ces, she longed for some
one of ability in order to be his guide. Nothing was impossible now. He
felt himself capable of riding two hundred leagues on horseback, of
travelling for several nights in succession without fatigue. His heart
overflowed with pride.

Just in front of him, on the footpath, a man wrapped in a seedy overcoat
was walking, with downcast eyes, and with such an air of dejection that
Frederick, as he passed, turned aside to have a better look at him. The
other raised his head. It was Deslauriers. He hesitated. Frederick fell
upon his neck.

"Ah! my poor old friend! What! 'tis you!"

And he dragged Deslauriers into his house, at the same time asking his
friend a heap of questions.

Ledru-Rollin's ex-commissioner commenced by describing the tortures to
which he had been subjected. As he preached fraternity to the
Conservatives, and respect for the laws to the Socialists, the former
tried to shoot him, and the latter brought cords to hang him with. After
June he had been brutally dismissed. He found himself involved in a
charge of conspiracy--that which was connected with the seizure of arms
at Troyes. He had subsequently been released for want of evidence to
sustain the charge. Then the acting committee had sent him to London,
where his ears had been boxed in the very middle of a banquet at which
he and his colleagues were being entertained. On his return to Paris----

"Why did you not call here, then, to see me?"

"You were always out! Your porter had mysterious airs--I did not know
what to think; and, in the next place, I had no desire to reappear
before you in the character of a defeated man."

He had knocked at the portals of Democracy, offering to serve it with
his pen, with his tongue, with all his energies. He had been everywhere
repelled. They had mistrusted him; and he had sold his watch, his
bookcase, and even his linen.

"It would be much better to be breaking one's back on the pontoons of
Belle Isle with Senecal!"

Frederick, who had been fastening his cravat, did not appear to be much
affected by this news.

"Ha! so he is transported, this good Senecal?"

Deslauriers replied, while he surveyed the walls with an envious air:

"Not everybody has your luck!"

"Excuse me," said Frederick, without noticing the allusion to his own
circumstances, "but I am dining in the city. We must get you something
to eat; order whatever you like. Take even my bed!"

This cordial reception diss