and the gold-laced cap had given her chocolate?
Was the sickly gentleman in the carriage on
deck, named Blunt? Had Rataplan's name
ever been pronounced at the Pension Marcassin?
Did Marygold ever speak of a certain
Constant? J. B. Constant—Jean Baptiste
Constant—the name, the initials, kept ringing in
the ears of her mind. But it was all a dream,
and would yield nothing tangible. So soon as,
for an instant, she thought she had gotten hold
of a form and a substance, they slid away from
her as though she had been walking on glass,
and all was impalpable. As sometimes in a
strain of music, and sometimes in a sigh of the
wind, and sometimes in a word, forgotten so
soon as it was uttered, if uttered indeed it were,
Lily fancied that she remembered something—
she knew not what, she knew not when, she
knew not how;—and then the fancied
reminiscence faded away into nothingness and a
perplexing blank, in which memory had no
place.

Very sadly she rose, folding up, she could
scarcely tell why, the copy of the paper, and
placing it in her pocket. The dream might come
back again, she tried to think, and tell her
something more definite. At present she was bound
to go on her business. That dreadful locket!
Yes; the evil time might be no longer staved
off. So, she walked down to the quays that
were about the Pont Neuf. It was a wonder she
did not meet little Amanda on her morning
walk, or Monsieur Philibert meditating on the
grand doings the Pompes Funèbres would
have when the corpse of the Emperor came
home.

There were plenty of goldsmiths' shops on the
Quai, plenty expressing on their signs quite
a delirious eagerness to purchase gold, silver,
and diamonds, at their utmost value. Lily
entered the first shop on her way. The gentleman
who kept it appeared to deal in all kinds of
rags and bones, so to speak, of the precious
metals. His counter was heaped with frayed
and tarnished epaulettes; with coils of torn and
shabby gold and silver lace; with coat-collars,
coat-pockets and lappels, decorated with faded
embroidery, and ruthlessly torn from their
parent garments; with sword-knots, and satchels,
and tassels, and bridal veils with silver spangles,
and broken teapots, and mugs crumpled up as
though they had been made of paper, and flute-
mountings, and the tops of meerschaum pipes,
and the lozenge plates from cigar-cases, and the
bosses and mouldings from cartouche-boxes, and
the stoppers of bottles from dressing-cases:
anything you please to mention in the way of
gold and silver. In front of the counter was a
stout wire grating reaching to the ceiling, and
in front of the grating was the dealer in the
precious metals himself. He was smoking a
halfpenny cigar, and, with the assistance of a
pair of tweezers, was holding some loose pearls,
which he took from a sheet of letter-paper, up
to the light. He was a dealer with a very
shock head of red hair, and had a very white
pasty face, and very weak watery eyes, and
very full, luscious-looking pink lips, and was a
Jew.

"I won't buy anything this morning," he
cried, as Lily, hesitatingly, entered the shop.
"That scoundrel Pifflard. He pretends to go
to the Orkney Islands for pearls! There's not
one of them here worth five francs, ma parole
d'honneur."

Lily, wincing under this rebuff, was about to
withdraw, when he called her back.

"Stop! What is it? What have you got?
The défroque of a marshal of France, or the
sceptre of Charlemagne? I'll buy anything for
the sake of your eyes. I love eyes. I wish I
could sell them."

He was such a florid dealer, and such a voluble
dealer, and, withal, such a very hungry not to
say rapacious-looking dealer, that Lily was more
than half-alarmed at the manner in which he
accosted her. However, there was no help for it,
now. She nerved herself to a strong effort, and
produced the ill-fated locket. She had
previously taken out the hair of the Martyr King,
wrapped it in a piece of paper, and put it
carefully away in her bosom. At least, she would
not sell that, she thought.

"And what might you want for this little bit
of a toy?" asked the dealer, turning over the
locket, as he spoke, with much contempt.

"A hundred francs," answered Lily, at a
guess. "You see, sir, there are diamonds
outside."

"I know, I know," retorted the dealer, who
with avid eyes had taken stock of the whole.
"Diamonds! Do you call these little pins'
heads diamonds? They're nothing but beads:
mere children's playthings. Come: I'll be
liberal. I'll give you fifty francs."

Unused to bargaining in any shape, and
perfect novice as she was in the marketable value
of the precious metals, Lily could not but be
conscious that an attempt was being made to
swindle her. She humbly represented that the
locket must be worth considerably more even
than the price she had put upon it, and that
fifty francs was really a sum that she could not
think of accepting.

"Where's the hair?" cried the dealer,
suddenly opening the locket and then shutting it
with a sharp snap. "Where's the miniature of
General Foy, or the tomb of Héloïse and
Abelard, or the hair of your well-beloved, that
ought to be inside?"

Lily replied that she had removed that which
had been inside the locket. It was a relic, and
she did not intend to sell it.

"Then I won't buy it at all," snarled the
dealer, tossing the locket towards her. "Take
back your trumpery, I don't buy empty lockets.
Nobody likes to buy 'em; and to break up, it
isn't worth a louis."

"Oh, sir——" Lily began to plead, as well
as she could for the tears that were rising.

"Take it away. I think you stole it. I got
into trouble last time about an empty locket.
It belonged to a countess in the Faubourg St.
Germain, and her chambermaid had robbed her