ou..."

But the young man turned his eyes on him, and the old beggar stopped
without another word, discerning in that mournful face an abandonment of
wretchedness more bitter than his own.

"_La carita_! _la carita_!"

The stranger threw the coins to the old man and the child, left the
footway, and turned towards the houses; the harrowing sight of the Seine
fretted him beyond endurance.

"May God lengthen your days!" cried the two beggars.

As he reached the shop window of a print-seller, this man on the brink
of death met a young woman alighting from a showy carriage. He looked in
delight at her prettiness, at the pale face appropriately framed by the
satin of her fashionable bonnet. Her slender form and graceful movements
entranced him. Her skirt had been slightly raised as she stepped to the
pavement, disclosing a daintily fitting white stocking over the delicate
outlines beneath. The young lady went into the shop, purchased albums
and sets of lithographs; giving several gold coins for them, which
glittered and rang upon the counter. The young man, seemingly occupied
with the prints in the window, fixed upon the fair stranger a gaze as
eager as man can give, to receive in exchange an indifferent glance,
such as lights by accident on a passer-by. For him it was a leave-taking
of love and of woman; but his final and strenuous questioning glance was
neither understood nor felt by the slight-natured woman there; her color
did not rise, her eyes did not droop. What was it to her? one more piece
of adulation, yet another sigh only prompted the delightful thought at
night, "I looked rather well to-day."

The young man quickly turned to another picture, and only left it when
she returned to her carriage. The horses started off, the final vision
of luxury and refinement went under an eclipse, just as that life of his
would soon do also. Slowly and sadly he followed the line of the shops,
listlessly examining the specimens on view. When the shops came to an
end, he reviewed the Louvre, the Institute, the towers of Notre Dame, of
the Palais, the Pont des Arts; all these public monuments seemed to have
taken their tone from the heavy gray sky.

Fitful gleams of light gave a foreboding look to Paris; like a pretty
woman, the city has mysterious fits of ugliness or beauty. So the outer
world seemed to be in a plot to steep this man about to die in a painful
trance. A prey to the maleficent power which acts relaxingly upon u