nd guests.

In one of the most private and luxurious of these apartments abode, for
some years, a pale and shadowy being, refusing all intercourse with
society, and vowed to gloom and hypochondria. It was her strange and
mournful mania to look upon all human creatures with suspicion, nay,
with loathing.

The fairest linen, the whitest raiment, the most exquisite repast,
whether prepared by human hands, or furnished by divine Providence
itself, in the shape of tempting fruits, if touched by another, became
at once revolting and unpalatable. Thus, with servants to relieve her of
all cares, and Mrs. Austin as her devoted attendant, she preferred, by
the aid of her own small culinary contrivance, to prepare her fastidious
meals, to spread her own snowy couch, so often a bed of thorns to her,
to put on her own attire, regularly fumigated and purified by some
process she affected, as it came from the laundry and touched only with
gloved hands by herself, as were the books into which she occasionally
glanced for solace.

Most of her time was spent in gazing from her window, that overlooked
the bay, and dreaming of the return of one who had long since
heartlessly deserted her, leaving her dependent on those she had
injured, and from whom she bitterly and even derisively received
shelter, tender ministry, and all possible manifestations of compassion
and interest.

Her mind had been partially overthrown at the time of her husband's
desertion and her dead baby's birth--events that occurred almost
conjointly; and it was the wreck of Evelyn Erie we cherished until her
slow consumption, long delayed by the balmy air of California,
culminated mercifully to herself and all around her, and removed her
from this sphere of suffering.

Whither? Alas! the impotence of that question! Are there not beings who
seem, indeed, to lack the great essential for salvation--a soul to be
saved? How far are such responsible?

Claude Bainrothe is married again, and not to Ada Greene, who, outcast
and poor, came some years since as an adventuress to California, and
signalized herself later, in the _demi-monde,_ as a leader of great
audacity, beauty, and reckless extravagance. The lady of his choice (or
heart?) was a fat baroness, about twenty years his senior, who lets
apartments, and maintains the externes of her rank in a saloon fifteen
feet square, furnished with red velveteen, and accessible by means of an
antechamber paved with tiles!

He