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CHAÎTDOS.
01- nls hair, tailing over nis snomders in long, cluster-
ing curls, glittered ia the lamplight as, at his father s
recognition or the crowd, he lifted his cap with its
eagle's feather and bowed to them too—a childs
bright, gratified amusement blent with the proud,
courtly grace of his father's manner, already heredi-
tary in him.                                   ,     ,.-...       -
The. hearts of the people warmed to lum for his beauty
and for his childhood, the hearts of the women espe-
cially and they gave him another and yet heartier cheer.
He bowed like a young prince, to the right and to the
left and looked up into tire grave statesman s face
with a happy, joyous laugh; yet still in his eyes, as
they glanced over the throngs, there was the look—
d-earny, brilliant, half wistful, half eager—which was
beyond his age.and which had made the old peer fear for
him that gift of the gods which the world does not love,
because—most unwisely, most suicidally—it fears rt.
Amongst the crowd, wedged in with the thousands
pressing there about the carriages waiting for the mem-
bers, stood a woman: she was in mourning-clothes, that
hung sombrely and heavily about her, and a dark veil
obscured her features. By something iu her attitude,
something in her form, it would have been guessed that
she had been handsome, not very long since, erther, but
that now there was more in her that was harsh, and
perhaps coarse, than there was of any other trait. Her
features could not be seen, her eyes alone shone
through the folds of her veil, and were fixed on the
famous politician as he came out from the entrance of
the Commons, and on the young boy by his side. Her
own hand was on the shoulder of a child but a few
years older, very strongly built, short, and muscularly
made, with features of a thoroughly English type—that
which is vulgarly called the Saxon; his skin was very
tanned, his linen torn and untidy, his hands brown as
berries and broad as a young lion's paws, and his
eyes, blue, keen, with an infinité mass of humor m
them, looked steadily out from under the straw hat
drawn over-* them ; they, too, were fastened on the
bright hair and the delicate dress of the little aristo-
crat, with some such look as, when a child, Manon
Phlippon gave the gay and glittering groups of Ver-
sailles and the young queen whom she lived to drag to
the scaffold.                                     .....
The woman's hand weighed more heavily on his shoul-
der, and she stooped her head till her lips touched his
cheek, with a hoarse whisper:
" There is your enemy !"
The boy nodded silently, and a look passed over his
face, over the sturdy defiance of his mouth and the hon-
est mischief of his eyes, very bitter, very merciless-
worse in one so young than the fiercest outburst of
evanescent rage.
Life was but just opening in him; but already he had
learned man's first instinct -to hate.
Where they stood, on the edge of the pressing throng,
that had left but a narrow lane for the passage of the
ministers, the little patrician was close to the boy who
stared at him with so dogged a jealousy and detestation
in his glance; and his own large eyes, with a wondering
surprise in their brilliance, rested a moment on the
only face that, in a world to him of luxury and love,
had ever looked darkly on him. He paused, the natur-
ally generous and tender temper in him leading him,
unconsciously, rather to pity and réconciliation than to
offence: he had never seen this stranger before, but his
instinct was to woo him out of his angry solitude. He
touched him, with a bright and loving smile, giving
what he had to give.
"You look vexed and tired: take these I"
He put into his hand a packet of French bonbons that
he had been given in the Ladies' Gallery, and followed
his father, with a glad, rapid bound, into the carriage,
by whose steps they were. The servants shut the door
with a clash, the wheels rolled away with a loud clatter,
swelling the thunder of the busy midnight streets. The
iboy in the throng stood silent, looking at the dainty,
costly, enamelled Paris packet of crystallized sweet-
meats and fruits. Then, without a word, he flung it
savagely on the ground, and stamped it out under his
heel, making the painted, silver paper, and the lus-
cious bonbons, a battered, trampled mass, down in the
mud of the pavement.
There was a world of eloquence in the gesture.
Rich bonbons rarely touched his lips, and he was child
enough to love them well; but he threw them out on
the trottoir now, as though they had been so much sand.
As his carriage rolled through the streets in the late
night, the great statesman passed his hand lightly over
the fair locks of his son. The child had much of his
own nature, of his own intellect, and he saw in his
foung heir the future security for the continuance of
he brilliance and power of his race.
"You will make the nation honor you for yourself
one day, Ernest?" he said, gently, as his hand lay on
the soft, glittering hair.
There were tears in the child's eyes, and a brave and
noble promise and comprehension in his face, as he
looked up at his father.
