hat nook Poverty lurked concealed.
A millionaire from the London Exchange, as he looked round on the
magasins, the equipages, the dresses of the women; as he inquired
the prices in the shops and the rent of apartments,--might have asked
himself, in envious wonder, How on earth do those gay Parisians live?
What is their fortune? Where does it come from?

As the day declined, many of the scattered loungers crowded into the
Boulevards; the cafes and restaurants began to light up.

About this time a young man, who might be some five or six and twenty,
was walking along the Boulevard des Italiens, heeding little the throng
through which he glided his solitary way: there was that in his aspect
and bearing which caught attention. He looked a somebody; but though
unmistakably a Frenchman, not a Parisian. His dress was not in the
prevailing mode: to a practised eye it betrayed the taste and the cut
of a provincial tailor. His gait was not that of the Parisian,--less
lounging, more stately; and, unlike the Parisian, he seemed indifferent
to the gaze of others.

Nevertheless there was about him that air of dignity or distinction
which those who are reared from their cradle in the pride of birth
acquire so unconsciously that it seems hereditary and inborn. It
must also be confessed that the young man himself was endowed with
a considerable share of that nobility which Nature capriciously
distributes among her favourites with little respect for their pedigree
and blazon, the nobility of form and face. He was tall and well shaped,
with graceful length of limb and fall of shoulders; his face was
handsome, of the purest type of French masculine beauty,--the nose
inclined to be aquiline, and delicately thin, with finely-cut open
nostrils; the complexion clear,--the eyes large, of a light hazel, with
dark lashes,--the hair of a chestnut brown, with no tint of auburn,--the
beard and mustache a shade darker, clipped short, not disguising the
outline of lips, which were now compressed, as if smiles had of late
been unfamiliar to them; yet such compression did not seem in harmony
with the physiognomical character of their formation, which was that
assigned by Lavater to temperaments easily moved to gayety and pleasure.

Another man, about his own age, coming quickly out of one of the streets
of the Chausee d'Antin, brushed close by the stately pedestrian
above described, caught sight of his countenance, stopped short, and
exclaimed, "Ala