empire between them; but the professional dignity of the science is gone for ever. Let his shop be ever so extensive, his goods ever so expensive, or his prices ever so excessive-and they are all these, in all manner of exaggeration, we all know-yet the perfumer is a shopkeeper after all, he is not professional. By the innate virtue of science, the barber that shaves well for a penny and cuts hair for twopence, with a considerate half-price for children, is actually more professional than the perfumer of Bond-street, although the latter has his carriage, his country-house, and his family painted on a space of canvass sixteen feet by ten. Taking counsel only with himself, Mr. Rubasore went forth. Into many an elegant and well-frequented peruquier's did he scrutinizingly peer; he wanted to find a countenance that looked encouragingly, and a shop that was empty. But the fashionable parts of the town afforded him no such double advantage. At length, he found himself in some unnameable street, that abounded with greengrocers and dusky dealers in coals, charcoal, and oysters, when in season. Here, there was no lack of barber's shops; the lack was rather in the company that should have filled them. In one of these he discovered a thin, but rather imposing-looking person, just bent, the least in the world, with age-or, more probably, by the habitual stooping of his profession-who was strapping an immense razor upon more than a yard of unctuous looking leather. Mr. Rubasore felt, at once, that he was standing before no common person. With the graceful ease of a courtier he let fall his strap, made a bow, in which you might read a great deal of courtesy and not one particle of humility, and gently dusting, with a white cambric handkerchief, the seat of his best chair, he tendered it to his visiter. When Mr. Rubasore ought to have found himself at ease in the easiest of chairs, he felt himself uncomfortable. There was the white-habited elderly barber standing, not exactly before but a little on one side, with arms crossed upon his bosom, and his mild eye beaming benevolence upon him, patiently waiting for him to speak; and, though this patience was severely tried, it triumphed. "I am come," said Mr. Rubasore-and he made a long pause. The officiator, if space may be compared with time, made a bow equally low. "You are exceedingly polite to your customers.” They are few; and you, sir, are the first to-day-and it is now past twelve o'clock-if, sir, you honour me so far as to intend to become my customer.' This was said in the sweetest tone possible, and with a strong French accent. Mr. Rubasore looked more attentively at the person before him, and he could no longer doubt but that he had addressed a gentleman. "How is it," he then said, looking round the shop," that, in so clean and well-appointed a receptacle for customers, so polite and attentive a hair-dresser does not attract?' 66 Simply, sir, because I am a foreigner and a refugié. Among the classes that frequent this quarter, to be so is as much a disadvantage as it is, in other quarters, a recommendation." "But why the necessity of this business at all? Our government has been liberal to persons of your description." "Alas! my good sir, I have, through the too generous disposition of the only remnant of my family, most innocently forfeited their good services. We have been accused of harbouring a spy." And, my good friend," said Mr. Rubasore eagerly, was it 66 so?" 66 "Mon Dieu! could you believe it! He was a young person, who most unconsciously found himself involved: no man could have been more true to his country. But so intricate were the involve ments in which he found himself, so great was his desire of sparing the feelings of a most honourable and distinguished family, that he prefers being an outcast and a wanderer, rather than make those efforts that would, perhaps, justify him to his country." "His name-pray what is his name?" "I do not dare tell it. Indeed, I have been but little concerned in his actions; however, he is now safe." "If he is innocent I am glad of it." 66 Plait-il that I should do for Monsieur ?” "I really don't know. I rather think that I looked in to admire the extreme nicety of the place, or, perhaps, to ask a question; perhaps impelled by a wish to serve an unfortunate person.' "You do me too much honour. I marvelled at your entrée. Your chevelure is tout comme il faut. I now guess, sir, you are the good physician. You have heard of the illness of ma pauvre Rosalie. I will charge myself with your head for weeks and months, and load myself with gratitude, and, when le bon temps reviendra, I shall show it more." "Is this Rosalie the lady who assisted the young gentleman to make his escape?" This question a little startled the Frenchman. He began to suspect, in the respectable-looking Mr. Rubasore, a secret agent of the police; he evidently wanted no assistance from his tonsorial art, was too inquisitive in a general point of view, and had now brought his inquisition home too nearly to be at all pleasant. After a pause that was painful on the one and very awkward on the other hand, the refugié crooked himself into a bow that might well be interpreted into a living note of interrogation, which said, as plainly as bow could speak, "What next?" and then the old friseur drew himself solemnly up to his full height, as much as to say, "I am on my guard." Now, as all this pantomime was no direct answer to Mr. Rubasore's question, he repeated it, but with the addition ofan assurance that he asked from no hostile intention, and a solemn asseveration that he was a man of the nicest and the most undoubted honour. This satisfied the good peruquier : he said frankly that she was. This avowal only increased Mr. Rubasore's desire to see the person who had played so adventurous a part; and this "man of the nicest and most undoubted honour" then said, that he was anxious to relieve the young female, and would be ready to feel her pulse and to prescribe for her, thus deceptively implying that he was a physician. M. Florentin, for that was the name of the emigré, was grateful. He led the way up a narrow and dark staircase, and, opening the door of the room on the first floor, introduced the soi-disant physician at once into the presence of light and loveliness-the latter, alas! how faded. Mr. Rubasore was, in some measure, inured to the effects of beauty. He had gazed for hours, and fed his soul with the charms of his ward; he had watched every grace in her deportment, chased every dimple and smile across her radiant countenance, and sometimes ventured tremblingly