"If I live I Willi"
As they were propelled onward by the pressure of the
moving crowd, the woman and her son went slowly
along the heated streets, with the gas-glare of some
flsh or meat-shop thrown on them, tis they passed, in
rellovv, flaring illumination. They were not poor,
hough on foot thus, and though the lad's dress was
torn and soiled through his own inveterate activity and
endless mischief. No pressure of any want was on
them: yet his glance followed the carriages, darted un-
der the awnings before the mansions, and penetrated
wherever riches or rank struck him, with the hungry,
impatient, longing look of a starving Rousseau or Gil-
bert, hounded to socialism for lack 01 a sou—a look
very strange and premature on a face so young and
naturally so mirthfuland good-humored.
His mother watched him, and leaned her hand again
on his shoumar.
" You will have your revenge one day."
" Won't II"
The school-boy answer was ground out with a mean-
ing intensity, as he set his teeth like a young bulldog.
Each had promised to gain a very different aristeia.
When they came to the combat, with whom would rest
the victory ?                --------o--------
BOOK TBE FIRST.
ti
J"
li
Yo tooare cantando
El music» instr-umento sonoroso,
. Tn el gloria gozonilo
'    Danzii, y ft-atejaa Dies qne es poderoso,
Q gozomos de esc. gloria
i Foi que la hiimana es transitoriat
>-i-_      Ode of the Flower.   IXTILOXCHITL.
Phitns, the goa or gv-n»,
Is but his steward.....
no gift to lrlm
But breeds the giver a return exceeding
All use of quittance.
SHAKSPKAItE.
CHAPTER I.
It was the height of the London season. Town filled.
Death had made gaps in the crowd; but new-comers
filled up the rents, and the lost were unmissed. Brows,
that tiie last year had been stainless as snow, had been
smirched with slander or stained with shame; but the
opals crowning them belied their ancient fame, and did
not pale. Light hearts had grown heavy, proud heads
had been bent, fair cheeks had learned to cover care
with pearl-powder, words had been spoken that a life-
time could not recall, links had been broken that an eter-
nity would not unite, seeds of sin and sorrow had been
sown never again to be uprooted, in the brief months
that lay between " last season " and this phoenix of the
new ; but the fashionable world met again with smiling
lips, and bland complaisance, and unutterable ennui,
and charming mutual compliment, to go ti.rough all
the old routine with well trained faces, befitting the
arena.
It was April. The last carriages had rolled out by
the Corner, the last hacks paced out of the Ride, the
last sunlight was fading; epicures were reflecting on
their club dinners, beauties were studying the contents
of their jewel-boxes, the one enjoying a matelote, the
other a conquest, in dreamy anticipation ; chandeliers
were being lit for political receptions, where it wouid
be a three-hoars' campaign to crush up the stairs; and
members waiting to go in on Supply were improving
their minds by discussing a new dancer's ankles, and
the extraordinary scratching of Lord of the Isles for
the Guineas. The W*st, in a word, was beginning its
Business, which is Pleasure ; while the East laid aside
its Pleasure, which is Business; and it was near eight
o'clock oh a spring night in London.
Half a hundred entertainments waited for his selec-
tion; all the loveliest women, of mondes proper and
improper, were calculating their chances of securing
his preference; every sort of intellectual or material
pleasure waited for him as utterly as they ever waited
for Sulla when the rose-wreaths were orr his hair and
Quintius Roseius ready with his ripest wit; and for him,
as truly as for Sulla, " Felix " might have described
him as the darling of the gods: yet, alone in his house
in Park Lane, a man lay in idleness and ease, indolently
smoking a narghilé from a great silver basin of rose-
water*. A stray sunbeam lingered here and there on
some delicate bit of statuary, or jewelled tazze, or Cel-
lini cup, in a chamber luxurious enough for an
imperial bride's, with its hangings of violet velvet, its
ceiling painted after Greuze, its walls hung with rich
Old Masters and Petits Maîtres, and its niches screen-
ing some group of Coysevox, Coustou, or Canova. It
was, however, only the " study," the pet retreat of its
owner, a collector and a connoisseur, who lay now on
his sofa, near a table strewn with Elzevirs, Paris
novels, MSS., croquis, before-letter proofs, and dainty
female notes. Tho fading sunlight fell across his face
as his head rested on his left arm. A painter would
have drawn him as Alcibiades, or, more poetically
still, would have idealized him into the Phoebus
Lykègenês, the Light-born, the Sun-god, of Hellas, so
singularly great was his personal beauty. A physiog-
nomist would have said, " Here is a voluptuary, here
is a profound thinker, here is a poet, here is one who
may be a leader and chief among men if he will," but
would have added, " Here is one who may, fifty to one,
sink too softly into his bed of rose-leaves ever to care
to rise in full strength out of it." Artists were chiefly
attracted by the power, men by the brilliance, and
women by the gentleness, of this dazzling beauty: for
the latter, indeed, a subtler spell yet lay in the deep-
blue, poetic, eloquent eyes, which ever gave such
tender homage, such dangerous prayer, to their own
loveliness. The brow was magnificent, meditative
enough for Plato's; the rich and gold-hued hair, bright
as any Helen's ; the gaze of the eyes in rest, thoughtful
as might be that of a Marcus Aurelius; the mouth,
insouciant and epicurean as the lips of a Oatallus.
