s true,--

'On revient toujours.'"

"'A ses premieres amours,'"

said she, finishing; while with a smile, half playful, half sad, she
turned toward the window, and I retired noiselessly, and without an
adieu.

Heigho! how nervous and irritable I feel! The very sight of that
handsome barouche that has driven from the hotel, with its beautiful
occupant lying listlessly back among the cushions, has set my heart
a-beating far far too hurriedly. How is it that the laws that govern
material nature are so inoperative in ours, and that a heart that never
felt can make another feel? Heaven knows! It is not love; even my first
passion, perhaps, little merited the name: but now, reading her as
worldliness as taught roe to do-seeing how little relation exists
between attractions and fascinations of the very highest order and any
real sentiment, any true feeling--knowing how "Life" is her idol, how in
that one idea is comprised all that vanity, self-love, false pride, and
passion can form,--how is it that she, whom I recognise thus, that _she_
can move me? There is nothing so like a battle as a sham fight in a
review.

CHAPTER II.

I must leave Paris at once. The weather is intolerably hot; the leaves
that were green ten days ago already are shewing symptoms of the sear
and yellow. Is it in compliment to the august inhabitant of the
palace that the garden is so _empresse_ to turn its coat? Shame on my
ingratitude to say so! for I find that his Majesty has sent me a card
of invitation to dine on Friday next. Another reason for a hurried
departure! Of all moderate endurances, I know of none to compare with a
dinner at the Tuileries. "Stay!--halt!" cries Memory; "I'll tell you of
one worse again--a dinner at Neuilly!"

The former is sure to include a certain number of distinguished and
remarkable men, who, even under the chill and restraint of a royal
entertainment, venture now and then on some few words that supply the
void where conversation should be. At Neuilly it is strictly a family
party, where, whatever ease may be felt by the illustrious hosts, the
guests have none of it. Juvenal quaintly asks, If that can be a battle
where you strike and I am beaten? so one is tempted to inquire, If that
can be called society where a royal personage talks rapidly for hours,
and the listener must not even look dissent? The King of the French is
unquestionably a great man, but not greater in any thing than in the
compl