furnished studio, at the mercy of the | spoke in his wheel with cousin Marseasons and with no other luxuries than guerite." kisses, which for him, he imagined, would ever hold the rapture and forgetfulness of the first one? The choice meant the clipping of his own wings and perhaps moral death, for her ultimate misery, or the tempered loveliness of a dream preserved and substantial bliss rejected. He could not make up his mind that day, and sent his mother away without an answer. Maurice Brodeau was not informed of his dilemma. It was matter too delicate in this stage for discussion. But the night brought him no nearer to decision, and standing before his easel, making believe to be engaged upon a sketch he had lately taken at Fontainebleau, he held serious debate within himself whether he ought to consult his friend or not. In his studio up-stairs, Maurice was loitering near the window in an idle mood, and saw a quiet brougham stop in front of their house in the Avenue Victor Hugo. He watched the slow descent of an old man dressed in a shabby frockcoat, untidily cravated, who leaned heavily upon a thick-headed cane. The old gentleman surveyed the green gate on which were nailed the visiting-cards of the two artists, and jerked up a sharp, pugnacious chin. "Our ancient uncle, the respectable and mighty banker, of a surety," laughed Maurice, on fire for the explanation of the riddle. The head of the firm of Ulrich pushed open the gate, sniffed the air of the damp courtyard, and solemnly mounted the wooden stairs, making a kind of judicial thud with his heavy stick. "The jackanapes!" he muttered, for the benefit of a tame cat. "It is a miracle how these young fools escape typhoid fever, living in such places.” Maurice cautiously peeped over the banisters, and saw the old gentleman turn the handle of Armand's door without troubling to knock. "Good Lord," thought the watcher, "it is fortunate friend Armand has broken with that little devil Yvette, or the old bear might have had the chance of putting a fine Armand in his linen blouse was standing in front of his easel, with his back to the door. He was certainly working, but his mind was not so fixed upon his labor but that he had more than an odd thought for his cousin. Pretty phrases, gestures, and expressions of hers kept running through his thoughts, as an under melody sometimes runs through a piece of music, unaggressively but soothingly claiming the ear. They brought her presence about him, to cheer him in the midst of his solemn preoccupations upon their mutual destiny. While his reason said no, and he regarded himself as a fine fellow for listening to reason at such a moment, her lips curved and smiled and bent to his in imagination's first spontaneous kiss. And then he told himself pretty emphatically that he was growing too sentimental, and that it behoves a man to take his pleasure and his pains heartily and bravely, and not go abroad whimpering for the moon. Just when he had made up his mind to shoulder his moral baggage and, whistling merrily, face the solitary roads, he was made to jump and fall back into perplexity by a crusty, wellknown voice. "Well, young man! So this is where you waste your time." Armand swung round in great alarm, and reddened painfully. "You look astounded, and no wonder. 'Tis an honor I don't often pay young idiots like you. Ouf, man! Look at his dirty jacket. Your father was a rock of sense in comparison. At least, he did not get himself up like a baker's boy, and go roystering in company with a band of worthless rascals.” "I presume, uncle, you have come here for something else besides the pleasure of abusing my father to me." "There he is now, off in a rage. Can't you keep cool for five minutes, you hot-headed young knave? What concern is it of mine if you choose to die in the workhouse? But there's your mother. It frets her, and I esteem your mother, young sir." Armand lifted his brows discontent edly. He held his tongue, for there was nothing to be said, as he had long ago beaten the weary ground of protest and explanation. gan to walk about distractedly, and was not quite sure that it was not the room that was walking about instead of his own legs. "The rascal says nothing, thinks "I think we may burn the sticks and himself a great fellow, I've no doubt. daubs and brushes now, eh, young The Almighty made nothing more con- man?" laughed the old man, waggling trary and mischievous than boys. They his stick instead of his head in the have you by the ears when you want to direction of Armand's easel, and giving sit comfortably by your fireside. Finds a contented vent to his peculiar chuckle. he's got a heart too, I hear. Mayhap" Burn the baker's blouse, and dress that will sober him, though I'm doubt-yourself like a Christian. When you ful." Armand stared, and changed color like a girl. He eyed his uncle apprehensively and began to fiddle with his brushes. "I-I don't understand you, sir," he said tentatively. "Yes, you do, but you think it well to play discretion with me. I'm the girl's father, and there's no knowing how I may take it, eh, you young villain?" The old man pulled his nephew's ear, and laughed in a low, chuckling way peculiar to crusty old gentlemen. "Has my mother spoken to you about - about Suppose she hasn't, eh? What are used to the novelty of a coat and a decent dinner you may come down to Marly and see that giddy-pated girl of mine. But a week of steady work at the bank first, and mind, no paint-boxes or dirty daubers about the place. If I catch sight of any long-haired fellow smelling of paint I'll call the police." Armand gazed regretfully round his little studio. He picked out each familiar object with a sudden sense of separation and a wish to bear them ever with him in that long farewell glance. But the sadness was a pleasant sadness, for was not happy love the beacon that lured him forth, and when the heart is young what lamp shines so radiantly and invites so winningly? Still, it was a