tion of personal property,"
arising from circumstances which will appear further on.

The "Baroness" was then, as she still is, a handsome woman. She was then
somewhat on the youthful side of thirty. Highly attractive and
fascinating, her every movement and gesture bespoke a vigorous physical
organization and perfect health. While the curves of her fine form
partook more of Juno's majestic frame than Hebe's pliant youth--while
the full sweep and outline of her figure denoted maturity and
completeness in every part, the charming face, the large, gazelle eyes,
the voluptuous ease of her attitude, the gentle languor of her whole
bearing, constituted a woman which few susceptible young or even mature
men could have looked on without misgivings that they might but too soon
learn to long for the glances, the smiles, the witcheries which had made
Helene Cecille Stille, in many respects, a counterpart of Helen of
Troy.

We were not acquainted with the lady's antecedents nor with her
remarkable history; but she told a plausible story, and was very fluent
and indignant, as may be gathered from the following extract from the
affidavit which was drawn under her instructions at the time:

Superior Court of the City of New York: Helene Stille, plaintiff,
against the Baron Henri de Reviere, defendant. City and County of New
York, ss.--Helene Stille, of said city being duly sworn, says that she
is the above-named plaintiff, and that she has a good cause of action
against said defendant for wrongful conversion and unlawful detention of
personal property, arising on the following facts, namely:

In the summer of 1865, in the French empire, the above-named defendant,
giving himself out to be a French nobleman of princely fortune, and then
representing himself to deponent as an unmarried man, but being in
truth, as deponent has since discovered, then a married man and a common
plebeian, swindler and common _chevalier d' industrie;_ by divers arts,
devices, false pretences and allurements, gained this plaintiff's
affections and confidence, and did, by false, wicked and fraudulent
devices, debauch this plaintiff and induce her to live with him as his
wife; and having thus basely obtained ascendancy over her and won her
confidence, did, by trick and device, induce this plaintiff to deposit
with him for safe keeping on the tenth day of September, at the city of
Paris, in France, the sum of twenty-seven thousand five hundred francs
in gold