mmediately that it had but _one eye_!
Expressing no astonishment, but feeling a great deal, she cast her eyes
cautiously around the apartment.

Near the window hung a large tin cage, containing a blue African parrot,
with crimson-tipped shoulders and tail. At the foot of the sofa, a
silken-haired spaniel was quietly sleeping, whilst, outside the window,
a bright little canary was making the air melodious with its happy
warbling. A noise in an adjoining room aroused the dog, and set it
barking. As it lifted its glossy ears and turned its graceful head
toward Lucile, her surprise was enhanced in the greatest degree, by
perceiving that it, too, had lost an eye. Rising, she approached the
window, impelled by a curiosity that seemed irresistible. Peering into
the cage, she coaxed the lazy parrot to look at her, and her amazement
was boundless when she observed that the poor bird was marred in the
same mournful manner. Martha witnessed her astonishment, and indulged
in a low laugh, but said nothing. At this moment Pollexfen himself
entered the apartment, and with his appearance must terminate the second
phase of his history.

PHASE THE THIRD.

"Come and sit by me, Mademoiselle Marmont," said Pollexfen, advancing at
the same time to the sofa, and politely making way for the young lady,
who followed almost mechanically. "You must not believe me as bad as I
may seem at first sight, for we all have redeeming qualities, if the
world would do us the justice to seek for them as industriously as for
our faults."

"I am very well able to believe that," replied Lucile, "for my dear
father instructed me to act upon the maxim, that good predominates over
evil, even in this life; and I feel sure that I need fear no harm
beneath the roof of the only real benefactor----"

"Pshaw! we will not bandy compliments at our first sitting; they are the
prelude amongst men, to hypocrisy first, and wrong afterwards. May I so
far transgress the rules of common politeness as to ask your age? Not
from idle curiosity, I can assure you."

"At my next birthday," said Lucile, "I shall attain the age of seventeen
years."

"And when may that be?" pursued her interlocutor. "I had hoped you were
older, by a year."

"My birthday is the 18th of November, and really, sir, I am curious to
know why you feel any disappointment that I am not older."

"Oh! nothing of any great consequence; only this, that by the laws of
California, on reaching the age of e