with indescribable rapture on the certainty of having a gallant whose forefathers had enjoyed something four hundred years in the family! But what was that something? She was curious-she interrogated her lover as to his name and rank. He changed colour-he bit his lip he thrust both hands into his breeches-pockets. "I cannot tell you what I am," said he: "No! charming Laura, forgive me—one day you will know all."

"Can he be the King's eldest son ?" said Laura to herself. After all, this mystery was very delightful. She introduced the young gentleman to her father, "Ah!" quoth the former, squeezing the Attorney's hand, "your family have been good friends to mine." "How!" cried the Attorney-"Are we then acquainted! May I crave your name, Sir?"

The lover looked confused-he mumbled out some excuse-just at present, he had reasons for wishing it concealed. Our unknown had a long military nose he looked like a man who might have shot another in a duel. Aha!" said the attomey winking; and lowering his voice" I smell you, Sir-you have killed your man-eh!" "Ha!" cried the stranger; and slapping his forehead wildly, he rushed out of the room.

CHAPTER III. THE LAWYER MATCHED. 1

"But let us change the theme."-MARINO FALIERO.

It was now clear: the stranger had evidently been a brave transgressor of the law; perhaps an assassin, certainly a victorious single combater. This redoubled in Laura's bosom the interest she had conceived for him. There is nothing renders a young lady more ardent in her attachment than the supposition that her lover has committed some enormous crime. Her father thought he might make a good thing out of his new acquaintance. He resolved to find out if he was rich-if rich, he could marry him to his daughter; if poor, he might as well inform against him, and get the reward. An attorney is a bow, a crooked thing with two strings to it. It was in the wood that the lawyer met the stranger. The stranger was examining a tree. "Strong, strong," muttered he; "yes, it is worth buying." "Are you a judge of trees, Sir?" quoth the attorney. "Hum-yes, of a peculiar sort of tree." "Have you much timber of your own?" "A great deal," replied the stranger coolly. the best kind?" "It is generally used for scaffolding. good deal!" The lawyer paused. "You cannot," said he, archly, you cannot conceal yourself; your rank is sufficiently apparent. "Good heavens!" "Yes, my daughter says she heard you boasting of your hereditary distinctions-four hundred years it has existed in

66

"Of

"Oh,

"And does the property-the "Yes! the Government pro"You say it."

66 It

cash part of the business, go with it?" vide for us." "Oh, a pension!-hereditary too?" "Ah, 'tis the way with your great families," said the lawyer to himself, "always quartered on the public." "What's that he mutters about quartered!" inly exclaimed the stranger with emotion. is from our taxes that their support is drawn," continued the lawyer. "Drawn, Sir!” cried the stranger aloud. "And if it be not the best way of living, hang me!" concluded the lawyer. "You," faltered the stranger, clasping his hands: "horrible supposition!!!"

CHAPTER IV. ENLIGHTENED SENTIMENTS.

"Joy was not always absent from his face,

But o'er it in such scenes would steal with tranquil grace."

CHILDE HAROLD.

"You will really marry me then, beautiful Laura,” said the stranger kneeling on his pocket-handkerchief. Laura blushed. "You are so-so bewitching-and-and you will always love meand you will tell me who you are." "After our marriage, yes," said the stranger somewhat discomposed. "No! now now,” cried Laura, coaxingly. He was silent. "Come, I will get it out of you. You are an eldest son." "Indeed I am," sighed the stranger. "You have an hereditary title?" "Alas! yes!" "It descends to you ?" "It does!"" You have a-a-the means to support it?" "Assuredly." "Convince me of that," said the Lawyer, who had been listening unobserved, " and my daughter is yours-let you have killed your man a hundred times over!" "Wonderful liberality!" cried the stranger, enthusiastically, and throwing himself at the lawyer's feet.

CHAPTER V.-CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE.

"The soul wears out her clothes."-PLATO.-Apparently noti

The stranger wore a splendid suit of clothes. The mystery about him attracted the admiration and marvel of the people at the little inn at which he had taken up his lodging. They were talking about him in the kitchen one morning when the boots was brushing his coat. A tailor from the capital, who was travelling to his country seat, came into the kitchen to ask why his breakfast was not ready. "It is a beautiful coat!" cried the boots, holding it up. "What a cut!" cried the chambermaid. "It is lined with white silk," said the scullion, and she placed her thumb on the skirts. "Ha!" said the tailor," what do I see! it is the coat of the Marquis de Tête

Perdu: I made it myself." "It is out-it is out!" cried the waiter. "The gentleman is a Marquis. Gemini, how pleased Miss Laura will be !" "What's that, Sir? so the strange gentleman is really the Marquis de Tête Perdu!" asked the landlady. "John, take the fresh eggs to his Lordship." "Impossible!" said the tailor, who had fixed on the fresh eggs for himself. "Impossible!" and while he laid his hand on the egg-stand, he lifted his eyes to heaven. "Impossible! the Marquis has been hanged this twelvemonth!"

CHAPTER VI. THE DEPARTURE.

"They have their exits and their entrances,
And each man in his time plays many parts,

Of which the end is death."-SHAKSPEARE.

