nombre, quoiqu'elle ait été faite à la hâte. Car je t'avouerai que c'est un enfant de la nécessité. La faim, comme tu sçais, fait sortir le loup hors de bois."

"Comment!" m'écriais-je—“ la faim! estce l'auteur du Comte de Saldagne qui me tient ce discours? Un homme qui a dix mille écus de rente, peut-il parler ainsi?"

ami!"—interrompit

"Doucement, mon ami!

Nugnez.

GIL BLAS DE SANTILLANE,

liv. xii. c. 7.

JEANNETTE ISABELLE.

CHAPTER I.

Ir was a horrible night in January. Merry as were the balls and concerts fixed for that evening in Paris, the streets at least gave no indication of gaiety and feasting. Down the whole length of the arcades, from the corner of the Place Vendôme to the two extremities of the Rue de Rivoli, not a soul was to be seen, and yet the Louvre clock had only just struck ten. Not a dog dared to stir out in that dreadful storm; but the wind sung through the deserted arches of the Rue Castiglione, and the rain seemed to fall in sheets upon the housetops. The Dutch ovens with roasted chestnuts, so welcome at the turnings of the streets to the ouvriers

coming home from work, or the children released from their pensions, were no longer visible. Even the perennial lamps, hung out from the tobacconist's windows to light the fresh cigar, had been quenched by the penetrating gusts of the hurricane, and the drivers of the fiacres smoked their short clay pipes under the cover of the cape of their great coats.

"Quelle nuit épouvantable!" exclaimed an old woman, as she issued from the obscure door of a small house in the Rue St. Honoré, and prepared to cross the street, courageously battling with her blue cotton umbrella against the whole fury of the elements. "Quelle nuit épouvantable! jamais de ma vie je n'ai rien vu de semblable!"—and certainly it must have been either a very bad night, or a very stupid person, or both, when French lips could occupy themselves with a remark upon the weather. The old lady's senses, perhaps, were not in their acutest order at the moment; for scarcely had she attained to the centre of the hardly distinguishable crossing, picking her way over the great stones, by the help of a horn lantern in her left hand, and holding the patchy parapluie close down over the frills of her cap with her right, like a shield constantly presented against the enemy to windward, when she felt herself suddenly knocked head over heels by the violent concussion of some object ad

vancing from that very direction; and not till some moments after, on coming to her senses, was she made aware that she had been run over by the foremost of three horses, attached to a travelling carriage, which still waited in the street before her.

"Mon fils! mon pauvre fils Louis! qu'est ce qu'il deviendra!" exclaimed the terrified old beldame, as she gasped for breath in a fresh tornado of the tempest; "bien sûr, que je vais mourir, et il sera seul! mon cher pauvre orphelin! mon pauvre Louis!"

"What's the damage done? and have you sent for a surgeon?" exclaimed, in English, a mild, quiet voice from the carriage, while the window was let down, and instantly half drawn up again as a heavy plash of rain came like a water-spout through the aperture.

"Nicht viel :-not much damage, my Lord," was the reply: "I believe no surgeon is wanted, es scheint mir wenigstens; for no bones are broken, as far as I can ascertain ;" and the old German servant, who had descended, and was occupied with the good lady on the trottoir, began feeling very unceremoniously the legs and arms of the patient to discover if there were any fractures.

"Finissez donc! finissez! ôtez vos mains! coquin! c'est honteux, c'est indigne!" screamed the

old woman, as she struggled against the anatomical investigation" vous chiens d'Anglais !-vous êtes tous comme cela-vous êtes une race mauditevoilà, ce que vous êtes!"-and the old woman raised her figure to its full height, and stamped with rage upon the pavé with such force as to fully convince the Englishman's courier that there was no further need for his medical intervention. Maliciously therefore unpinning the front of her dress, as if to relieve her and give her some air, and then leading her directly under a spout, which squirted a whole gutter-ful of puddle-water over her, he wished her bon soir, and returned to the carriage.

"Anton," said the voice from inside, "give the poor old creature this”—and a napoleon was handed out of the window.

"Es ist gar nicht nöthig-it's quite unnecessary, my Lord, and a great deal too much," said the free-spoken old servant.

"Take her address, Anton," was the only answer; and the old lady having given No. 179, Rue St. Denis, au quatrième, to the servant, the carriage drove off again, amid her vociferations of "Chiens d'Anglais! maudits coquins," and such other epithets, which showed that the piece of gold had not at all appeased her anger for the roll in the gutter.