ance being
several huge bookcases and a number of large boxes evidently containing
books, together with a host of traveling trunks filled, as was to be
presumed, with the wardrobe of the family. The servants took possession
during the day and were duly noted, but how or when the proprietor came
could not be ascertained, while after his installation glimpses of him
were exceedingly rare.

Occasionally, however, a beautiful girl, with an oriental look
notwithstanding her tasteful and elegant Parisian attire, would be seen
for a moment at the windows, but she invariably vanished on realizing
that she was observed. Sometimes, a handsome young man stood at her
side, but he also seemed anxious to avoid the scrutiny of the curious,
although he evinced less timidity than his companion, always withdrawing
slowly and with great deliberation.

It was after midnight. On the second floor of the pavilion once
inhabited by the Viscount Albert de Morcerf was now a spacious library.
The walls were lined with tall book-shelves, mounting to the lofty
ceiling, and groaning under ponderous piles of volumes, from the huge
black letter folio of the Middle Ages to the lightest duodecimo of the
day; while in all parts of the chamber, on the floor, tables and chairs,
and in the deep embrasures of the windows, were scattered huge masses of
papers, pamphlets, manuscripts and charts. Over the bookcases stood
marble busts of Danton, Mirabeau, Napoleon, Armand Carrel, the Duc de
St. Simon and other great men whose names are identified with France;
between the windows looking out on the garden, shrouded in shrubs and
creeping plants, hung a full-length and magnificent picture of Fourier.
Near the centre of the apartment stood a vast table covered with books,
papers, manuscripts and writing materials, beside which stood one of
those sombre and massive arm-chairs, on the possession of which the
former proprietor had so felicitated himself, bearing on a carved shield
the fleur-de-lis of the Louvre, and in whose sumptuous and antique
embrace had, perhaps, reposed a Richelieu, a Mazarin or a Sully. The
windows were hung with heavy tapestry of ancient pattern and rich dye,
and also the walls, save where covered with books. A soft and summery
atmosphere, the warmth of which emanated from concealed furnaces,
neutralized the chill of an autumnal night, and the mellow chiaro-oscuro
of a vast astral diffused its lunar effulgence on all around.

Within this ch