The contradictions in the features were the anomalies
in the character. For the rest, his stature was much
above the ordinary height; his attitude showed both
the strength and grace of his limbs ; his age was a year
<yr so over thirty, and his revery now was of the lightest
and laziest: he had nota single care on him.
There was a double door to his room ; he was never
disturbed there, either by servants or friends, on any
sort of pretext; his house was as free to all as a cara-
vanserai, but to this chamber only all the world was
interdicted. Yet the first handle turned, the second
turned, the portière was tossed aside with a jerk, and
the audacious new-comer entered. A gallant retriever
lying by the couch showed fight and growled. Yet the
guest was one he saw every day, almost every hour—
the ami de la maison, the master comptroller of the
household.
" My dear Ernest 1 you alone at this time of the day?
What a miracle I I have actually dared to invade your
sanctum, your holy of holies; deuced pleasant place,
too. What is it you do here? Paint your prettiest pic-
ture, chip your prettiest statuette, make love to your
prettiest mistress, write your novels, study occult sci-
ences, meditate on the Dialectics, seek the Philoso-
pher's stone, search for the Venetian color-secret, have
suppers à la Régence to which you deny even your
bosom friends? orwhat is, it? On my honor, I am very
curious 1"
"Tell me some news, Trevenna," said his host, with
an amused smile, in a voice low, clear, lingering and
melodious as music, contrasting forcibly with the
sharp, ringing, metallic tones of his visitor. "How
came you to come in here?   You know-----"
"I know; but I had curiosity and a good oppor-
tunity; what mortal, or what morals, ever resisted
such a combination? I am weaker than a woman. No
principle, not a shred. Am I responsible for that? No;
organization and education. How dark you are here !
May I ring for lights?"
" Do you want light to talk by?" laughed his friend,
stretching his hand to a bell-handle. " Your tongue
generally runs on oiled wheels, Trevenna."
" Of course it does. It's my trade to talk; I rattle
my tongue as a nigger singer rattles his bones: I must
chat as an organ-grinder grinds. I'm asked out to
dine to talk. If 1 grew a bore, every creature would
drop me: and if I grew too dull to get up a scandal, I
Bhould be very sure never to get a dinner. My tongue's
my merchandise!"
With which statement of his social status, John Tre-
' venna jerked himself out of his chair, and, while the
groom of the chamber lighted the chandelier, strolied
round the apartment. He was a man of six-or eight-
and-thirty, short, a little stout, but wonderfully supple,
quick, and agile, a master of all the science of the
gymnasium; his face was plain and irregular m fea-
ture, but bright, frank, full of good humor almost to
joviality, and of keen, alert, cultured intelligence, pre-
possessing through its blunt and honest candor, its
merry smile showing the strong white teeth, its bon-
homie, and its look of acute indomitable cleverness—a
cleverness which is no more genius than an English
force is wit, but which, snarper than intellect alone,
more audacious than talent alone, will trick the world,
and throw its foes, and thrive in all it does, while genius
gets stoned or starves. He loitered round the room,
with his eye-glass up, glancing here, there, and every-
where, as though he were an embryo auci ioneer, and.
stopped at last before a Daphne flying from Apollo,
and just caught by him, shrouded in rose-colored cur-
tains.                                                                      ,    ,
"Nice little girl, this? Rather enticing; made her
look alive with that rose-light; tantalizing to know it's
nothing but marble; sweetly pretty, certainly."
"Sweetly pretty? Good heavens, my dear fellow,
hold your tongue! One would think you a cockney
adoring the moon, or a lady's maid a new fashion.
That Daphne's the most perfect thing Coustou ever
did."
" Don't know anything about them ! Never see a bit
of difference in them from the plaster casts you buy
for a shilling. Won't break quite so soon, to be sure.
