hoping that the hunter will not discover her because she cannot see him.

It would indeed have required but little skill to conceal his Majesty, as a very small, a very old, and a very insignificant looking man, as he was, might have passed in any crowd for something less than the Count of Castellamare. His regal consort it would have been more difficult to disguise, or to pass off for any one but herself to those who had ever beheld or even heard of her. With such as were acquainted with her appearance, it would have been hardly possible to realize any thing either of majesty or nobility in a huge misshapen mass of humanity that had lost, in her excessive obesity, not only every trace of comeliness, if she had ever possessed any, but almost all semblance of a being with a soul. But these disadvantages availed as little to seclude the royal pair, as did the modest names assumed for the occasion of their visit.

The Count and Countess of Castellamare, inhabiting the small but elegant palace of the Élysée Bourbon, received circle after circle of the élite, in accordance with the wishes of the sovereign who claimed them as his guests; and this ceremony completed, the gayeties of the court were resumed with unusual magnificence.

The jeu du Roi, which united all that was brill

iant in the circle of the Palace, was the introductory one of these fetes. The king's card party, though it boasted of small attractions in natural charms, or in youth and beauty, brought together gold embroidery and diamonds enough to illuminate the gorgeous Salle des Marechaux and the Galerie de Diane of the Tuileries, even without the aid of the lustres that threw floods of light over the brilliant scene.

The King of Naples, coughing and hobbling around the circles of trained and courtly ladies, merited, as he received, their thanks for the exertions he made with such visible inconvenience, to do honor to the attentions he received. His illustrious consort waddling around, with a strange smile upon her broad unmeaning face, panted and puffed beneath the weight of the richly jewelled diadem, as if it had been a crown of thorns.

There again sat the daughter of the unfortunate Louis XVI. Thoughtful and abstracted she sat, revolving dark memories of the terrible past-foreshadowing dreamy visions of the bitter future-silent, solemn, and sad.

To this courtly fête succeeded, after an interval of a few days, representations at the theatre of the Tuileries, where the gorgeous attire of the spectators formed in itself a spectacle independently of the stage. There the sylphide Taglioni, in all her youthful pride, balanced her airy form like a butterly on a rose-leaf, or flew with visible or invisible wings amid clouds, where "the moon walking in brightness, looked like her own silvery majesty.

These festivals, and such as these, occupied the gay

evenings in rapid succession during the visit of the Count and Countess of Castellamare, until the final bouquet, the title accorded to the magnificent fête of the Duke of Orleans at his residence, the Palais Royal, closed the dazzling procession.

Art had been exhausted in preparations for this fête, which was intended to surpass all that had preceded it. Nature lent her aid, for the long gallery, which surrounded the whole garden, had been itself converted into a garden, and was filled with exotic plants, among which festoons of lamps of gorgeous hues glowed with prismatic beauty. The palace within and without, the galleries and the garden, were blazing with light; the orchestras, placed at sufficient intervals not to disturb the harmony of each other, invited the dancers to their gay sport, and the rich perfume of the orange-blossoms, wafted in at the open windows and doors, completed the fascination of every sense.

The company equalled in brilliancy the preparations so lavishly made for their reception and entertainment, and surpassed that of the fêtes which had preceded it, greatly in numbers, as no exclusion of the young and lovely had been made in the invitations that had been distributed with an unsparing hand.

It was this occasion that the Comte de Visconti had selected as the one which would be most pleasing, to present his fair daughter to the fashionable world. The exposure of the infamous plot, which had so nearly robbed him of his dearest treasure, had exercised a salutary influence over his fortunes. Dubourg, whose cunning had been sufficient to conceal the nefarious

scheme from Victor and his kinsman, had not escaped, however, without strong suspicions on their part, which completely withdrew their friendship and countenance from him, though the testimony against him was not sufficient to consign him to the disgrace and punishment he so justly merited.

But he was disarmed by these suspicions of the power of farther mischief against Beatrice, and the mysterious influences, which had darkened the fortunes of her father, were dispelled by the discovery of his treachery. The count was at length convinced that the safety of his child would have been better assured if she had been more accustomed to act for herself, and had been surrounded with less restraint. He re

solved in future to pursue a different plan from the one he had adopted in secluding her entirely from the world, and that he would permit her to judge of it more for herself, when she could do so under favorable auspices.

The count willingly yielded to the persuasions of his daughter to accompany her young friend Constance on this interesting occasion, and Mrs. Melville was happy to assume the charge of both.

A lovelier pair was never seen than these two when, arrayed in their favorite robes of transparent white, they met, before the hour appointed for the fête, to compare with youthful interest the costumes they had selected, and which were so nearly alike that the wearers might have passed for sisters. There was, strictly speaking, no resemblance between them, yet it would have been difficult to say which was the loveliest-Beatrice in her regular classical outline of