y jump.

"Monsieur Jansoulet's carriage!"

Everybody turned to look, but we know that that disturbed him but
little. And while the honest Nabob posed for a moment, awaiting his
people, amid those fashionable women, those famous men, that assorted
gathering of all Paris which was present there with a name to fit each
of its figures, a slender, neatly-gloved hand was held out to him, and
the Duc de Mora, who was about to enter his coupe, said to him as he
passed, with the effusiveness that happiness gives to the most reserved
of men:

"My congratulations, my dear deputy."

It was said aloud, and every one could hear,--"My dear deputy."

* * * * *

There is in the life of every man a golden hour, a luminous mountain-top
where all that he can hope for of prosperity, of joy, of triumph, awaits
him and is showered upon him. The mountain is more or less high, more or
less precipitous and difficult to climb; but it exists equally for all,
for the most powerful and the humblest. But, like the longest day of the
year, when the sun has reached the end of his upward journey and the
next day seems a first step toward winter, that _summum bonum_ of human
existence is but a moment to be enjoyed, after which we have no choice
but to descend. Poor man! you must remember that late afternoon in May,
that time of alternating rain and sunshine, you must fix its changing
splendor forever in your memory. It was the hour of your midsummer, when
the flowers were blooming, the branches bending beneath their weight of
golden fruit, and the crops whose gleanings you so recklessly threw
aside, were fully ripe. The star will fade now, gradually receding and
descending, and soon will be incapable of piercing the woeful darkness
wherein your destiny is about to be fulfilled.

XV.

MEMOIRS OF A CLERK.--IN THE RECEPTION-ROOM.

There was a grand affair last Saturday on Place Vendome.

Monsieur Bernard Jansoulet, the new Deputy for Corsica, gave a
magnificent evening party in honor of his election, with municipal
guards at the door, the whole house illuminated and two thousand
invitations strewn broadcast through fashionable Paris.

I was indebted to the distinction of my manners, to the resonance of my
voice, which the president of the administrative council has had a
chance to appreciate at the meetings of the _Caisse Territoriale_, for
the privilege of taking part in that sumptuous festivity, where I