volume, for its leaves are as many as those of
the trees, and the last page may never be
read by man.

To Claude Lafont sensualism was a word
that conveyed no meaning. He had passed
through the stages of youth and early
manhood untempted by any of the desires or
ambitions, natural or artificial, that seem
almost inseparable from man's career in
society. He worshipped beauty in whatever
form it came to him, but only through the
soul, and in its purest essence.

Now that his life was midway spent—that
the stamp of full maturity was marked on
his brow—that the time was approaching
when the sun of his existence would be
declining from its zenith, there were moments
when a vague want was felt, hints that came,
he knew not whence, of a yearning for some
more warm and real sympathy than that
shadows of great men and women could afford
him. These longings came and passed away,
but not for long; and their stay was, at each
return, more extended.

But whence could he satisfy them? His
slight commerce with the men and women of
the outer world had brought him in contact
with none whose society promised in the
slightest degree to fill the void that was
growing in his heart, wider and deeper each
day

One still October day, Claude was pursuing
his desultory rambles through the autumn
forest, when the sight of a thin blue smoke,
wavering upward through the stirless air,:
attracted his attention. He advanced with
a feeling of vague curiosity, and soon
perceived a sparkling fire, and distinguished
amid its crackling the voice of a woman,
harsh and shrill. Advancing further, he
found he was approaching a sort of gipsy
encampment, or the bivouac of one of those
gangs of strollers, half actors, half conjurors,
of the lowest order, that wander about
France, stopping to display their performances
only at out-of-the-way villages and
country fairs. All the party were absent
with the exception of a woman, the speaker—
whose hardened features and unsympathetic
aspect kept the promise given by her voice—
and a little girl of about thirteen or fourteen,
small, dark, sharp-featured, but with limbs
firm and faultless in their slight proportions,
and wondrous wild dark eyes, almost
excessive in size, flashing from beneath the
masses of black hair that overhung her face.
To her the woman was addressing herself in
harsh and bitter reproaches, to which the
child listened in the silence that becomes
almost apathy in children who from their
infancy are little used to any other tone.

Finding how slight was the effect of her
words, the woman sprung at the girl, and,
ere she could escape or parry the blow, struck
her severely with a faggot on the naked
shoulders. The stroke was a heavy one, yet
the child uttered no cry.

"Ah! little wretch! You don't care?
We'll see—take that! " and, seizing her, the
virago poured on the half-clothed body of
her victim a shower of blows. At first the
girl writhed in silence, then, pain and passion
overcoming her enforced stoicism, she burst
into wild ringing shrieks of rage and agony,
that thrilled through every fibre of Claude's
heart.

Springing forward, he grasped the
astonished tormentor, and, with a voice tremulous
with generous emotion, indignantly reproached
her cruelty. Her wrath, for a moment
checked by surprise, now only directed itself
into a new channel, and with fierce abuse
she turned on the child's defender.

Claude had no arms to meet such an
attack, and, after a fresh protest against the
woman's brutality, he turned and left the
spot, throwing a glance of pity and a word
of sympathy to the sobbing child, whose
slight frame still quivered with pain and
excitement.

Claude returned to the village inn, which
was his temporary abode. He dined, lighted
his pipe, and sat down to the enjoyment of
his customary reveries. But, the shapes he
was wont to invoke came not; one face—a
wild elfin face, with heavy black hair and
great lustrous eyes; one form—a slight,
agile, nervous one—always stood before him.
He took a pencil and sketched them in
various positions and attitudes, and formed
plans of pictures in which this little figure
was to form the conspicuous object.

"I must get that child to sit to me," said
Claude to himself; and he resolved to go on
the morrow to the stroller's camp, and offer
the virago a few francs to obtain this purpose.

The sound of a cracked drum and wheezy
hand-organ came along the village street;
anon, a boyish voice proclaimed that on the
following evening, at seven o'clock, would be
given by Signor Pandolfo, the celebrated
Sorcerer of the South, a series of experiments
in magic and prestidigitation; that Madame
Mondolfieri and Mademoiselle Edmée would
perform le pas des Djinns, aided " by
figurates of the locality; " * that Signor
Pandolfo would further consent to execute
various gymnastic exercises with the
brothers Zingari; after which a variety of
entertainments, followed by " une pièce qui a
pour intitulé Guillaume Tell, Déliberateur
de la Suisse," with all the strength of the
company, would complete the pleasures of
the evening.

* The passages marked within inverted commas are
taken verbatim from the programme of such a performance
as is here described.

Claude was sitting by the window. He
opened his eyes and looked out languidly; a
lean lad, of about fifteen, with a large shock
head and very conspicuous hands, feet, knees,
and elbows, scantily attired in dirty flesh-
coloured cotton hosiery and short spangled
drawers, was beating the drum to fill up the