sacrifice, though beyond lay the prospect of a lover's meeting, in which the thought of stuff so common as gold "Suppose I haven't guessed it either, would lie buried in the first pressure of eh? What then?" a girl's lips. "You are not decided, I dare say?" sneered his uncle. Armand's look was clearly an interrogation, almost a prayer. He blinked his lids at the vivid flash of conjecture, Armand met his eyes unflinchingly, and shook his head dejectedly against and held out his hand. "A man who is it. You can't mean - no, it cannot worth the name can't regret love and be that happiness. For Marguerite's sake I The old man waggled a very sagacious will do my best in the new life you head. offer, and I thank you, uncle, for the "Marguerite!" shouted the astound-gift." ed youth, and there was a feeeling of suffocation about his throat. "That young fop from Vienna will feel mighty crest-fallen," was the re"Suppose one foolish young person flection of the head of the Ulrich Bank, liked to believe she had a partner in as he hobbled down-stairs. He disliked her folly, eh, young man? What the elegant Bernard, and was himself glad to have back his favorite nephew, though the means he had employed to What secure that result might not be of unimpeachable honesty. then?" "My cousin, too!" "And if it were so, eh? then?" "Good God! uncle, why do you come The banker's departure was the sigand tell me this?" The dazed lad be-nal for Maurice on the lookout up 86 stairs. He bounded down the stairs, Brodeau had never for an instant doubted that this would be the end of it. He mildly approved the conventional conclusion, though not without private regrets of his own. nally to many a worthless jade. We've Maurice crammed his knuckles furiously into his eyes. His eloquence had mounted to his head, and flung him impetuously into his friend's arms, with tears streaming down his cheeks. "A girl's eyes have done it," sighed "You'll come back again, won't you, Armand?" Armand sentimentally. "Come back? Yes," Armand re"Of course, of course, the old temptation. But she would have inveigled plied sadly; “but I shall feel something A like Marius among the ruins of CarAnthony out of his hermitage. "I'll keep your velvet jacket, and when you are tired of grandeur and lords and dukes, you can drop in here and put it on, and smoke a comfortable pipe in your old armchair." sorry time you'll have of it, I foresee, thage." For two Maurice went straightway to the nearest café, and spent a dismal evening, consuming bock after bock, until he felt sufficiently stupefied to face his solitary studio, where he shed furtive tears in contemplation of all his friend's property made over to him as an artist's legacy. Though brimming over with happiWhen it came to parting the young ness and excitement, Armand himself men wrung hands with a sense of more was not quite free of regret for the relinquished velvet jacket and brushes than ordinary separation. years had they shared fair and foul and boxes, as he made his farewell to weather, and camped together out of wandering by a journey on the top of doors and under this shabby roof, upon an omnibus from the Etoile to the Rue which one was now about to turn his de Grenelle, and solaced himself with a back. The days of merry vagabondage cheap cigarette. were at an end for Armand, and his face was now towards civilization and respectable responsibilities. He might revisit this scene of pleasant Bohemia, and find things unchanged, but the old spirit would not be with him, and the zest of old enjoyments would be his no more. "Many a merry tramp we've had together, Armand," said Maurice, and he felt an odd sensation about his throat while his eyelids pricked queerly. "We've got drunk together on devilish bad wine, and pledged ourselves eter For one long week did he work datifully at the bank, inspected books with his uncle, and repressed an inclination to yawn over the dreary discussion of shares and bonds and funds, of vast European projects and policies in jeopardy, and he felt the while a smart of homesickness for the little studio in the Avenue Victor Hugo. In the evening he dined with his mother, and found consolation for the irksomeness of etiquette in the excellence of the fare. He thought of Marguerite incessantly, and spoke of her whenever he could, but he did not forget Maurice or the | forsaken your delightful den. I hear cooking-stove, on which their dinners How could you, my cousin? The cookin the olden days had so often come to grief. He might sip Burgundy now, yet he relished not the less the memory of the big draughts of beer which he and Maurice had found so delicious. III. ing-stove, the fishing-rod, the easel, blouse, and velvet jacket, - all abandoned for the less interesting resources of our every-day existence!" Her eyes and voice were full of arch protest, and her smile went to the troubled lad's head, more captivating than wine. "It was for your sake, Marguerite," he answered timidly, in tones dropped to an unquiet murmur. "Permit me, cousin, to retire for the moment," said Bernard, turning his back deliberately upon his disconcerted relative. What was it in their exchanged looks, in their clasped hands, in Bernard's unconscious air of fond proprietorship, in Marguerite's half droop towards him of shy surrender, that carried to Armand BUT all these pinings and idle regrets were silenced, and gave place to rapturous content the first afternoon on which he walked up the long avenue of his uncle's country-house at Marly. The week of trial was at an end, and he was now to claim his reward from dear lips. Everything under the sun seemed to him perfect, and even banks had their own charm, discernible to the happy eye. There was a beauty in gold he had hitherto failed to perceive, and crusty old gentlemen were the appropriate the conviction of fatal error? He guardians of lovely nymphs. In such a watched his rival departing, and turned mood, there is melody in all things, and a blank face upon the