arriage,--h'm--well, I dare say, from authors and artists.
You know Paris better even than I do, but I don't suppose authors and
artists there make the most desirable husbands; and I scarcely know a
marriage in France between a man-author and lady-author which does not
end in the deadliest of all animosities--that of wounded amour propre.
Perhaps the man admires his own genius too much to do proper homage to
his wife's."

"But the choice of Mademoiselle Cicogna need not be restricted to
the pale of authorship--doubtless she has many admirers beyond that
quarrelsome borderland."

"Certainly-countless adorers. Enguerrand de Vandemar--you know that
diamond of dandies?"

"Perfectly--is he an admirer?"

"Cela va sans dire--he told me that though she was not the handsomest
woman in Paris, all other women looked less handsome since he had seen
her. But, of course, French lady-killers like Enguerrand, when it comes
to marriage, leave it to their parents to choose their wives and arrange
the terms of the contract. Talking of lady-killers, I beheld amid the
throng at Mademoiselle Cicogna's the ci-devant Lovelace whom I remember
some twenty-three years ago as the darling of wives and the terror of
husbands-Victor de Mauleon."

"Victor de Mauleon at Mademoiselle Cicogna's!--what, is that man
restored to society?"

"Ah! you are thinking of the ugly old story about the jewels--oh,
yes, he has got over that; all his grand relations, the Vandemars,
Beauvilliers, Rochebriant, and others, took him by the hand when he
reappeared at Paris last year; and though I believe he is still avoided
by many, he is courted by still more--and avoided, I fancy, rather from
political than social causes. The Imperialist set, of course, execrate
and prescribe him. You know he is the writer of those biting articles
signed Pierre Firmin in the Sens Commun; and I am told he is the
proprietor of that very clever journal, which has become a power."

"So, so--that is the journal in which Mademoiselle Cicogna's roman
first appeared. So, so--Victor de Mauleon one of her associates, her
counsellor and friend--ah!"

"No, I didn't say that; on the contrary, he was presented to her the
first time the evening I was at the house. I saw that young silk-haired
coxcomb, Gustave Rameau, introduce him to her. You don't perhaps know
Rameau, editor of the Sens Commun--writes poems and criticisms. They say
he is a Red Republican, but De Mauleon keeps truculent French