d, after vaguely lingering a while, with another
shower of incomprehensible compliments and apologies, tripped like a
fairy from the chamber. Directly she was gone Israel pondered upon a
singular glance of the girl. It seemed to him that he had, by his
reception, in some way, unaccountably disappointed his beautiful
visitor. It struck him very strangely that she had entered all sweetness
and friendliness, but had retired as if slighted, with a sort of
disdainful and sarcastic levity, all the more stinging from its apparent
politeness.

Not long had she disappeared, when a noise in the passage apprised him
that, in her hurried retreat, the girl must have stumbled against
something. The next moment he heard a chair scraping in the adjacent
apartment, and there was another knock at the door.

It was the man of wisdom this time.

"My honest friend, did you not have a visitor, just now?"

"Yes, Doctor, a very pretty girl called upon me."

"Well, I just stopped in to tell you of another strange custom of Paris.
That girl is the chambermaid, but she does not confine herself
altogether to one vocation. You must beware of the chambermaids of
Paris, my honest friend. Shall I tell the girl, from you, that,
unwilling to give her the fatigue of going up and down so many flights
of stairs, you will for the future waive her visits of ceremony?"

"Why, Doctor Franklin, she is a very sweet little girl."

"I know it, my honest friend; the sweeter the more dangerous. Arsenic is
sweeter than sugar. I know you are a very sensible young man, not to be
taken in by an artful Ammonite, and so I think I had better convey your
message to the girl forthwith."

So saying, the sage withdrew, leaving Israel once more gloomily seated
before the rifled mantel, whose mirror was not again to reflect the form
of the charming chambermaid.

"Every time he comes in he robs me," soliloquised Israel, dolefully;
"with an air all the time, too, as if he were making me presents. If he
thinks me such a very sensible young man, why not let me take care of
myself?"

It was growing dusk, and Israel, lighting the wax candle, proceeded to
read in his Guide-book.

"This is poor sight-seeing," muttered he at last, "sitting here all by
myself, with no company but an empty tumbler, reading about the fine
things in Paris, and I myself a prisoner in Paris. I wish something
extraordinary would turn up now; for instance, a man come in and give me
ten thousand pou