FAINT HEART NEVER WON FAIR LADY.

"Whom does that carriage belong to ?" he asked, pointing to one in the court-yard, from which the horses were being taken.

66

Ça? c'est le Numéro Un, au premier. Ce sont des milords!"
Walter read: "Sir James and Lady Tunstall."

He thanked the porter, and with a beating heart hurried away to the place where he had put up the cabriolet that brought him to Paris that morning.

"What famous spirits you are in, Walter," said Sir Hercules, returning his joyous greeting. "The sight of your old friends has done you good."

Ah, you

shall know all."

"Old friends!" cried Walter. 66 And before he went to bed that night he told the story of his love for Mary Tunstall.

CHAPTER XLVI.

THE PROVERB VERIFIED.

INHERITING the quick spirit of his father, Walter could not res till he had poured out all his thoughts to her who occupied them wholly. His impatience would not allow him to wait till a reasonable hour, and long before Sir Hercules and Dr. Kane were up, he was again on the road to Paris, arriving at the Barrière de l'Etoile with the very first market-carts. As love is subjected to no octroi-though the tax might be a productive one-the cabriolet passed through the barrier unprobed, if not unexamined, and leaving Philippe, the groom, to stable his steed and amuse himself how he pleased till dusk, Walter directed his steps towards the Rue de la Paix.

It was so early that he shared the street with a chiffonnier, a couple of water-carriers, and the sentinel on duty at the barracks of the sapeurspompiers; scarcely a window-shutter was thrown back, only here and there a shop opened; and even the postman had not made his appearance. It was decidedly too soon to pay a morning visit; but, indeed, although in the most desperate hurry to reach his destination, Walter had not quite made up his mind what to do when he got there. a kind of comic despair, he perceived that the only café in the street was Looking round, with preparing to receive its earliest habitués, and this reminded him that he might as well breakfast there, his chance of obtaining that meal elsewhere being something more than doubtful.

It so happened that the café stood nearly opposite the Hôtel Mirabeau, and, by choosing a table near the door, Walter was able to command the entrance of the house, so that nobody could pass in or out unseen by him. To avoid the appearance of making a mere convenience of the café, he ordered three times as much breakfast as he wanted, and though he sent the greater part away untasted, had no idea that either the waiter or the dame de comptoir penetrated his secret, as if such very knowing persons were not in the habit of forming pretty accurate conclusions when handsome young gentlemen sit down to breakfast, eat nothing to speak of, and keep their eyes fixed on the other side of the street. signify discretion so much abounds, there is so vast a sympathy in Paris But it did not for affairs of the heart, that, except an occasional glauce or smile on the part of the aforesaid waiter and dame de comptoir, nobody would have

supposed that Walter's preoccupation had in the slightest degree attracted their attention.

Like Rosalind's young maid, between the day of her marriage-contract and its solemnisation, time's pace was a hard one while Walter sat and watched. Nine-ten-eleven-he was as weary of counting the hours as the Hungarian Gabor in Werner's secret passage! During their tedious course he resolved to profit by the first symptom of movement in the apartments opposite, and present himself with the best excuse he could frame; but it seemed as if the opportunity would never offer. It was in vain that he looked at the windows: the closely-drawn curtains proved an impenetrable screen, no one came near to cast them aside— and another hour was added to those which Walter had already wasted.

"Why," he said, "should I wait any longer? Do I expect a message to say when they are ready to receive me? I will take my chance and go at once!"

He rose quickly, paid the bill with a liberality that made the waiter open the eyes of astonishment, and was leaving the café when he saw a carriage coming out of the porte cochère of the Hôtel Mirabeau.

"I am too late, after all!" he exclaimed, recognising the horses; "they are going out! Stay! I can't see her! She is sitting back! No! She is not there! It is only her mother! Oh, drive as fast as you like, and stay away as long as you please!"

At these words he hastily crossed over, waited for a few moments till the carriage was quite out of sight, and then, addressing the concierge, asked with a demure face if Lady Tunstall was at home.

