n I left the Isle de Bourbon, La Favorita was announced; it
planted roses in the cheeks of the jaundiced inhabitants, and Madras,
possessed by the spleen, was exorcised by William Tell.

"Whenever a tropical city is conscious of approaching decline, she
always stretches her hands beseechingly to Paris, who responds with
music, books, newspapers; and her patient springs into new life.

"Paris does not seem to be aware of her influences. She detracts from
herself; says she is not the Paris of yesterday, the Paris of the great
century; that her influence is gone, she is in the condition of the
Lower Empire.

"She builds eighty leagues of fortifications to sustain the siege of
Mahomet II. She weeps over her downfall and accuses Heaven of denying
to her children of '44 the genius and talents that characterized the
statesmen and poets of her past.

"But happily the universe does not coincide with Paris; go ask it;
having just come from there, I know it."

Indulging my traveller's extravagancies laughingly, to the amusement of
my fair companion, she said:

"Truly your philosophy is of the happy school, and the burden of life
must be very light when it is so lightly borne."

"You must know, my dear Roger," said the Duchess, feigning
commiseration, "that my young cousin, Mlle. de Chateaudun, is pitiably
unhappy, and you and I can weep over her lot in chorus with orchestral
accompaniment; poor child! she is the richest heiress in Paris."

"How wide you are from the mark!" said Irene, with a charming look of
annoyance in the brightest eye that ever dazzled the sober senses of
man; "it is not an axiom that wealth is happiness. The poor spread such
a report, but the rich know it to be false."

Here the curtain arose, and my return to my box explained my character
as the casual visitor and not the lover. And what intentions could I
have had at that moment? I cannot say.

I was attracted by the loveliness of Mlle. Chateaudun; chance gave the
opportunity for studying her charms, the fair unknown improved on
acquaintance. Hers was the exquisite grace of face and feature and
winningness of manner which attracts, retains and is never to be
forgotten.

From the superb tranquillity of her attitude, the intelligence of her
eyes, it was easy to infer that a wider field would bring into action
the hidden treasures of a gifted nature. Over the dazzling halo that
surrounded the fair one, which left me the alternative of admiring
si