pect of ever obtaining all these luxuries.

Marguerite had just left the window when a heavy step was heard on
the stair, and loud knock at the door roused Dumiger from his fit
of abstraction, nearly making him jump from his chair. The impulsive
"Come in!" which he uttered, was immediately succeeded by the
appearance of the Count.

Dumiger, like most men of deep thought and habits of abstraction, was
diffident. He stood for some moments thunderstruck without performing
any of the usual courtesies of society. Marguerite in her surprise
imagined that she must have been guilty of some great negligence while
residing in the palace, with which the Count now came to reproach her.

The silence was broken by the Count himself, who nodded kindly, almost
familiarly to Marguerite, and without any further ceremony took the
chair from which Dumiger had just risen.

"I called to see whether you were comfortable, Marguerite, in your new
abode. It is small," continued the Count, as lolling back in his chair
he touched the wall with the back of his head: "I suppose, however,
that you will some day be able to afford a larger. I do not wish to
trespass upon your confidence, but as I have the liveliest gratitude
for the admirable manner in which you, Marguerite, discharged all your
duties while you were with me, you must let me evince my recollection
of them by a small wedding present." And the Count laid a rouleau of
gold pieces on the table.

"Oh, sir!" exclaimed Dumiger, seizing the Count's hand with effusion,
"you are so kind but I can assure you that we are quite happy here.
When one is truly attached to another, the little sacrifices of life
become a pleasure," and Dumiger's eyes so filled with tears, that he
did not perceive the quiet, cold sneer on the Count's upper lip; but
Marguerite remarked it. Moreover, she knew the Count well--his vast
ambition, his supercilious pride; she had caught the inflection of
his tone when he spoke to Dumiger, and she knew that when he affected
that winning, cajoling manner, he was always the most dangerous, and
most to be suspected. So her only answer or acknowledgment was a
low courtesy, and the blood mantled in her cheek, but whether from
gratitude or some sterner feeling the Count was unable to divine.

He looked at her for some time under his long gray eyelash; Marguerite
met the look calmly and composedly. Dumiger was bustling about quite
in an ecstacy of delight, and for the time entirel