returned the first speaker; "the folk in yonder
'Hogstye houses'—and it is a good name
for them—have but a bad report hereabout;
and from thence to Broughton highwaymen
pick up somewhat sometimes."

A loud scream from the lady now
interrupted the conversation: the arquebusade
bottle and the fan were put in requisition,
and she stoutly refused to go any further on
any consideration whatever.

"Come, come, madam," said the coachman,
"here are four gentlemen to protect you, and
besides, we shall do it before sunset." At
length, having given her gold watch to one of
the gentlemen, who promised to put it into
his boot should a highwayman appear, and
having stowed away the gold snuff-box under
the cushion, the lady entered the coach.

"But what is the matter with you, my
dear?" said Mr. W., surprised by the deadly
paleness of the young woman; "you need
not be afraid of highwaymen."

The young woman shook her head. "God
grant we may meet none!" said she.

The coach now set off, and the snuff-box
lady in a little time recovered her spirits, and
was chatting away; but it was strange to mark
the anxious looks of the young woman. "Are
we near Broughton, sir?" was her question
before they had proceeded much more than a
mile.

"No, we want five miles yet to it," said the
gentleman who had made the remark about
the highwayman, "don't be afraid. Have
you anything valuable?"

The young woman cast down her eyes,
which were tilled with tears: "Nothing valuable,"
said she, "but what I would not lose
for a hundred pounds."

"Well, if so, my young maiden," said the
gentleman, "give it to me, and it shall e'en
go into my other boot. Some keepsake?"

"Oh no, sir, only a box of my father's—a
snuff-box, that he would not part with, for one
set with diamonds."

''It must be a valuable one indeed," said
the lady scornfully; and the poor young
woman burst into tears.

Mr. W. fixed his eyes kindly on her. "And
your father sets great store by it?"

"Oh yes, sir; it was given him by his only
brother more than thirty years ago."
She drew from her under pocket a
small silver snuff-box, and put it into Mr.
W.'s hand.

It was well that she did not relinquish her
hold of it, for the old man started, and with
clasped hands exclaimed, "The very box I
gave to my dear brother the day he came of
age!"

The London Express rolled on to Broughton,
and there the young woman alighted,
and there Mr. W. alighted; and he was soon
in the poor cottage to which his brother,
now a disabled officer on half-pay, had
retired, clasping that hand which for thirty
years had never been placed in his, and
kissing his pretty niece, of whose very
existence he had been unconscious.

NEAR THE PANTHEON.

THE resident in Paris who does not live
in the fashionable quarters thereof; whose
purse compels him to exist upon the
nourriture simple et fortifiante of a student's
hotel, instead of paying daily visits to
Vachette's, or even to the Dîner de Paris;
generally chooses the neighbourhood of the
Panthéon for his quarters. For, hereabout
he may have the wildest kind of social
liberty. He may wear the hat he pleases to
adopt, without remark; he may give free
vent to the exuberance of his fancy in the
matter of trowsers. Nobody will interfere
with him, if he have a relish for a pipe in
the Palace gardens close by. Having had
his two dishes for breakfast, about ten, with
his half bottle of vin ordinaire, he should be
off to his business—perhaps to the dissecting-
room of a hospital, or to the studio of some
great painter, his master. But the day is
cloudless, and the Panthéon stands out against
the intensely blue sky, reminding him of a
sketch by Roberts.

On such a day the dissecting-room or the
close atmosphere of a studio is insupportable.
To stroll out, past the interminable book-stalls,
crammed with yellow-covered books; to meet
a friend, and then saunter into the Luxembourg
gardens, to promenade while the band
of one of the regiments is playing, is
certainly a more pleasant proceeding. There is a
haziness in the very air; it is impossible to do
anything worth speaking about. And then,
if the stroller be an artist, may he not, in his
walk, study character? There are, unhappily,
twenty different ways of reconciling the
conscience to idleness. On some mornings
of lassitude the artist rises with weak eyes;
the medical student wakes with an unsteady
hand; the writer jumps out of bed with the
reflection that the brain wants relaxation and
repose, like the body; the government official
is disturbed from his sleep by the suggestion
that a day in bed will strengthen his
naturally delicate constitution, and that a medical
certificate must certify to that fact; the
prima donna, rising with a slight wheeziness,
feels that to sing at the concert she is engaged
to perform at that morning would be
madness.  And thus we all cheat ourselves
occasionally.

These mornings of self-deceit are, I
fear, a little too frequent with the
gentlemen who are supposed to study near the
Panthéon. On such occasions they may
be generally found grouped about the
Luxembourg gardens—some reading Le
Mousquetaire in the shade of the trimmed chestnut
trees; others watching the evolutions of the
soldiers in the long walk that stretches away
from the Palace to the Observatoire. Then
billiard matches are got up, and appointments