She is pretty—nice and round, and all that; but I don't
care a straw about art.   Never could."
"And you are proud of your paganism? Well, you
are not the first person who has boasted of his heresy
lor the sheer sake of appeal ing singular."
"To be sure! I understand Wilkes: let me be the-
ugliest man in Europe, rather than remain in medioc-
rity among the medium plain faces. There's not a
hair's difference between notoriety and fame. Be cele-
brated for something, and, if you can't jump into a pit
like Curtius, pop yourself into a volcano like Empedo-
cles: the foolery's immortalized just as well as a nero-
ism; the world talks of you, that's ail you want. If I
couldn't be Alexander. I'd be Diogenes; if I weren't a
great hero, I'd be a most ingenious murderer. There's
no radical difference between the two ! But, I say, do
you ever remember what a fearful amount you throw
away on these dolly things?" pursued Trevenna, inter-
rupting himself to strike his cane on the Daphne.
" The only th'ngs worth the money I spend ! My dear
Trevenna, ï thank you much for your interest, but I
can dispense with your counsels."
The answer was very gentle, but there was the slight
languor of hauteur natural to a man accustomed to
r\ p -f p i*p (} f. p
Trevenna laughed good-temperedly ; he had never
been seen out of humor.
" Pardon ! I'm a brusque fellow, and say what comes
uppermost; wiser if I kept it sometimes. If you do
live en prince, who wouldn't that could? I don't be-
lieve in renunciation. He is a shrewd fellow who,
forced on abstinence, vowes he li'kes it and says he
does it for digestion ; but I love the good things of life
and say so, though I can't afford them. I should sell
my soul for turtle soup ! By the way, monseigneur, be-
fore we eat your soup there's a little business-----"
"Business? In the evening! Do you wish to give
me dyspepsia before dinner?"
" No; but I want to digest mine by feeling I've done
my duty. There's something we want you to sign;
Legrew does, at the least-----"
'MDn my honor, Trevenna," cried his host, with a
gay, careless laugh, "you are abominable! How
often have I told you that I trust you implicity—you
are fit for Chancellor of the Exchequer—and that I
never will be worried by any nonsense of the kind?"
"But, caro mio," pleaded Trevenna, coaxingly, "we
can't do without your signature. What's to be done?
We can't give leases, and draw checks, and get bonda
and mortgages, without your handwriting."
The last words caught the indolent listener's inatten-
tive ear.   He looked up surprised.
"Bonds? Mortgages? What can I possibly have to
do with them?"
"Moneys are lent out on mortgages; I only used the
word a.s example," explained his prime minister, a
little rapidly. 1'we trouble you as little as we can;
only want your name now. Remember, the Guineas
let you in heavily this time ; one can't transfer those
large sums without your authorization. Just let me
read you over this paper: it's merely-----"
" Spare me ! spare me !" cried the lord of this dainty
art-palace,.to whom the ominous crackle of the parch-
ment was worse than the singing of a rattlesnake.
" Smindyrides felt tired if he saw a man at work in
the fields: what would he have felt if he had seen a
modern law document?"
" Just sign, and you won't see it any more," pleaded
Trevenna, who knew the facile points of a character he
had long made his special study, and knew that, to
be saved farther expostulation, his chief would
comply.
He did so, raising himself with a slow, graceful in-
dolence from his cushions, and resigning the mouth-
piece of his hookah reluctantly. The acquiescence
was very «Mr, very pliant, yielding to softness. Yet
a physiognomist would have said that, with a powerfuj
arch of the brows and the Julian mold of the chin,
weakness could not naturally belong to this man's dis-
position, if too consummate a fastidiousness and too
absolute a love of pleasure were inherit in it. The
compliance was most insouciant, the willingness to
sign, in ignorance of what he signed, a trustful care-
lessness that was almost womanish. But life had
fostered this side of his character, and had done noth-
ing to counteract it.
"Stay! you haven't heard what it is," put in Tre-
venna, while he rattled off, with clear, quick precision
that showed him a master of précis and wpould have
qualified him to explain a budget in St. Stephen's, a
résumé of what he stated the contents of the document
to be; a very harmless document, according to him,
merely reverting to the management of the immense
properties of which his friend was the possessor. His
hearer idly listened two minutes, then let his thoughts
drift r.way to the chiaroscuro of a Ghirtendajo opposite,
an. 'O speculation whether Reynolds was quite correct
in his estimate of the invariable amount of shadow,
employed by the old masters.
TKvenna's exposition, lucid, brief, and as little tire-
some oe legalities can be made, ended, he took th«
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