Not a drawer or cupboard, on either of the five floors, but what was left unlocked during his operations. The jewel-cases of Madame la Baronne de Gimbecque stood open on her toilet; even the sécrétaire, containing her dainty cash-box of sandal-wood and steel, remained at his discretion.

At length, however, from the period when the advice of Guguste suggested to the young soldier the prudence of self-control, though the same confidence might be presumed to exist, since the jewel-box and cash-box still remained unclosed, the countenance and heart of Mademoiselle Aglaé grew less open. His caution rendered her guarded. She was surprised to find that so much insensibility could exist under a military jacket; and came in the sequel to regard him as of no greater accompt than the lump of beeswax which lay unmelting by his side. He ceased to be "Jules" in her estimation, and became merely the frotteur. Instead of feeding him with Curaçoa and cake, she did not so much as note his comings or goings. He often went scrubbing on for a quarter of an hour, before she perceived that he was in the room.

It was in this way that the gallant Jules was one morning shuffling along the couloir of the entresol, when he was struck by the audible whispering of female voices in Mademoislle Aglaé's adjoining chamber, the door of which was ajar. The voices were those of the soubrette and the ex-ouvreuse de loges; the object of discourse was a certain cashmere shawl which lay open on the table between them; which, as he skated past balanced upon his brush, attracted the notice of the young soldier as greatly resembling one which he had noticed on the shoulders of his angel-his fallen angel-of the attic story, the too charming Mademoiselle Isoline. The likeness alone sufficed to allure him back past the door, for a second survey.

"It was the same-the very shawl he knew !"

He could swear to the bordering of the palms and delicate green of the oriental tissue. At Algiers, thanks to his vogue among the fair ones of Araby the blest, he had become something of a connoisseur in shawls; and on that or some other account, had taken especial note of the beauty of the one sported by the deputy-double of the generalutility jeune prémière of the mansarde.

The frotteur started! Could the charming Mademoiselle Isoline be in pecuniary need? Was she reduced to the point of disposing of her personal apparel? Had she selected the hag Madame Dosne as her emissary? Cruel girl! to have denied him her confidence! Friendly as had been the fortnight of their intimacy, could she not have applied to her Jules for aid-for counsel? To resolve his misgivings, he shuffled back once more along the couloir. It was clear that the refractory boards of the parquet demanded another assiduous five minutes from his strenuous foot!

"If you would undertake to show the cashmere off to the best advantage to Madame la Baronne, and secure us a good bargain, the bonne main would be worth thinking of," insinuated Madame Dosne to the soubrette in a coaxing whisper.

"Do you suppose I have nothing better to do with my time than play the revendeuse de toilette?" cried the soubrette, examining the

shawl askance, with an air of disdain. "Do you take me, madam, for a fripière ?"

"God forbid!" ejaculated the old woman, (who was no better,) with mock humility. "But as Mademoiselle well knows, in such matters as cashmeres, antique lace, or old-fashioned fans, not a lady of quality in Paris, from the Tuilleries downwards, but is forced to have recourse to second-hand goods. And as I said before, if Madame la Baronne could be tempted to give a round price for the shawl, the Russian Princess, to whom it belongs, would allow a handsome douceur on the bargain."

"Russian Princess !" muttered the frotteur at the door, on whom not a syllable was lost "Then 'tis a clear case that I was in error about poor dear Ma'mselle Isoline." And he was about to recede from a scene in which he took no further interest, when a sudden inclination to steal behind the scenes of the soubrette's secrets, and ascertain the truth of Guguste's assertions, induced him to remain.

"The shawl was originally presented to her Excellency the Princess," resumed Madame Dosne, " (but this must remain a profound secret between us!) by no less a personage than the late Emperor Alexander, who received it among other tributes from the King of Tibet, or Sultan of Persia, or Cacique of Madagascar, or some other Eastern Prince; and after His Imperial Majesty's death, Her Excellency actually refused ten thousand roubles for it, from the English Ambassadress! But times are altered for more than one of us!" continued the ex-ouvreuse, with a pathetic sigh; "and the poor dear princess, having lost last night a considerable sum to another illustrious personage, (who must be nameless,) at écarté, which she is under the necessity of making up in the course of the day, intrusted me with the disposal of a few valuables, such as Oriental cashmeres, rough diamonds, and malachite vases. This cashmere is all that remains on my hands. Monsieur Rothschild took the rough diamonds at sight, and the rich Yankee, Colonel Thorne jumped at the notion of malachite vases, which had once belonged to an Emperor's mistress. I have very little doubt that the Austrian Ambassadress, or Mademoiselle Mars, or some other of the distin. guished ladies of whose houses I have the entrée, will be eager to secure this lovely cashmere (which, as you must perceive, is almost better than new.) But still as I have the advantage to lodge in the same house with a lady so distinguished for taste in matters of the toilet as Madame la Baronne de Gimbecque, and so fortunate as to possess such an adviser, I felt it my duty to give her ladyship the pref

erence.

