and sick: well knowing what I had next to
see, I had no heart left in me to prepare
myself against it ; and when Garston, having
rushed into the summer-house, came forth
bearing the body of Anna, the close proximity
of the two faces—the one all ghastly death,
the other all active and convulsed life, I
shrieked aloud, and I became insensible.

I could not have lain long in this state; for
Garston was still within the enclosure, filling
up the grave. I looked no more in that direction,
but got upon my feet as well as I was able,
descended the wooded hill into the vale, and
at last reached the high road. It was a
further way back than I had come; but Garston
could not get home before me. There was
something for him yet to do—I had seen
that.

What thoughts occupied me as I pursued
my way, I cannot distinctly recall. I remember
once hurrying along at headlong speed;
having been seized with panic which brought
a sense that some one—Garston himself—
was pursuing me; but, approaching the
village, my self-possession returned to me. I
remember the small windows of the cottages,
with their diamond-shaped panes shining in
the opening morning's light. A cock crowed
in the distance; but this was the only sound.
Not a human being was astir. The indescribable
quietude of the place filled me with
awe; and I glided along like a criminal.

I found the door of the house as I had left
it, and crept to my own room. Once again in
my chamber, I felt myself secure. The
ticking of my watch on the drawers called
my attention to it. Could it be that little
more than two hours had comprised all that
I had witnessed? I walked to the glass; but
instantly drew back from what it disclosed to
me. Why that face—that look of horror and
of guilt? What had I done that I must carry
the curse of Cain upon my brow?

I bathed my face and hands in the cool
water, smoothed my hair, and then sat
down to think—to think resolutely and
manfully,—and to decide at once what was
best to be done in a case to which, I was
stopped short by reflecting, there was no
parallel in anything I had heard or read.
What was, indeed, to be done? I wrung my
hands in despair. Mr. Oatway had often
impressed upon me that our peace of mind is
ever in our own power; that all the vicissitudes
and afflictions of life may be borne
patiently, joyfully, so long as we fear God
and obey His commandments. Yet what
could melt out of my memory a scene which
must for ever abide there and torment me;
a scene of which I was a witness; in the
crowning horror of which I was almost a
partaker? But why should I bear another's
sin? Let the wretch carry his own burden
until he should fling it from him at the foot
of the gallows.

I was interrupted. The near and nearer
approach of soft footsteps—the nice and crafty
turning of the handle of the door—its closing,
save to my quickened sense, inaudible.
Garston had returned.

DOCTOR VERON'S TIME.

EVERYBODY goes to Paris, everybody goes
to the Palais Royal in Paris, everybody may
like a glimpse of the Palais Royal in Doctor
Véron's time.

Who was Doctor Véron? What about
him? Doctor Véron was a Doctor of Medicine;
Louis Véron, erst extern of the Hospital
of La Charité ; then, as his enemies maliciously
maintain, but as he strenuously denies,
a journeyman apothecary; subsequently and
successively renowned as the inventor of
a much-puffed and richly-remunerative
pectoral nostrum, the Pâte, Regnault; as
manager of the Grand Opéra, proprietor of the
Constitutionnel, confidential friend of Louis
Napoleon (who has given his confidential
friend something very much resembling the
cold shoulder lately), as a millionnaire, a
bon-vivant very erudite in rich viands and choice
wines; lastly, as possessing a sort of comic
glory as an author. All men laugh at the
doctor's six closely-printed volumes of the
Mémoires d'un Bourgeois de Paris; they
ridicule his pompous fanfaronnades, his
egotism, and his elaborated gossip; yet all men
read the Mémoires of Mimi Véron. The
circulation of the book has been prodigious;
nor is this to be wondered at; for it can
easily be understood how much there must
be both curious and interesting, in six
volumes of naïve confessions by the man who
brought out Robert le Diable, who dined
with Talleyrand, who swayed the editorial
sceptre of the once thunderer of the French
press, the Constitutionnel, who was intimate
with Rossini, Thiers, Guizot, Alexandre
Dumas, Victor Hugo, George Sand, Cinti
Damoreau, Rachel, and Taglioni.

But I leave the detailed consideration of
the Doctor's Memoirs (which extend over
the space of time from the end of the first
Empire to the commencement of the second)
to the reviewers. Be it mine to walk in the
Palais Royal with the Doctor Véron—the
Palais Royal of forty years ago—and to let
him initiate me into some of the secrets
of that dreadful Palais-Royal Playmare
which haunted the locality and made French
grandmothers, ay and some of our English
grandmothers too, turn pale and tremble.

To the T. G. who takes a South-Eastern
return ticket, expends five shillings in the
purchase of a passport, more or less
complimentary from the urbane Consul General in
King William Street, wonders what sort of
aid and assistance it may be that the
authorities, civil and military are so politely
requested to extend to him en cas de besoin,
and gets rid of a ten-pound note or so in a
trip to Paris and back, the Palais Royal is
a delicious garden-quadrangle where he may