nd his visits to her house might be
interdicted.

Still Isaura was unmarried, still she had refused offers of marriage
from men higher placed than himself,--still he divined no one whom she
could prefer. And as he now leaned back in his coupe he muttered to
himself, "Oh, if I could but get rid of that little demon Julie, I
would devote myself so completely to winning Isaura's heart that I
must succeed!--but how to get rid of Julie? She so adores me, and is
so headstrong! She is capable of going to Isaura--showing my
letters--making such a scene!"

Here he checked the carriage at a cafe on the Boulevard--descended,
imbibed two glasses of absinthe,--and then feeling much emboldened,
remounted his coupe and directed the driver to Isaura's apartment.

CHAPTER III.

Yes, celebrities are of rapid growth in the salons of Paris. Far more
solid than that of Rameau, far more brilliant than that of De Mauleon,
was the celebrity which Isaura had now acquired. She had been unable to
retain the pretty suburban villa at A------. The owner wanted to alter
and enlarge it for his own residence, and she had been persuaded by
Signora Venosta, who was always sighing for fresh salons to conquer,
to remove (towards the close of the previous year) to apartments in
the centre of the Parisian beau monde. Without formally professing to
receive, on one evening in the week her salon was open to those who had
eagerly sought her acquaintance--comprising many stars in the world of
fashion, as well as those in the world of art and letters. And as she
had now wholly abandoned the idea of the profession for which her voice
had been cultivated, she no longer shrank from the exercise of her
surpassing gift of song for the delight of private friends. Her
physician had withdrawn the interdict on such exercise. His skill,
aided by the rich vitality of her constitution, had triumphed over all
tendencies to the malady for which he had been consulted. To hear Isaura
Cicogna sing in her own house was a privilege sought and prized by many
who never read a word of her literary compositions. A good critic of
a book is rare; but good judges of a voice are numberless. Adding
this attraction of song to her youth, her beauty, her frank powers of
converse--an innocent sweetness of manner free from all conventional
affectation--and to the fresh novelty of a genius which inspired the
young with enthusiast and beguiled the old to indulgence, it was no
wonder that