"Miladi has this instant gone out," replied the man.

"Is-are-any of the family in ?"

"Milord still keeps his bed; he continues very ill "And-and-Miss Tunstall ?"

The concierge smiled. Perhaps he was fond of five-franc pieces-liked them better in the concrete than apart! At all events, he put Walter's Napoleon in his pocket, and indicated the position of Sir James Tunstall's apartments. Lady Tunstall had carried off the chasseur, Sir James's valet was absent on his own affairs, and Walter was admitted by a smart French femme de chambre, who, after conducting him through two or three rooms, threw open the last of the suite, and, glad to be spared the trouble of an English name, simply announced "Un Monsieur Anglais!" Mary Tunstall was alone, practising at a piano, with her back to the door. She had not heard what the femme de chambre said, and if the little spaniel had not begun to bark, Walter might have had leisure to gaze on her for some time undisturbed.

"Chorister! Be quiet, Chorister!" she said. Naughty dog, lie still!"

"You put me out.

But Chorister refused to obey the voice of his mistress, and she turned to learn the cause.

On a former occasion the barking of her pet spaniel had announced an intruder, when Matthew Yates came stealing through the trees in Scargill Park: it was a link in the same chain, one closely connected by fate with Matthew Yates, an intruder, too, perhaps-no, not in Mary's eyes, though she could scarcely believe what they showed her!

66

Mary!" he said. "Have you forgotten me ?"

"Oh no, no!” she answered; "your name is Walter. We met last

summer in the cathedral at Rouen. I did not think you could have remembered me.”

"You are not changed-your face is the same I always dream of. How could I cease to remember the most beautiful object my eyes have ever dwelt on? How forget her who sent me this precious token ?" He took out the cameo as he spoke.

"It is like you," he said-"very like! Still more so now you turn your eyes away.'

"I am afraid it was very wrong in me to give it you." "You do not want to have it back again ?"

"Oh no-I did not mean that! I only meantabruptly-"How came you to know we were here?" "I followed you home."

She broke off

"But we returned so quickly. The coachman drove so fast. I thought it impossible for you to overtake us."

66

"They who pursue what they love, Mary, meet with no impediments." Walter," she replied, "you must not speak to me in that manner. We have only seen each other once before."

"And that once, Mary, is the great event of my life. I have been nearly dying-was left for dead-but as long as I had consciousness I thought of that moment."

"Have you been ill ?" she asked, with tears quickly gathering in her eyes.

"An attempt was made to kill me- -Why do you turn so pale?—it failed, you see! Friends-strangers at that time-rescued me from death: to their kindness I owe my recovery. But they saved me to little purpose, Mary, if I may not tell you what I feel."

"But I ought not to listen, Walter, for your words are not like those I hear from every one else."

"Thank Heaven! Oh, Mary, dearest, if I speak a different language from others, do not hate me for that!"

"Hate you, Walter !"

Her accent said much, but her eyes more, and Walter read in them a love equal to his own. He took her hand-it trembled; he raised it to his lips.

At that moment the door was suddenly opened by the French femme de chambre.

"Ah, mademoiselle," she said, "milor vous demande. Il est très souffrant !"

"You must go, Walter," said Mary—" I cannot return. My father is so ill! I must stay by his side."

66

When, when shall I see you again?"

"I cannot tell,-I dare not think of it: it must not be here, alone. Mamma must know when next you come. Go, go, dear Walter !"

The appeal was too earnest to be resisted. He followed the femme de chambre to the outer door; he found himself in the street; the sun was shining, and the sky was bright above.

"Am I in a dream ?" he said; "if so, may it last for ever!"
Did these two young people understand each other too quickly?
What says
honest Biondello to enamoured Lucentio ?—

"I knew a wench married in an afternoon, as she went into the garden for parsley to stuff a rabbit."

INDEX

TO THE FORTY-FOURTH VOLUME.

Guardsman, The, in Constantinople. Monkshood, New-Book Notes by.