"Good heavens! how strange," said the lawyer, as he dismissed the landlord of the little inn. "I am very much obliged to you only think I was just going to marry my daughter to a gentleman who had been hanged!" Laura burst into tears. "What if he should be a Vampire!" said she: "it is very odd that a man should live twelve months after hanging." Meanwhile the stranger descended the stairs to his parlour; a group of idlers in the passage gave hastily way on both sides. Nay, the housemaid, whom he was about, as usual, to chuck under the chin, uttered a loud shriek and fell into a swoon. "The Devil!" said the stranger, glancing suspiciously round; "am I known, then?" "Known! yes, you are known!" cried the boots. "The Marquis de Tête Perdu." "Sacre bleu ?" said the stranger, flinging into the parlour in a violent rage. He locked the door. He walked up and down with uneven strides. "Curse on these painful distinctions these hereditary customs!" cried he vehemently, "they are the poison of my existence. I shall lose Laura; I shall lose her fortune; I am discovered. No, not yet; I will fly to her, before the boots spreads the intelligence. I will force her to go off with me go off!-how many people have I forced to go off before!"

To avoid the people in the passage, the stranger dropped from the window. He hastened to the lawyer's house-he found Miss Laura in the garden-she was crying violently, and had forgotten her pocket-handkerchief; the stranger offered her his own. Her eyes fell on a Marquis's coronet, worked in the corner, with the initials "T. P." "Ah! it is too true, then," said she sobbing; "thethe Marquis de Tête Perdu-" Here her voice was choked by her emotion. "Damnation! what-what of him?" With great difficulty Laura sobbed out the word " H-a-ng-e-d!” "It is all up with me!" said the stranger, with a terrible grimace, and he

disappeared. "Oh! he is certainly a Vampire," wept the unfortunate Laura; "at all events, after having been hanged for twelve months, he cannot be worth much as a husband!"

CHAPTER VII.-THE PHILOSOPHER.

"The tendency of the age is against all hereditary demarcations."
M. ROYER DE COLLARD.

It was a melancholy dreary day, and about an hour after the above interview, it began to rain cats and dogs. The mysterious stranger was walking on the high road that led from the country town; he hoped to catch one of the public vehicles that passed that way towards the capital. He buttoned up the fatal coat, and took particular care of the silk skirts. "In vain," said he, bitterly, is all this finery; in vain have I attempted to redeem my lot. Fate pursues me everywhere. Dn it! the silk will be all spotted; I may not get another such coat soon: seldom that a man of similar rank," here the rain set full in his teeth and drowned the rest of his soliloquy. He began to look round for a shelter, when suddenly he beheld a pretty little inn, standing by the road-side: he quickened his pace, and was presently in the traveller's room drying himself by the fire. There was a bald gentleman, past his grand climacteric, sitting at a little table by the window, and reading "Glumenborchiusisiculorum on the propriety of living in a parallelogram, and moving only in a right angle." Absorbed in his own griefs, the stranger did not notice his companion-he continued to dry his shirt sleeves, and mutter to himself. "Ah!" said he, "no love for me; never shall I marry some sweet, amiable, rich young lady; the social distinctions confine me to myself. Odious law of primogeniture! hateful privileges of hereditary descent!"

The bald gentleman, who was a great philosopher, and had himself written a large book in which he had clearly proved that "Man was not a Monkey, started up in delight at these expressions "Sir,” said he, warmly, holding out his hand to the stranger, "your sentiments do credit to your understanding-you are one of the enlightened few whose opinions precede the age. Hereditary distinctions ! they are indeed one of the curses of civilization." "You speak truly, venerable Sir," said the stranger sighing. "Doubtless," continued the sage, 66 you are some younger son deprived of your just rights by the absurd monopoly of an elder brother." "No, I am myself the elder son; I myself exercise, and therefore, deplore that monopoly." "Noble young man!-what generosity!-see what it is to be wise!" said the philosopher "knowledge will not even allow us to be selfish."

The stranger kindled into enthusiasm, and into eloquence. "What," said he, "what is so iniquitous as these pre-ordinations of our fate against our will? We are born to a certain line-we are accomplished to that line alone our duty is confined to a certain routine of execution-we are mewed up like owls in a small conventual circle of gloom-we are paid sufficient for what we perform-we have, therefore, no incentive to our enterprise and ambition-the greater part of our life is a blank to us. If we stir abroad into more wide and common intercourse with mankind, we are perpetually reminded that a stamp is upon us-we cannot consult our inclinations-we must not marry as we please—we can never escape from ourselves—” "And," pursued the philosopher, who liked to talk himself as well as to listen; "and while so unpleasant to yourself are these dangerous and hateful hereditary distinctions, what mischiefs do they not produce to your fellow-creatures !-condemned to poverty, they are condemned to the consequences of poverty;-ignorance and sin -they offend, and you hang them!" "Hang-them!" "Ah!" the benevolent stranger covered his face with his hands. "What phil

anthropic tenderness!" said the philosopher; "Pardon me, Sir, I

must introduce myself: you may have heard of me; I am the author Slatterenobigioso; you, so enlightened, are probably an author yourself; perhaps you have turned your attention to Morals, and are acquainted with the true nature of crime." "Ay," groaned the stranger, "I am acquainted with its end." "Or perhaps biography, the great teacher of practical truths, made you first learn to think. For my part I amuse myself even now by taking the lives of, some of the most remarkable of my contemporaries." "Indeed!" said the stranger with inexpressible dignity, and then putting on his hat with an air, he stalked out of the room, saying over his left shoulder in a voice of conscious pride" And I, Sir, have done the same."

CHAPTER VIII.-THE JEALOUSY.

"She wrongs his thoughts."-THE CORSAIR.

"Ah, miss!" said the tailor, as he passed through the country town on a high trotting horse, and met the unfortunate Laura walking homeward with "The Sorrows of Werter" in her hand: "Ah! so the spark has carried himself off. How could you be so taken in? What! marry a

"I

know what you

would say," interrupted Laura haughtily, "and I beg you will be silent. You knew him, then." 'Ay, by sight. I have seen him on trying occasions, sure enough. But you will meet him no more, I guess he is wanted in town to-morrow morning." "Gracious