H. M. R.

[From the Dublin University Magazine.]

MAURICE TIERNAY,

THE SOLDIER OF FORTUNE.

[_Continued from Page 10._]

CHAPTER II.

THE RESTAURANT "AU SCELERAT."

As I gained the street, at a considerable distance from the "Place," I
was able to increase my speed; and I did so with an eagerness as if the
world depended on my haste. At any other time I would have bethought me
of my disobedience to the Pere's commands, and looked forward to meeting
him with shame and sorrow, but now I felt a kind of importance in the
charge intrusted to me. I regarded my mission as something superior to
any petty consideration of self, while the very proximity in which I had
stood to peril and death made me seem a hero in my own eyes.

At last I reached the street where we lived, and, almost breathless with
exertion, gained the door. What was my amazement, however, to find it
guarded by a sentry, a large, solemn-looking fellow, with a tattered
cocked hat on his head, and a pair of worn striped trowsers on his legs,
who cried out, as I appeared, "_Halte la!_" in a voice that at once
arrested my steps.

"Where to, youngster?" said he, in a somewhat melted tone, seeing the
shock his first words had caused me.

"I am going home, sir," said I, submissively. "I live at the third
story, in the apartment of the Pere Michel."

"The Pere Michel will live there no longer, my boy; his apartment is now
in the Temple," said he, slowly.

"In the Temple!" said I, whose memory at once recalled my father's fate;
and then, unable to control my feelings, I sat down upon the steps, and
burst into tears.

"There, there, child, you must not cry thus," said he; "these are not
days when one should weep over misfortunes; they come too fast and too
thick on all of us for that. The Pere was your tutor, I suppose?"

I nodded.

"And your father--where is he?"

"Dead."

He made a sign to imitate the guillotine, and I assented by another nod.

"Was he a royalist, boy?"

"He was an officer in the _gardes du corps_," said I, proudly. The
soldier shook his head mournfully, but with what meaning I know not.

"And your mother, boy?"

"I do not know where she is," said I, again relapsing into tears at the
thought of my utter desolation. The old soldier leaned upon his musket
in profound thought, and for some time did not utter a word. At last he
said,

"There is nothing but the Hotel de Ville for you, my child. They say