e Boulevard de la Madeleine by a green
paddock, and was concealed in a nest of laurustinus and clematis.
Autumn, that generous season, which seems in its bounty to impart a
smell of ripeness to the very leaves, had already scattered dyes of gold
and vermilion over the verdure of this shrubbery. A night-breeze,
impregnated with vegetable perfumes, and wafting before it one of these
leaves, stole between the branches--over the fragrant mould--across a
grass-plot--through an open window of the cottage. The leaf tinkled. It
had fallen upon the pages of a volume from which a man was reading by a
lamp. At that moment the clock of the Capuchins tolled out a doleful
TWO; it was answered by the numerous bells of Paris. Solemn, querulous,
sepulchral, quavering, silvery, close at hand, or modulated into a dim
echo by the distance, the voice of the inexorable hours vibrated over
the capital, and then ceased.

Alas, for the heart of Cagliostro!

The solitary watcher shuddered as the metallic sounds floated in from
the belfries. Although startled by the dropping of the leaf, he closed
the volume, leisurely placing it between the pages as a marker--_it_, so
brittle! so yellow! so typical of decay and mortality! The book
comprised the writings of Sir Cornelius Agrippa. Having tossed the old
alchemist from him with an air of overwhelming dejection, the student
abandoned himself to the most sorrowful reflections.

He had but recently returned from a masked ball, and a domino of
salmon-coloured satin still hung loosely over his shoulders. As the
feeble light of the lamp glimmered upon the jet-bugles and
steel-spangles of his costume, there was visible the perpetual contrast
of his destiny,--a mingling of the most abstruse researches and the most
extravagant frivolities. Jewels sparkled upon his hands and bosom; the
varicose veins on his temples throbbed with a feverish precision; the
fumes of the wine-cup flushed his cheek and disordered his imagination.

"Death," thought the Rosicrucian, "fills me with abhorrence; and yet
life is totally devoid of happiness. Happiness! O delusive phantom of
humanity, how art thou attainable? Through Fame? Fame is mine, and I am
wretched. Over the realms of civilisation my name is noised abroad; in
the populous cities the glory of my art resounds; when my barge glided
among the palaces of Venice, the blue Adriatic was purpled with blossoms
in my honour.--Fame? Fame brings not happiness to Cagliostro. W