described, and again launched into that strain of extravagant adulation
which, on another occasion, we represented him as indulging in. Again he
compared Mary, in his incoherent ravings, to everything that is
beautiful in earth, sea, and sky; but comparing her to these only that
he might assert how far she surpassed them. There were mingled, too,
with his eulogiums, on this occasion, expressions of that imprudent
passion which subsequently at once urged him to commit the most daring
offences, and blinded him to their consequences. Poor Chatelard's
ravings, in the instance of which we are just speaking, were
unconsciously uttered; but they were unfortunately loud enough to arrest
the attention of the domestics, who were passing to and fro in the lobby
into which the door of his apartment opened. These, attracted by his
rapturous exclamations, listened, from time to time, at his door, and
were highly amused with the rhapsodies of the imprudent poet. The
latter, becoming more and more vehement, and, in proportion, more
entertaining, the domestics finally gathered in a cluster around the
door, to the number of six or eight, and, with suppressed laughter,
overheard all that the excited and unguarded inmate chose to utter.
That, however, was so incoherent, or at least of so high-flown a
character, that the listeners could make nothing of it; and, as they
could not, they immediately concluded it to be nonsense, and the speaker
a madman. But there came one to the spot, at this unfortunate moment,
who, with sharper intellect and more apt comprehension, at once
discovered the meaning that lurked under the florid language of the
poet's ill-timed soliloquies.

While the servants were crowded around the door of Chatelard's
apartment, too intent on their amusement to notice the approach of any
one, another party, we say, had advanced to within a few paces of where
they stood. Here, with his arms folded across his breast, he had
remained observed for several seconds, gazing with a look of surprise
and displeasure on the merry group assembled around the poet's door. He
was, however, at length discovered, when the knot of listeners instantly
broke up in the greatest hurry and alarm.

"How now," exclaimed the unexpected intruder--a person of about thirty
years of age, of rather slender form, of cold and haughty demeanour, and
austere countenance--"How now?" he exclaimed, in a voice whose tones
were naturally severe--"what means this id