a bell-crowned hat, a frilled bosom, and white dimity vest, soiled with snuff, light nankeen smalls, and, over all, that long and flowing surtout of russet-brown Circassian, hanging in wrinkles round his slender body, and toying with his thin, rakish legs. Such is his constant garb, morning and evening; and it gives him a cool and breezy look, even in the heat of a noonday in August.

The personage sketched in the preceding paragraph is Monsieur d'Argentville, a sexagenarian, with whom I became acquainted during my residence at the Maison de Santé of Auteuil. I found him there and left him there. Nobody knew when he came he had been there from time immemorial; nor when he was going away-for he himself did not know; nor what ailed him, for though he was always complaining, yet he grew neither better nor worse-never consulted the physician, and ate voraciously three times a day. At table he was rather peevish, troubled his neighbours with his elbows, and uttered the monosyllable pish! rather oftener than good breeding and a due deference to the opinions of others seemed to justify. As soon as he seated himself at table, he breathed into his tumbler, and wiped it out with a napkin; then wiped his plate, his spoon, his knife and fork in succession, and each with great care. After this he placed the napkin under his chin, by way of bib and tucker; and these preparations being completed, gave full swing to an appetite which was not inappropriately denominated, by one of our guests, une faim canine.

The old gentleman's weak side was an affectation of youth and gallantry. Though "written down old, with all the characters of age," yet at times he seemed to think himself in the heyday of life; and the assiduous court he paid to a fair countess, who was passing the summer at the Maison de Santé, was the source of no little merriment to all but himself. He loved, too, to recall the golden age of his amours; and would discourse with prolix eloquence, and a

faint twinkle in his watery eye, of his bonnes fortunes in times of old, and the rigours that many a fair dame had suffered on his account. Indeed, his chief pride seemed to be, to make his hearers believe that he had been a dangerous man in his youth, and was not yet quite safe.

As I also was a peripatetic of the garden, we encountered each other at every turn. At first our conversation was limited to the usual salutations of the day; but ere long our casual acquaintance ripened into a kind of intimacy. Step by step I won my way-first into his society, then into his snuff box, and then into his heart. He was a great talker, and he found in me what he found in no other inmate of the house-a good listener, who never interrupted his long stories, nor contradicted his opinions. So he talked down one alley and up another-from breakfast till dinnerfrom dinner till midnight-at all times and in all places, when he could catch me by the button, till at last he had confided to my ear all the important and unimportant events of a life of sixty years.

Monsieur d'Argentville was a shoot from a wealthy family of Nantes. Just before the Revolution he went up to Paris to study law at the University, and, like many other wealthy scholars of his age, was soon involved in the intrigues and dissipation of the metropolis. He first established himself in the Rue de l'Université; but a roguish pair of eyes, at an opposite window, soon drove from the field such heavy tacticians as Hugues Doneau and Gui Coquille. A flirtation was commenced in due form, and a flag of truce, offering to capitulate, was sent, in the shape of a billet doux. In the meantime he regularly amused his leisure hours by blowing kisses across the street with an old pair of bellows. One afternoon, as he was occupied in this way, a tall gentleman with whiskers stepped into the room, just as he had charged the bellows to the muzzle. He muttered something about an explanation-his sister-marriage-and

"One afternoon, as he was occupied in this way, a tall gentleman with whiskers stepped into the room just as he had charged the bellows to the

muzzle."

the satisfaction of a gentleman! Perhaps there is no situation in life so awkward to a man of real sensibility as that of being awed into matrimony or a duel by the whiskers of a tall brother. There was but one alternative; and the next morning a placard at the window of the Bachelor of Love, with the words "Furnished Apartment to Let," showed that the former occupant had found it convenient to change lodgings.

He next appeared in the Chaussé-d'Antin, where he assiduously prepared himself for future exigencies by a course of daily lessons in the use of the small-sword. He soon after quarrelled with his best friend, about a little actress on the Boulevard, and had the satisfaction of being jilted, and then run through the body at the Bois de Boulogne. This gave him new éclat in the fashionable world, and, consequently, he pursued pleasure with a keener relish than ever. He next had the grande passion, and narrowly escaped marrying an heiress of great expectations, and a countless number of châteaux. Just before the catastrophe, however, he had the good fortune to discover that the lady's expectations were limited to his own pocket, and that as for her châteaux, they were all Châteaux en Espagne.

About this time his father died; and the hopeful son was hardly well established in his inheritance, when the revolution broke out. Unfortunately, he was a firm upholder of the divine right of kings, and had the honour of being among the first of the proscribed. He narrowly escaped the guillotine by jumping on board a vessel bound for America, and arrived at Boston with only a few francs in his pocket; but as he knew how to accommodate himself to circumstances, he continued to live along by teaching fenc ing and French, and keeping a dancing-school and a milliner.

At the restoration of the Bourbons he returned to France; and from that time to the day of our acquaintance had been