My grandfather shook his head my father fixed on me a look of regret mixed with paternal pride the Marquis begun impatiently to traverse the apartment, while I looked with ever-augmenting passion on my grandmother's portrait.

At length the Marquis suddenly stopped in his walk, and laid his hand on my shoulder.

"Those blue eyes are bewitching, are they not, my grandson?" he said, looking at the picture.

"My grandfather, I have found them so.

"And that complexion, what roses can vie with it?"

"Not the fairest in Provence." "That smile too, how enchanting! and the teeth which it discloses." "Rows of orient pearls," I responded.

"Poor youth," said my grandfather, sighing, "it is so indeed. The beauty

of the Marquise is, in effect, fatal: yet there is a remedy-shall I try it? My grandson, if you persist, the duel must still take place."

"I am at your pleasure, my grandfather," I replied.

"Yet there is still one chance of avoiding it, though you are the only man in the world to whom I would offer the alternative. You have some regard for me, my grandson?"

"Which I am ready to show in any way except by giving up the Marquise."

My grandfather mused. "Yes," he said, at length, "it shall be so; I will make the great sacrifice for your sake and for my own. Come here tomorrow at noon and you shall see the Marquise. Now leave me."

I dropt on one knee and kissed my grandfather's hand. He raised me tenderly, embraced me and my father, and dismissed us.

house you shall see Madame la Marquise."

I followed him along corridors and galleries into a small dressing-room hung with pictures. Going up to one of these and beckoning me to approach, he lifted part of the moulding of the frame and desired me to look into the opening.

The aperture was not in the frame alone, but passed through the wall behind, so that I commanded a view of the adjacent apartment-spacious, luxurious, and containing an immense toilet-table, with its mirror and other accessories all of a gorgeous kind.

"Do not fear being seen," said the Marquis; "it opens on the other side, beneath the shadow of a heavy picture-frame. It was constructed by my father, the late Marquis. Now look attentively and be silent."

I looked, and presently saw a lean old woman in a dressing-gown enter

bald, toothless, and wrinkled, and led by a femme-de-chambre. She seated herself with some difficulty in the chair before the toilet-table.

Having her back towards me, I saw her face in the glass only by glimpses during the ceremonies which now took place.

The femme-de-chambre first brought a large white wrapper and enveloped her to the chin, so that in the glass she looked like a bald old gentleman going to be shaved.

"Rosalie," said the old lady.

Madame," said the femme-dechambre.

"Some eau-de-vie-I shall not get through the fatigue without it. My trials have debilitated me." The want of teeth made her voice indistinct.

The eau-de-vie was brought and administered. Then Rosalie took a morocco case from the toilet-table, opened it and took out two articles that looked like very small white bracelets, and stooping over the lady's shoulder, and holding back her head, seemed to be preparing to shave her. When she left the mirror clear again, I saw that the old lady's mouth had undergone a remarkable change, and that her utterance, the next time she addressed Rosalie, had become singularly distinct.

"My grandfather," I whispered, "remember your promise. Permit me to remind you that I did not come here to witness an old lady's toilet."

"Patience and observe, my grandson," was the Marquis's reply.

Again I looked through the aperture. I saw the femme-de-chambre open a door leading into another apartment. Enter, Monsieur," she said.

A man with a painter's palette and brushes, whom I recognised for the famous portrait-painter M. Vermeille, now entered. He bowed to the old lady, placed a chair near her, mixed his colours as if for a picture, and then applied his brush to the sitter's countenance.

I watched this not without interest and amusement. Still I was puzzled to know why the Marquis should have brought me here.

The femme-de-chambre assisted the process, and, standing behind the old lady's chair, obscured my view; but I caught an occasional glimpse when she moved. It was, my reader, a thing the most singular, to watch a change of complexion stealing, under the magic brush of the painter, over the venerable countenance, like a ray of sunshine over a dreary landscape.