"For my part, I consider a blue cashmere (or green-which is it?) le comble des abominations!" said Aglaé, shrugging her shoulders.— "But should madame happen to be of a different way of thinking, what is the last price this Russian woman would condescend to take for her second-hand merchandize?"

"I think (between friends) that I may venture to hope to be able to promise," said Madame Dosne, in a mysterious whisper, "that she might be induced to accept so small a sum as eight thousand frances."

"Elle n'est pas dégantée," murmured Jules, who was leaning against the wall not very far from the door, an unsuspected witness of the bargain.

"Then you may just take her trash back to her again, or to the Russian Ambassadress, or to Ma'mselle Mars, and see if you can make greater fools of them than you have made of me!" cried the sou brette, bundling up the shawl, and flinging it into the arms of Madame Dosne. "I would rather have a good Ternaux for five louis, that this old thing, at half eight thousand frances."

"You did not say that you were making the bargain for yourself, or that might have made a difference in the price, my dear young lady," murmured the ex-ouvreuse, coaxingly.

"And who told you that I was making it for myself?"

"The Princess is a reasonable woman," pursued Madame Dosne, without noticing the interruption. "Of course she cannot expect that your petits profits would enable you to make such liberal offers as we have a right to anticipate from Madame la Baronne. If, therefore-"

"In one word, take off your goods, and good morning," cried Mademoiselle Aglaé, affecting to wax impatient.

"If you could but guess the becomingness of pale green to such a complexion as yours!" cried the fripière. "To Madame la Baronne, indeed, I should scarcely venture to recommend so trying a colour! But with a bloom pure and natural as that of mademoiselle the most hazardous colours need not be apprehended. Permit me only to throw the shawl one moment over your shoulders that you may judge of the effect! As Ma'me Gregoire's soldier-son said to me the other day, when we were following you from the porter's lodge up stairs, it is not every body that can put on a shawl like the charming Mademoiselle Aglaé!"

"The devil be good unto you for as great a liar as ever wagged a tongue! And so he will if the proverb runs true, that Satan takes care of his own!" muttered Jules, from his ensconcement; while Mademoiselle Aglaé, on whose shoulder the shawl was now suspended in graceful drapery, paraded between two opposite looking-glasses, mincing her steps, and smiling herself into countenance.

"Charming-exquisite-divine-perfect!" ejaculated Madame Dosne, pausing between each word, while the soubrette perpetrated some new attitude to display to better advantage the rich border of the really beautiful shawl. "If some people, who shall be nameless, were here now, that lovely shawl would not long want a lovely wearer !"

"Un moment!" cried the waiting maid, who had now fallen in love with herself and the green cashmere in combination. "Wait

here five minutes, and I will give you a decisive answer about your

old rag.

"You are really going to show it to Madame la Baronne? Ah! ma bonne et chère demoiselle!" exclaimed Madame D.

"Never mind to whom I am going to show it !" interrupted the soubrette. "Sit quietly down here. Say nothing to nobody, and if any one having a right to ask, inquires your business, say you are my aunt from the country."

And away flew Mademoiselle Aglaé with the shawl on her shoulders and so intent upon her errand, that she did not so much as notice the figure of Jules the frotteur, drawn up in a military attitude behind the door leading to the little staircase appropriately named escalier à vis, leading from the entresol to the escalier dégagé,

in common use to the Baroness de Gimbecque, and her highly respectable neighbour of the first floor.

The motive which kept his majesty's private of the twentythird of the line loitering about the couloir for the ensuing twenty minutes, it would be very difficult to determine, inasmuch as every inch of the floor had been rubbed and re-rubbed till it was as smooth as the verses of La Martine, or the compliments of Louis Philippe ; and if at leisure, his time would have been better bestowed at the breakfast-table of Madame Grégoire, who had promised her son a treat of œufs au miroir to qualify his daily ration of dry bread. But to the entresol did he obstinately adhere; and when, more than a quarter of an hour afterwards, Ma'mselle Aglaé glided cautiously down the back stairs again, Monsier Jules followed on tiptoe to the door of the bargain-chamber, that he might ascertain the amount with which he was im-morally persuaded, she came prepared to purchase the shawl.

