ssed the question that brought you here."

"I should hesitate, sir, to trespass further on your time."

"Never mind that. Your question concerns?"

"The costume of the Latini Juniani."

"Difficult to answer, like most questions of dress. Have you read the
work, in seventeen volumes, by the German, Friedchenhausen?"

"No."

"You must have read, at any rate, Smith, the Englishman, on ancient
costume?"

"Nor that either. I only know Italian."

"Well, then, look through two or three treatises on numismatics, the
'Thesaurus Morellianus', or the 'Praestantiora Numismata', of Valliant,
or Banduri, or Pembrock, or Pellerin. You may chance upon a scent."

"Thank you, thank you, sir!"

He saw me to the door.

As I turned to go I noticed that his daughter was standing motionless
still, with the face of an angry Diana. She held between her fingers the
recovered spiral.

I found myself in the street.

I could not have been more clumsy, more ill-bred, or more unfortunate. I
had come to make an apology and had given further offence. Just like
my luck! And the daughter, too--I had hurt her feelings. Still, she had
stood up for me; she had said to her father, "Not every one can be in
the Institute," evidently meaning, "Why are you torturing this poor
young man? He is bashful and ill at ease. I feel sorry for him."
Sorry--yes; no doubt she felt sorry for me at first. But then I came out
with that impertinence about the twenty-seven copies, and by this time
she hates me beyond a doubt. Yes, she hates me. It is too painful to
think of.

Mademoiselle Charnot will probably remain but a stranger to me, a
fugitive apparition in my path of life; yet her anger lies heavy upon
me, and the thought of those disdainful lips pursues me.

I had rarely been more thoroughly disgusted with myself, and with all
about me. I needed something to divert me, to distract me, to make me
forget, and so I set off for home by the longest way, going down the Rue
de Beaune to the Seine.

I declare, we get some perfect winter days in Paris! Just now, the folks
who sit indoors believe that the sun is down and have lighted their
lamps; but outside, the sky--a pale, rain-washed blue--is streaked with
broad rays of rose-pink. It is freezing, and the frost has sprinkled
diamonds everywhere, on the trees, the roofs, the parapets, even on the
cabmen's hats, that gather each a sparkling cockade as they pass along
through the mist. The river is running in