or description they be, in the dark,
mudsplashed windows. Lean, green, undersized
children, some looking precociously and
viciously intelligent, others stolid in their grimy
misery, hang about the doorways or listlessly
dabble in the mire; and towards evening,
which falls early there, the rats come out
and forage, little disturbed by their vicinity.
The street is very quiet in general, except on
fête days, about some of the low cabarets,
from whence there then proceed fierce oaths
and savage roars, which are supposed to
be songs of mirth and jollity; for even joy
there wears a mask of vice and debasement
and ferocity.

Narrow, creaking staircases, that never
saw a gleam of daylight, lead upward to
filthy, dingy rooms; some, lined with the
wooden panelling put up at the period of
their building, and now so smoke-dried and
dirt-stained as to bear no trace of its former
aspect or colour; others hung, with shabby
paper, no less undistinguishable. All have
innumerable closets in the walls, suggestive
of concealment and mystery, and not a
few secret staircases and strange,
unexplained recesses behind chimneys and in the
thickness of the walls. Here and there, an
attempt has been made, long ago—probably
by some new-comer to this God-forgotten
place—to rear a pot of mignonette or wall-
flower, or those parasites of the poor, scarlet-
runner and the nasturtium, on the sill of the
dim windows; but the poor things yellowed
and sickened, and dropped their leaves, and
nothing remained but a brown, dry stem, or
a few stiff, dead tendrils, clinging round the
stick or stretched twine placed to support
them.

On a summer evening, when the right side
of Paris had not yet lost the last beams of
the sun that never fell upon the wrong, a
woman turned from the gay quarter into the
Rue des Truands. She was dressed in dark
garments and closely veiled, so that nothing
but her height was clearly distinguishable;
and she walked rapidly, and with the anxious
air of one who is nervously conscious of being
in a false position. She stopped at last
before a closed door, examined the aspect of
the house, consulted a little paper she held
in her hand, and then knocked softly. The
door opened instantly, and closed on her as
she entered, leaving her in total darkness.

"Fear nothing, madame," said the shrill
voice of the invisible porter; " give me your
hand, and I will guide you safely."

The visitor held out her hand in the dark,
and felt it taken by a hand so cold, so lean, so
extraordinarily small, that she could hardly
forbear shuddering at the strange, unnatural
contact. Through a room or passage, dank
and earthy-smelling as a tomb, up a steep,
winding staircase, through a long, creaking
corridor, still in darkness, now and then
faintly and momentarily broken by some
invisible borrowed light, the guide and the
guest proceeded together in silence, till at
the end of the passage they stopped, and the
former knocked at the door. Being bidden
to enter, they did so; and, for the first time,
the visitor, looking down to about the level
of her own waist, saw her conductor, a
dwarf hump-back of the female sex, but of
an age perfectly undistinguishable, who after
peering upward with a quick, strange, side-
long glance that seemed to pierce her veil,
noiselessly withdrew and left her standing
before the room's inhabitant.

He was an old man, of a pale leaden
complexion, with quick, keen grey eyes, that
peered from beneath low, shaggy black brows,
while his hair and long thick beard were
white. He sat at a table, covered with
venerable-looking books, yellow vellum
manuscripts, and various instruments of singular
aspect, on which a shaded lamp threw a
partial gleam. Signing to the lady with a
lean, long hand to advance to a seat near
him, he watched her movements with a look
of close and quiet scrutiny and in profound
silence, till she had taken the chair.

"Excuse me, madame," he said, "but you
must raise your veil. I cannot speak to you
without seeing your face."

She hesitated for a second, then suddenly
flung it up, and boldly and steadily met
his eye. The action and the face
accorded: both were proud, passionate,
resolute—even defiant; the latter, though not
in its first youth, handsome. Nothing of all
this was lost on the old man; neither did he
fail to perceive that the hand that threw
back the veil was small and white, and that
a jewel flashed from it in the lamplight.

"I come," the visitor said, "for a turn of
your art."

He bowed, without removing his eyes from
her face. His silent scrutiny seemed to
irritate and annoy her.

"Can you, and are you disposed, to aid
me ? Fear nothing as to the extent and
security of your reward; " and she laid a
heavy purse on the table.

He appeared not to notice the movement
as he said quietly:

"When you have stated the case to me,
madame, I shall be better able to answer
your question."

It was evident that there was a powerful
struggle in the mind of the visitor; for her
colour rose, her nostril dilated, and
when, after, a pause, she spoke again, her
voice was thicker and her words abrupt and
hurried.

"I love, and would be loved again, which
I am not. I would purchase love—that one
man's love—at any price."

"At any price to him, or to you?"

"To either, or to both."

"Is he heart-free—or does he love
another?"

"He loves another—his affianced wife."

"Hum! Complicated."