re deeply-seated feeling, darkened his pale
forehead, while he paused some moments as if to collect his firmness for
a trying effort. He then began, in tones which, although tremulous at
first, became deep and impressive as he proceeded; while the Professor
and his friends, little prepared to expect any continuous recital from
one who rarely uttered a connected sentence, listened with strong and
rising interest to the following narrative.

* * * * *

It is about five-and-thirty years since a murderer was condemned to
suffer death by the sword, at a town in western Normandy; and, on the
morning of the execution, two senior pupils of the Jesuit-seminary went,
by permission of their superiors, to view a spectacle of rare occurrence
in that province. The cordial intimacy subsisting between these youths
had long been a problem, both to their teachers and schoolfellows. So
widely different, indeed, were they in appearance and character, and so
harshly did the ferocity and cunning of the one contrast with the pure
and gentle habits of the other, that they were called the "Wolf and the
Lamb."

The older of them, named Bartholdy, was a native of Strasburg, tall and
robust in person, but high-shouldered, stooping, and in dress and gait
slovenly and clownish. His yellow visage was deeply furrowed with the
small-pox, and his remarkably large and staring eyes, which were of a
pale and milky blue, indicated a dulness bordering on imbecility. This
appearance, however, was belied by his habitual cunning, and by the
dexterity with which he often contrived to exculpate himself under
criminatory circumstances. His spreading jawbones, large mouth, and
coarsely-moulded lips, truly betokened his proneness to sensual
gratifications; and the collective expression of his forbidding features
was so remarkable, that a single glance sufficed to fix it in the memory
for ever. It was rumoured in the seminary, that this youth had been sent
by his friends to a school so remote from Strasburg in consequence of
some highly culpable irregularities; and certainly these rumours were
justified by occasional instances of wolfish ferocity and deliberate
duplicity, for which he was severely but vainly punished.

Florian, the friend of Bartholdy, although nearly of the same age, was
shorter by the head. His figure was slender and elegant--his countenance
eminently prepossessing and ingenuous. His complexion was of that pure
re