radiant girl whose warmth lies even in frosted starlight. delicious smile had all the eloquence Nothing but the sweetness of life is felt; and trouble of maiden's relinquished its turbidness and accidents, its disap-freedom. She met his white, empty pointments, pains, and stumbles, lie gaze with a glance more full and frank peacefully forgotten in the well of mem- than the one she had just lifted so tenory; and we wish somebody could derly to Bernard Francillon. "I don't have told us in some past trouble that understand you, Armand. Why for my the future contained for us a moment so sake?" good as this. "Mademoiselle is in the garden," a servant informed him, and led the way through halls and salons, down steps running from the long window into a shaded green paradise. And then he heard a fresh voice that he seemed not to have heard for so long, and on hearing it only was his heart made aware how much he had missed it during the past age of privation. 66 Ah, my cousin Armand!” There was a young man dawdling at her feet in an attitude that sent the red blood to Armand's forehead. This was Bernard Francillon, his other and less sympathetic cousin. The young man jumped up, and measured him in a stare of insolent interrogation, and Marguerite, with a look of divine self-consciousness and a lovely blush, said, very softly: So Armand, you have let yourself be tamed, and you have actually "It was your father's error. He thought you loved me, and I, heaven help me! till now I thought so too," he breathed, in a despairing undertone, not able to remove his eyes from her surprised and delicately concerned face. "Poor Armand! I am very sorry," was all she said, but the way in which she held her hand out to him was a mute admission of his miserable error. He lifted the little hand to his lips, and turned from her in silence. beautiful valley, where the river flowed, were so imperfectly informed that the the spires and domes and bridges of murderers of Mr. Burke and Lord EdParis showed through the reddish glim- ward Cavendish remained for some time mer of sunset as through a dusty light. undenounced, if not unsuspected, yet, Soon there would be noise and laughter as soon as it was known that informaupon the crowded boulevards, and a tion was really wanted, and would be flow of carriages making for the the- loyally paid for, the informer was at atres through the flaunting gas-flames; hand, and the hidden assassins were and happy lovers in defiant file would duly arrested, convicted, and executed. be driving towards the Bois. How Even among the purer patriots of 1848 often had he and Maurice watched there was no lack either of information them on foot, as they smoked their or of informers. Some of the seemingly evening cigarette, and sighed or laughed staunchest hearts in Smith O'Brien's as might be their mood. Would he movement of '48, says Mr. Fitzpatrick, ever have the heart to laugh at lovers were false to their chief and colleagues, again, or laugh at anything, he won- and when the crisis came, suggested to dered drearily! And there was no one the police magistrates that, in order to here to remind him that sorrow, like preserve consistency and keep up the joy, is evanescent, and that all wounds delusion, they ought to be arrested and are cured. Tout lasse, tout casse, tout imprisoned! 2 passe, even pain and broken hearts. Here silence was almost palpable to the touch, like the darkness of nature dropping into sleep. He turned his back upon Paris, and faced the dim country. HANNAH LYNCH. From The Edinburgh Review. THE ranks of Irish treason have never been wanting in traitors to the sacred cause of disaffection. The evidence of that most loyal of transatlantic Fenians known to fame as Major le Caron, and his bold and unblushing revelations of the secrets of the conspirators in two hemispheres before the Parnell Commission in 1889, are still fresh in the public memory. The more commonplace career of the chief informer of 1867, who owned or adopted the singularly incongruous name of Corydon, was familiar to readers of Irish newspapers for some time after the Fenian rising in Dublin about five-and-twenty years ago; and although, in 1881, the government of the day, trusting, perhaps, overmuch to "messages of peace," 1 1. Secret Service under Pitt. By W. J. Fitzpatrick, F.S.A. 8vo. London : 1892. 2. The Sham Squire, and the Informers of 1798. By William J. Fitzpatrick. Third edition, completely recast, with new matter. 8vo. Dublin: 1866. But at no time did the spy and the informer flourish in greater and more abundant luxuriance than in the good old days before the Union, when Ireland enjoyed her own Legislature in Dublin, and a well-worn path led from the Parliament House in College Green to the Treasury in Lower Castle Yard. From the constitution of an independent Legislative Assembly in 1782 to the Union, eighteen years later, Ireland was distracted by disaffection in every form, was actually visited with rebellion, illorganized and hurriedly undertaken, and was hardly saved from the horrors of civil war by the faithlessness, the corruption, and the shameless treachery of the sworn leaders of the revolt. Of these disgraceful days, and of the strange and secret personages who lived and moved in Ireland, and more especially in Dublin, at that time, Mr. Fitzpatrick has given us a most original and interesting account; and his work, 2 The Sham Squire, p. 327. See also a very curi ous letter in the Dublin Irish Times of March 25, 1892, where it is stated, upon apparently good authority, that "every meeting of Young Ireland' was known in the Castle half an hour after their secret plans were arranged." "I was enabled," says the writer- an eye-witness-"to warn my friends that every step they took was revealed at once to the Castle. I informed J. B. D., and a not less true and trusted patriot, J. P., son of the C. B., and they laughed, and said it was impossible.' Yet they, like so many in the days of Pitt, were deceived." |