to revel in the dark depths of poetry-surcharged eyes. But there now stood before him a beauty of a totally different description—a beauty to which the heart at once warmed, and for which it ached-a beauty that carried the mind, in spite of itself, away from the joys of earth, and made the beholder think of the resurrection of spirits, and a state of being where that worm, disease, shall find no place. Rosalie was tall, and, when standing, seemed to stoop. This bend was not natural to her; but partly induced by her continual drooping over her tambour frame, partly from illness, but, more than all this, from that crushing feeling of sinking at the heart, when hope has departed, which seems to attract us to the earth, in order that we may repose beneath it and remember our miseries no more. Rosalie's face was of a paleness that was distressing to behold, her lips were bloodless, and fearful hollows, those graves of hope, were remarkable upon her temples: they seemed to have been dug there by a never-ceasing, cankering anxiety. Her face, however, notwithstanding this deadly paleness, was by no means attenuated; it was of the most perfect oval shape, and the outline well filled in. Her eyes were hazel, large, and with an expression of the profoundest melancholy. The face would have made a noble monument of still, unchanging grief, were it not for a continual spasmodic play over the upper lip, that indicated woe unutterable. There, in that small space, was the battle-field between the heroism of silently though ceaselessly suffering and the impulse to the sob of anguish and the scream of despair. "Rosalie, mi child!" said the father, "Here is the kind physi cian come to do you good." He bowed, and left the room. CHAPTER XXV. "Ye powers who act the needful part, Starve, starve the love that spoils the heart, OLD SONG. : Mr. Rubasore was embarrassed. He looked into his patient's countenance, and his heart smote him however, he was determined to play the part through that he had assumed, for already had his wish to gain the name and the history of the supposed spy a little subsided. Just then he felt that he dare not impertinently question her. At length they were seated, side by side; and Mr. Rubasore, after some hesitation, commenced in the usual manner, by making the most common-place remarks that it can be supposed that the human mind can entertain, short of mere foolishness. After they found that they were both of the same opinion—that, if it did not rain, or become disagreeably hot or cold, the day would turn out fine-and a good deal more conversation of the same weight and urgency, Mr. Rubasore hemmed very professionally, and, at length, possessed himself of her wrist. To all his inquiries she returned short answers, but in the sweetest tones that he thought he ever had heard. When her pale lips unclosed, he became aware that her silence concealed a set of the most splendid teeth-teeth that seemed only made for the purpose of being the ivory portals for smiles-yet smile there was none. Her lips unclosed and revealed the inner beauty, but joy had deserted her choicest residence. Mr. Rubasore, being a generally well-informed man, did not play the part that he had assumed, ill. The symptoms, however, puzzled him exceedingly. There was evidently no fever; the pulse was regular, though slow and languid. She had no cough, no difficulty of breathing, no tightness across the chest. Her appetite was neither bad nor good; she did not care for her food, yet she ate it in sufficient quantities, when placed before her-at least, she said so. Of what she most complained, was the horror of her dreams. She could find no rest for them; she trembled to sleep, and scarcely dared close her eyes. She begged Mr. Rubasore not to prescribe opium for her in any shape, for it only increased her sufferings, and drove her to the very verge of madness. When she had yielded him all this information in the fewest words possible, and which cost him many to extract, he came, of course, to the conclusion that hers was the old story, "a mind diseased; and then he felt himself convinced that the secret with which he wished to become acquainted was of the greater importance. He had other, and far deeper motives also, with which, at present, we have nothing to do, and which, too, he hardly dared avow to himself. He next questioned her as to her regimen. The answers on this head appalled him. Notwithstanding all her cautiousness, he plainly perceived that both father and daughter were striving who best could endure famine, and who best could cheat the other into the belief that they ate every day as much as they desired. And yet they owed no money, and no shop in the neighbourhood could compete with that of M. Florentin for neatness, and an appearance of comfort. Rosalie was in her dress, not only clean, but bien gentille. Much has been truly and justly said in praise of the dignified fall of the assassinated Cæsar before Pompey's statue, and of the quiet heroism of the acts of his dying moments, of his "in his mantle wrapping up himself," so that he might expire with majesty and decorum, and be, even in death, calm, and sustained, and great. But what is all this compared to the exalted endurance of these two unfriended foreigners? The dagger of starvation was making its savage way through their bosoms, yet they cried not out to the passers by, and showed not their wounds to those near them; but enfolding themselves in their mantles of respectability, each had prepared to die uncomplaining before that altar, whose sanctity man nor woman should ever violate—the altar of self-respect. This was too much, even for the selfish Rubasore. The better part of his nature triumphed. When he fully understood the nature of the case, he rose, and said, "that he should take time to consider of the symptoms, and prescribe the necessary remedies early the next day." He asked no more questions of Rosalie, but kindly taking leave, descended into the shop. When there, Mr. Rubasore began to ruminate deeply. He had time. There was a customer under the operation of being shaved. He watched the whole process with a philosophical attention, and it did much to make him a better man-for the next four hours. The man was a sturdy and morose-looking coal-heaver; he was in ill-temper; there he sat, with M. Florentin's whitest of napkins under his chin, and in contact with his dirt-imbedded black frock. The beard was of the growth of many days, and might be compared to a crop of tenpenny nails, points upwards, growing out of a bed of gravel. There was a frothy lather made round the lower |