"Gratitude and esteem?" said Constance interrogatively, while a bright blush suffused her cheek, and the fairy dimples played round her lip, "what possible harm can lurk in such beautiful words? Words which I cherish especially for your sake,-words which always remind me how deeply I am "—

"Do not finish the sentence, I entreat you,” interposed Reginald. "I would not have you to be grateful to me."

"You would not have me grateful to you?" said Constance, the bright blush suffusing her cheek yet more deeply, while her eyes fell beneath the earnest expression of those, which were looking into them with such a world of tenderness and devotion.

"No," replied Reginald, "I would not have you think for an instant that I claim any feelings but those your heart will give me, freely and untrammelled by any sense of obligation. Tell me," he continued in a tone of passionate fervor, "oh Constance! tell me if I had any place in that heart, before this gratitude was awakened in it? "

In his earnestness he had taken her little hand in both of his, and his eyes beseechingly sought an answering glance from beneath the long lashes that rested on her blushing cheek. She was silent, and tears trembled on those lashes. But when her eyes met his, the question was answered. Words could not then have added one drop to the overflowing cup of Reginald's happiness.

"If I must not be grateful," said Constance, resuming her arch expression and playful manner,

though she made no effort to withdraw her hand

from his, "What can I say?"

"May I dictate, then?" said Reginald.
"Yes."

"And you will follow my dictation ?"

66

"Yes," she repeated.

Say then that you love me!" said Reginald, lowering his voice.

"Say then that you love me!" echoed Constance. "I have fulfilled the compact. Those are your own words, and your own dictation. Now I am sure you ought to be very, very happy, and very-grateful."

"Ah, no!" said Reginald. "I was mistaken in the words I intended you to repeat. Let me dictate once more. I love you!"

"Ah, that is more than I promised!" said Constance laughing. "You must be satisfied with my first compliance. Trust me, you shall always have my esteem."

He smiled, and what a bright happy smile it was, as he kissed again and again the imprisoned hand, unchecked-unreproved. The formidable word had lost its chilling power.

"And my gratitude," she continued, "I shall always be most grate—"

But the word was only half spoken. How it came to be interrupted is a matter which does not in any way concern the readers or the writer of these pages. The latter must be content to say, and the former to learn, that all doubts were from that hour removed from the anxious mind of the young lover, and that his health and happiness were speedily, and together, restored and confirmed.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

THE BEAUTIFUL NUN.

TIME passed on. The gouvernement provisoire became first sickly and attenuated, then a mere walking skeleton, and ended one day, as such feeble bodies are wont to do, by giving up the ghost altogether, without even a struggle.

The Duke of Orleans succeeded as naturally and quietly to the throne of France as if the "Right divine" had put him in possession of it, and as if no scion of the elder branch of the House of Bourbon still laid claim to the regal heritage and the loyalty of the grande nation.

The champion of Republican Liberty, and the supple adherent of eight different governments, gave their sanction at the same moment to the new régime. Lafayette and Talleyrand, though separated by the nominal but now almost invisible lines of the droit et gauche, together offered their allegiance.

"Que faire?" said the former, as the friends of a republic murmured at the speedy demolition of their Utopian schemes, on which were built so many bright hopes of individual fortunes and honors.

"Que

voulez vous? We have every attainable guarantee of freedom and good government in a popular throne surrounded by republican institutions. Is not this a most happy compromise of the difficulties of our position ?"

“Un trône populaire, entouré des Institutions Republicaines!" repeated the caustic and witty Talleyrand, aside to one of the courtiers of the new king, with his usual piquancy and pointed satire. "C'est un jambon entouré de persil. Il faut prendre le jambon, et mettre le persil de côté."

With this strange cement were parties united, droit et gauche, concurring in the opinion that a regal government was the only one that could maintain any stability in France.

The new sovereign, with the emblems of royalty before him, took the solemn and impressive oath that inducted him into his perilous state; and the multitudes assembled on the outside of the Chamber of Deputies, where the ceremony took place, surrounded the royal cortège, as it slowly traversed the quays and streets leading to the now kingly Palais Royal, with tumultuous and deafening cries of "Vive le Roi! Vive la Reine! Vive la famille Royale!"

Paris gives the ton to fashions and to revolutions. Many months had not elapsed after the occurrence of the events thus briefly recorded, when the capital was filled with illustrious fugitives from the vengeance that had overtaken the capricious use, or abuse, of despotic power. The convulsion, which had shaken the nations of Europe to their foundation, extended to distant continents. The ex-dey of Algiers, whose

dominions had just been converted by the thunders of French artillery on the African coast into a province of France, and the ex-emperor of Brazil, Don Pedro, might be seen amicably seated near each other at the opera or in the palaces. But notwithstanding these and similar changes and chances, society and the gayeties of the city began to resume their reign, and the events of the trois journées seemed in a few months almost forgotten.

Forgotten, too, were the troubles and trials incident to and mingled with the events of those days. Reginald, restored to brilliant health and happiness, looked back with complacency rather than regret at the hours and days and weeks of his illness, and forward to the future with unalloyed hope and joy.

He was one day passing the streets that led from the hotel in which he had taken his rooms, to the Faubourg St. Germain, in which distinguished quarter the reader will not be surprised to learn that he had received permission to pay daily visits of some length. Those visits had received the sanction of Mr. and Mrs. Melville, to whom a nearer view of his amiable deportment and noble character had given entire confidence in promising the hand of their lovely daughter to one they deemed so worthy of such a precious

treasure.

As Reginald drew near the house, the door of a porte cochère just before him suddenly opened, and a person dressed in the garb of a sister of charity passed over the threshold. The heavy bronze door shut with a clang behind her, and for a moment she