The painter worked systematically. In a short time a glimpse in the glass showed me a forehead smooth, white, and young, with brows of the most delicate pencilling, surmounting a countenance the most wrinkled and ancient; like a lid of Sèvres on a grotesque bowl of clay.

After a little, the painter shifted his chair to the other side of the patient; and the spectacle reflected in the glass reminded me now of one of those portraits which hang at the doors of picture-cleaners, where one half of the countenance is fresh and charming, and the other covered with the dust of ages.

"This is vastly entertaining," I whispered to the Marquis; " but permit me again to remark, that it does not seem quite to the purpose."

"Patience, my grandson, and observe," was still his reply.

The next glimpse I caught in the mirror showed me the whole face and throat delicately enamelled, but colourless as marble. A skilful touch or two about the eyes give them marvellous brilliancy and expression.

At this stage of the operation I be came perplexed. I began to ask myself where I had seen something of which that bald, enamelled, egg-like countenance reminded me?

Presently, as beneath the skilful brush of the artist a vermilion tint crept like the rosy dawn over the countenance and lips, my trouble in creased. I became agitated with I know not what doubts and fears. I was glued to the aperture in the wall, as if a precipice yawned below me, into which I must fall if I relaxed my hold.

The painter, rising, contemplated his work-approached for a few last touches, and, as he bestowed them, the femme-de-chambre, taking something from an open box, approached the lady in the chair, and crowned her with hair-flaxen hair. As she quitted the chair, the finished portrait appeared reflected in the mirror

Juste ciel !—it was a copy of the portrait over the fireplace in the Marquis's apartment.

"Mon Dieu!" I exclaimed, totally forgetting my obligation to silence, "Is that Ninon? Say, O say you are not Ninon !"

The figure in the chair half rose at the sound of my voice, then fell back again, and I heard an hysterical laugh. At the same moment the face in the mirror shivered as if it were of glass, the cracks radiating round the mouth in all directions, and rendering the likeness to Ninon a ghastly and transparent imposture.

I knew then why Ninon never laughed. Mirth does not suit enamel. I turned to my grandfather, and fell half insensible into his arms. "The miracle of nature, my grandson," he said, "is, you see

"A miracle of art," I answered with a groan.

"Be tranquil, my grandson," he continued, soothingly. "I too have loved. I too have found the object of my passion an apple of the Dead Sea."

"Would that I were at the bottom of that sea," I murmured.

"Choose now, my grandson," he whispered, "choose between me and Madame de Toujours-Vert."

For reply I cast myself on the neck of this heroic, this antique-minded man.

"I know now," I said, "the sacrifice you have made to save me; but the secret is for ever safe. You are to me unapproachably sublime."

Two nights after I accompanied the Marquis to the chapter of the Order, at the Count of Monte-Cristo's.

In all humility I took my seat. The lesson I had received, joined with the affection, more than paternal, of the noble Marquis, bowed me to the dust. I, lately so elate and so ambitious, sat now silent and downcast, while the Companions related their achievements and claims to honour. Wrapt in my own thoughts, I scarcely listened to the narratives; though, from what I remember of them, they must have compromised about ninetenths of the female aristocracy of France.

My grandfather in vain tried to cheer me. My sufferings from the late tortures of a too sensitive heart were still horrible. I knew not what a salve was in store for me.

At length Monte-Cristo arose, glittering in the collar of the GrandMastership.

"My brothers," he said, "all have spoken except one young neophyte. Modesty keeps him silent. The truly great do not always wish to exalt their own praises. I will speak for him."

Then, while astonishment and the admonitions of my grandfather kept me silent, he narrated the tale which I have just been recording, and which he must have received from my grandfather.

He concluded the tale. “My friends," he then said, "shall circumstances beyond his control deprive the man of such lofty aspirations of his just reward?"

The acclamations of all present answered him.

"M. Grenouille," he said, "deign to approach."

