is name is Wenceslas Steinbock."

"One of Charles XII.'s Generals was named Steinbock."

"He was his grand-uncle. His own father settled in Livonia after the
death of the King of Sweden; but he lost all his fortune during the
campaign of 1812, and died, leaving the poor boy at the age of eight
without a penny. The Grand Duke Constantine, for the honor of the name
of Steinbock, took him under his protection and sent him to school."

"I will not break my word," Hortense replied; "prove his existence,
and you shall have the yellow shawl. The color is most becoming to
dark skins."

"And you will keep my secret?"

"And tell you mine."

"Well, then, the next time I come you shall have the proof."

"But the proof will be the lover," said Hortense.

Cousin Betty, who, since her first arrival in Paris, had been bitten
by a mania for shawls, was bewitched by the idea of owning the yellow
cashmere given to his wife by the Baron in 1808, and handed down from
mother to daughter after the manner of some families in 1830. The
shawl had been a good deal worn ten years ago; but the costly object,
now always kept in its sandal-wood box, seemed to the old maid ever
new, like the drawing-room furniture. So she brought in her handbag a
present for the Baroness' birthday, by which she proposed to prove the
existence of her romantic lover.

This present was a silver seal formed of three little figures back to
back, wreathed with foliage, and supporting the Globe. They
represented Faith, Hope, and Charity; their feet rested on monsters
rending each other, among them the symbolical serpent. In 1846, now
that such immense strides have been made in the art of which Benvenuto
Cellini was the master, by Mademoiselle de Fauveau, Wagner, Jeanest,
Froment-Meurice, and wood-carvers like Lienard, this little
masterpiece would amaze nobody; but at that time a girl who understood
the silversmith's art stood astonished as she held the seal which
Lisbeth put into her hands, saying:

"There! what do you think of that?"

In design, attitude, and drapery the figures were of the school of
Raphael; but the execution was in the style of the Florentine metal
workers--the school created by Donatello, Brunelleschi, Ghiberti,
Benvenuto Cellini, John of Bologna, and others. The French masters of
the Renaissance had never invented more strangely twining monsters
than these that symbolized the evil passions. The palms, ferns, reeds,
and foliage that wreath