n his visit to the
millionaire for the sober raiment and bourgeois air of M. Lebeau, the
letter-writer.

Then after locking up his former costume in a drawer of his secretaire,
he sat himself down and wrote the following lines:--

DEAR MONSIEUR GEORGES,--I advise you strongly, from information that
has just reached me, to lose no time in pressing M. Savarin to repay
the sum I recommended you to lend him, and for which you hold his
bill due this day. The scandal of legal measures against a writer
so distinguished should be avoided if possible. He will avoid it
and get the money somehow; but he must be urgently pressed. If you
neglect this warning, my responsibility is past. Agreez mes
sentimens les plus sinceres.
J. L.

CHAPTER II.

The Marquis de Rochebriant is no longer domiciled in an attic in the
gloomy Faubourg. See him now in a charming appartement de garcon an
premier in the Rue du Helder, close by the promenades and haunts of
the mode. It had been furnished and inhabited by a brilliant young
provincial from Bordeaux, who, coming into an inheritance of one hundred
thousand francs, had rushed up to Paris to enjoy himself, and make his
million at the Bourse. He had enjoyed himself thoroughly,--he had been
a darling of the demi monde; he had been a successful and an inconstant
gallant. Zelie had listened to his vows of eternal love, and his offers
of unlimited cachemires; Desiree, succeeding Zelie, had assigned to him
her whole heart--or all that was left of it--in gratitude for the
ardour of his passion, and the diamonds and coupe which accompanied and
attested the ardour; the superb Hortense, supplanting Desiree,
received his visits in the charming apartment he furnished for her, and
entertained him and his friends at the most delicate little suppers, for
the moderate sum of four thousand francs a month. Yes, he had enjoyed
himself thoroughly, but he had not made a million at the Bourse. Before
the year was out, the one hundred thousand francs were gone. Compelled
to return to his province, and by his hard-hearted relations ordained,
on penalty of starvation, to marry the daughter of an avoue, for
the sake of her dot and a share in the hated drudgery of the avoue's
business,--his apartment was to be had for a tenth part of the original
cost of its furniture. A certain Chevalier de Finisterre, to whom
Louvier had introduced the Marquis as a useful fellow who