66

"Madame is stirring, and will be calling for her chocolate in half a minute!" cried she, entering out of breath the presence of Madame Dosne, who sat swelling, toad-like, over the newspaper in a "I have therefore but one word to consequential elbow-chair. say. Here is a billet of a thousand francs, and another of five hundred. If the sum suffices to make up your good-for-nothing princess's play-debt, take it and leave the shawl; if not, take the shawl and leave it, and bon voyage!'

"Good morning, then," said Madame Dosne, coolly depositing the two bank-notes under the bronze candlestick on the chimneypiece, and smiling with malicious delight at finding the game in her hands. "Her Excellency would dismiss me her presence if I took the liberty of approaching her with a paltry sum of fifteen hundred francs in my hand; when every soul in Paris, from the Port P. Antoine to the Porte Maillot, knows that a sea-green India shawl with a palm border, even if darned, even if with the fringe worn down to nothing, was never yet sold under one hundred louis. Adieu, ma chère demoiselle! I grieve to have been the means of losing so much of your valuable time; more particularly as I have to be with the ambassadress by eleven, and to meet the Maro afterwards, when she returns from rehearsal."

And coolly removing the cachmere from the shoulders of the soubrette, she began deliberately to fold it up, smoothing it at every fresh fold, as she might have done the check of a favourite child.

"There! écorcheuse that you are! Take the other note, and blush for your extortion!" cried Ma'mselle Aglaé, snatching from the bosom of her gown a second five hundred franc note, which Madame Dosne, per force of some magnetic sympathy, conjectured from the first to have been extorted by the soubrette in pink ribbons from the man of many ribons, many virtues, and many accesses to many back stairs. Then having received the shawl, thrust it hastily into a drawer, and turned the key upon her treasure, Mademoiselle Aglaé proceeded to thrust out the ouvreuse. Madame la Baronne's bell was ringing for the second time; and Aglaé had no mind that Lindor the pert page should come and find her trafficking for marchandises d'occasion with a fripière.

Away went Madame Dosne to the completion of her errand,; away went Mademoiselle Aglaé with burning cheeks and incoherent

utterance, to perform her morning duties at the toilet of her unsuspecting lady; while Monsieur Jules, in temporary occupation of the field of battle, perceived that nothing but the turning of a key in a lock divided him from the object of this tug of war, this memorable sea-green cashmere, which, when whiffing past him in the corridor on the shoulders of the soubrette, had exhibited to his astonished eyes a certain small ink spot, miraculously familiar to his vision.

It happened that one day, when occupied in his professional duties in the chamber of Mademoiselle Isoline, he had hazarded a request to that scholarly young lady, that she would commit to paper on his behalf, a memorandum of divers cabriolets, bottles of blacking, errands, postages, and other items of no account, which in the sequel made a small account a large one, wherewith he had furnished her scapegrace neighbour of the attic story, Monsieur Ernest; and it was in the course of compiling the precious MS. that a drop of ink had, somehow or other, been transferred to Isoline's shawl, to efface which was, at the time, as much a matter of conscience to poor Jules, as Duncan's ghost-like spot of blood to that of Lady Macbeth. But the d. d. g. u. jeune première would not hear of sending her cashmere to the dégrasseur for the removal of the "damned spot," and Jules had daily grieved over its superficial extent, till the length and breadth thereof became noted in its mind's eye, as the aspect of even the smallest of the planets may be noted in that of Mrs. Somerville, or Mr. Lubbock. Another glimpse of Mademoiselle Aglaé's recent purchase would suffice to determine whether it had not travelled down three flights of stairs to its present destination; and whether the Russian Princess of rough diamonds were not, like many other princessess, altogether a fudge.

The temptation was a sore one. There could be no harm in turning a key to contemplate that which had been contemplated a minute before, and would probably have to contemplate a hundred times again. Yet still-a key!-a key is a domestic deposit confided to the delicacy of persons intrusted with free entrance into a chamber. From the beginning of civilization, locks and keys have been esteemed sacred. Locks and keys are not to be trifled with! In all times and countries, locks and keys, like thrones and dominions, have maintained a right divine to our respect.

His Majesty's private of the twenty-third of the line hesitated. Well might he hesitate, and would that this hesitation had lasted till this present writing! But Jules had now advanced a step-a first stepthe only "pas qui coute," in one of those back alleys described by Byron as

"The thousand paths that slope the way to crime."

He had been guilty of a dishonorable action, the sure precursor of a dishonest one. He had listened at a door; there only remained for him to invade a lock!

Not but that the twenty third of the line possessed, unfortunately a code of morality of its own, excusing both the greater and the less transaction. The twenty-third of the line indulged in a favorite theory, that tout est permis au profit des belles; or to translate for the benefit of the country gentlemen, that

"When a lady's in the case,

All other mortal things give place."