Julian was silent.

"Answer me, sir," cried his master.

Julian folded his arms, and still made no reply.

"Am I to be answered?" coolly demanded Monsieur le Croix. "I see the future traitor in you, Julian," continued he; "this insubordination is only mischief in the bud. 'T will come to more and to worse."

"I command you to answer me!" impatiently exclaimed the former. "What would you have done, had the Count struck you?"

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"Struck him again!" indignantly vociferated Julian, though my hand had been cut off the very next

"So the Count thought," said Monsieur le Croix, resuming his coolness.

"I saw it," said Julian.

"How?" inquired his master.

"He changed colour," said Julian, "and he changed his mind too; for he applied his whip to the shoulders of his valet instead of mine, and walked into the chateau."

"And you think the Count was afraid of you?" said Monsieur le Croix. "The Count afraid of you! Do you know the power of the Count?"

"I do," replied Julian; "and the character of the Count.

He is not fit to be admitted into an honest man's family."

"How!"

"He is the most dissolute young nobleman in Paris." "Dare you say so?"

"He is a libertine, sir! I can prove it !-what, then, should prevent me from saying it?"

66

Respect to me," said Monsieur le Croix. "Julian, you quit my service," added he.

"Very well."

"You quit it to night!"

"Very well."

"This hour!"

"This minute!" exclaimed Julian, walking coolly to the other side of the apartment, and taking his hat from a peg on which it had been hung. "Good bye, sir," said he-but he stopped as he was going out of the door, and turning, stood and fixed his eyes full upon Monsieur le Croix : "I have been a faithful servant to you, sir," resumed Julian.

Monsieur le Croix made no reply.

"I always respected you."

Still Monsieur le Croix was silent.

"I always loved you."

Not a word from Monsieur le Croix.

"I always shall love you," cried Julian, and turned

to go.

"Stay," said his master, "you have lived with me eight years. You have been a faithful servant to me-

up to this moment. But you are a dangerous subject.

You have begun to think for yourself-to question the rights of your betters-to make light of the distance which stands between them and you. Because a nobleman happens to lose his temper, you put yourself upon an equal footing with him-you give him word for word, and would give him blow for blow-and in your master's house!" Monsieur le Croix took a purse from his pocket: "I settled with you this morning," continued he, "and thought we had commenced another year; that's out of the question now. there are eight louis d'ors in this purse, take them for your fidelity. Better to reward it now, and stop; than go on, and have reason to reproach it." Julian mechanically took the purse, but still kept extended the hand which he had reached to receive it, looking his master all the while in the face.

Here, Julian,

"You think, if I continued to serve you," said Julian, "that I might prove unfaithful to you?"

"Your principles are undermined in other matters," remarked Monsieur le Croix.

"And you think they could be undermined with respect to you."

"When a part of a foundation gives way," observed Monsieur le Croix, "there is danger of the whole." "And your confidence in my fidelity is shaken ?" "It is," said Monsieur le Croix.

Julian, whose colour had been gradually mounting as he spoke, stood silent for half a minute, without once

withdrawing his eyes from his master's face. length he broke silence: "It is?" echoed he.

"It is," calmly repeated Monsieur le Croix.

At

"Then perish your gold!" exclaimed Julian, dashing the purse on the ground, and rushing from the apart

ment.

Monsieur le Croix was an advocate for the old regime. He believed that, like the sun, it fitted the world now, as well as in the beginning,-never taking into consideration the difference between the Creator of the one, and the framer of the other. He was at the same time a disinterested, conscientious, and most honorable minded man. He was handsome, too, and of a graceful, commanding figure, though now in his fiftieth year. He was married,-and, strange to say, the object of a still ardent and devoted attachment to a wife who was nearly twenty years younger than himself. Women are capable of such love. He had entered his fortieth year when his Adelaide had completed her twentieth one. From particular causes they were frequently thrown into one another's society, and the more intimate they became, the more coldly did Adelaide look upon many a youthful admirer, who was a suitor for her hand. This was attributed to absorption in the prosecution of various studies, to which Monsieur le Croix had directed her attention, until the increasing pensiveness of the fair one too plainly indicated an occupation of the heart, far more active and

intense than any of the mind could be.

Monsieur le Croix was interested. He soon detected, within him, symptoms of the first genuine passion he had ever felt, but not before he was too much fascinated to struggle successfully with wishes, which from excessive disparity of years, he at once concluded must be hopeless. Little did he dream of his good fortune: it came upon him like the arrival of a rich inheritance to one who had lived in penury, and always thought to die so. He entered his Adelaide's boudoir one day when she was so deeply absorbed that she did not perceive him. She was seated at a table with her back towards him, and she held in her hand something which she alternately gazed upon and pressed to her lips. Unconscious of the act of treachery which he was committing, he advanced on tip-toe a step or two-'T was a miniature !-a step or two nearer,-'T was his own!-He could not suppress his emotions; he clasped his hands in an ecstasy of transport. She started up; and turning, shrieked at beholding him. He extended his arms, and she threw herself into them.-In a month she became Madame le Croix. A son, their only issue, blessed their union. He was now nearly nine years old-a promising boy, whose sole instructors were, hitherto, his father and mother. As by preference, as well as full contentment in each other's society, they always resided in the country, receiving occasionally the visits of their Paris friends, among whom was reckoned Monsieur le Comte de St. Ange.