suppose, my dear little papa, that our _Review_ is ever read
abroad?"

"It is but just started--"

"Well, I will wager that it is."

"It is hardly possible."

"Just go and find out, and note the names of any subscribers out of
France."

Two hours later Monsieur de Watteville said to his daughter:

"I was right; there is not one foreign subscriber as yet. They hope to
get some at Neufchatel, at Berne, and at Geneva. One copy, is in fact,
sent to Italy, but it is not paid for--to a Milanese lady at her country
house at Belgirate, on Lago Maggiore.

"What is her name?"

"The Duchesse d'Argaiolo."

"Do you know her, papa?"

"I have heard about her. She was by birth a Princess Soderini, a
Florentine, a very great lady, and quite as rich as her husband, who
has one of the largest fortunes in Lombardy. Their villa on the Lago
Maggiore is one of the sights of Italy."

Two days after, Mariette placed the following letter in Mademoiselle de
Watteville's hand:--

Albert Savaron to Leopold Hannequin.

"Yes, 'tis so, my dear friend; I am at Besancon, while you thought
I was traveling. I would not tell you anything till success should
begin, and now it is dawning. Yes, my dear Leopold, after so many
abortive undertakings, over which I have shed the best of my
blood, have wasted so many efforts, spent so much courage, I have
made up my mind to do as you have done--to start on a beaten path,
on the highroad, as the longest but the safest. I can see you jump
with surprise in your lawyer's chair!

"But do not suppose that anything is changed in my personal life,
of which you alone in the world know the secret, and that under
the reservations _she_ insists on. I did not tell you, my friend;
but I was horribly weary of Paris. The outcome of the first
enterprise, on which I had founded all my hopes, and which came to
a bad end in consequence of the utter rascality of my two
partners, who combined to cheat and fleece me--me, though
everything was done by my energy--made me give up the pursuit of a
fortune after the loss of three years of my life. One of these
years was spent in the law courts, and perhaps I should have come
worse out of the scrape if I had not been made to study law when I
was twenty.

"I made up my mind to go into politics solely, to the end that I
may some day find my name on a list for promotion to the Senate
under the title of Comte Albert Savaron de