himself ten minutes before,
would have torn him to pieces, now applauded the epigram; and with
execrations on Trochu, mingled with many a peal of painful sarcastic
laughter, vociferated and dispersed.

As the two friends sauntered back towards the part of the Boulevards on
which De Breze had parted company with them, Savarin quitted Lemercier
suddenly, and crossed the street to accost a small party of two ladies
and two men who were on their way to the Madeleine. While he was
exchanging a few words with them, a young couple, arm in arm, passed
by Lemercier,--the man in the uniform of the National Guard-uniform as
unsullied as Frederic's, but with as little of a military air as can
well be conceived. His gait was slouching; his head bent downwards. He
did not seem to listen to his companion, who was talking with quickness
and vivacity, her fair face radiant with smiles. Lemercier looked at
them as they passed by. "Sur mon ame," muttered Frederic to himself,
"surely that is la belle Julie; and she has got back her truant poet at
last."

While Lemercier thus soliloquised, Gustave, still looking down, was
led across the street by his fair companion, and into the midst of
the little group with whom Savarin had paused to speak. Accidentally
brushing against Savarin himself, he raised his eyes with a start, about
to mutter some conventional apology, when Julie felt the arm on which
she leant tremble nervously. Before him stood Isaura, the Countess
de Vandemar by her side; her two other companions, Raoul and the Abbe
Vertpre, a step or two behind.

Gustave uncovered, bowed low, and stood mute and still for a moment,
paralysed by surprise and the chill of a painful shame.

Julie's watchful eyes, following his, fixed themselves on the same face.
On the instant she divined the truth. She beheld her to whom she had
owed months of jealous agony, and over whom, poor child, she thought she
had achieved a triumph. But the girl's heart was so instinctively good
that the sense of triumph was merged in a sense of compassion. Her rival
had lost Gustave. To Julie the loss of Gustave was the loss of all that
makes life worth having. On her part, Isaura was moved not only by
the beauty of Julie's countenance, but still more by the childlike
ingenuousness of its expression.

So, for the first time in their lives, met the child and the stepchild
of Louise Duval. Each so deserted, each so left alone and inexperienced
amid the perils of th