I left my seat. The eyes of all were fixed envyingly on the only man on record who had dared to make of his grandmother an object of love. As I passed the chair of the venerable Faublas, he rose and stopped

me.

"Permit me," he said, "the honour of one embrace. I die happy, since young France so well maintains the reputation of its forefathers. My friend, I have done something-but nothing like you.'

He pressed me to his bosom. We both shed tears, as did many of the spectators.

The other Grand Cordon, the man with three hundred and fifty wives, seemed, I thought, to scowl at me. Perhaps he was envious.

I bent before the great MonteCristo. I knew not as yet what was the honour he was about to confer on me. I felt his hands about my neck. I saw something sparkle on my breast, and I knew it was not the same collar as that worn by Faublas, and by the husband of the three hundred and fifty wives. I glanced upIward at Monte-Cristo. His breast was bare. It was his collar I wore. Fate had-can have-nothing further in store for me. I was not Grand Cordon, but perpetual Grand Master of the Order of the Bonnes Fortunes.

GIACOMO had been surprised and distressed at the effect produced upon Isola by Le Hardi's public assertion that he had a living child. Such a claim had been as little anticipated by him as by any of those present. He was aware that Sir Godfrey had taken the Crusader into his counsels, and that whatever proceedings he might now adopt to recover possession of Giulio, would be dictated by a subtler spirit than his own. He had come to Huntingdon in the hope of finding opportunity, by the use of such knowledge as he possessed, to frustrate the designs of both; but for this new and bold falsehood he was wholly unprepared. The child which had been born to Isola had died; on that point at least Dubois had spoken truly. Immediately after Le Hardi's desertion of her, when she had been scarce a twelvemonth's bride, and before her infant was two months old, one of the pestilential fevers of Italy had struck down the whole household of which she was an inmate, and when Isola recovered her senses after a wild delirium of many weeks, it was only to find herself a childless mother. She had refused at first to believe it; and often, long after the fact had gradually found its way to her understanding, her weakened memory and ever-active imagination represented the child to her as still living. She would start from a troubled sleep declaring that she heard its cry, and complain piteously that they were hiding it from her-that her husband had carried it away; and it was hard to bring her back again to the more painful truth. Those who had only seen the chaplain of Ladysmede with the bitter sneer upon his face, and heard the mocking courtesy of his ordinary speech, would never have recognised there the gentle tones and patient smile of never-wearying kindness, which had then fulfilled almost an angel's office in soothing

But

the impatient fancies of the heartstricken and forsaken woman. if they could have traced now in the Italian's countenance none of these gleams from heaven, they would have had little difficulty in identifying the light of hell which had burnt up in the eyes of the young priest, while in his solitary walks, after quitting the chamber of Isola, he had nursed the bitterness of his heart against the man who had slandered the name and ruined the happiness of the two beings he had loved best. When Isola had sufficiently recovered, he had placed her for shelter and consolation in a convent in Genoa-not that from which she had fled with Sir Nicholas-one of the superiors of which was a relative of their house. There, in the lapse of time, the old grief had been buried, if not forgotten; and of late, other cares and distresses had helped to weaken a remembrance which was already fading into the dimness of past years. But there remained always a natural excitability of temperament-perhaps the brain had never fully recovered its balancewhich made her at all times liable to be carried away by any sudden emotion. It was a form of the same restless excitement, working upon the strong impulses of her woman's love, unchanged by wrong or suffering, which had made her weary of the safe retreat in which Giacomo had placed her, and led her to embrace the opportunity of Sister Beatrix's removal to the English convent at Michamstede to cross the sea herself, in the wild hope of reclaiming Le Hardi's affections, or at least of seeing him again. Of the knight's return to England from Palestine Giacomo had himself informed her, unconscious that he was thus encouraging an enthusiastic dream, the folly of which he had since denounced with more of bitterness than he had ever used towards Isola. They had not met for years, until