ur services, we
shall not differ about the wages if you are attentive and faithful."

Alonzo gave his employer no room to complain; nor had he any reason to
be discontented with his situation. Mr. Grafton regularly advanced him
twenty crowns at the commencement of every month, and boarded him in his
family. Alonzo dressed himself in deep mourning. He sought no company;
he found consolation only in solitude, if consolation it could be
called.

As he was walking out early one morning, he discovered something lying
in the street, which he at first supposed to be a small piece of silk:
he took it up and found it to be a curiously wrought purse, containing a
few guineas with some small pieces of silver, and something at the
bottom carefully wrapped in a piece of paper; he unfolded it, and was
thunderstruck at beholding an elegant miniature of Melissa! Her sweetly
pensive features, her expressive countenance, her soul-enlivening eye!
The shock was almost too powerful for his senses. Wildered in a maze of
wonders, he knew not what to conjecture. Melissa's miniature found in
the streets of Paris, after she had some time been dead! He viewed it,
he clasped it to his bosom.--"Such, said he, did she appear, ere the
corroding cankers of grief had blighted her heavenly charms! By what
providential miracle am I possessed of the likeness, when the original
is no more? What benevolent angel has taken pity on my sufferings, and
conveyed to me this inestimable prize?"

But though he had thus become possessed of what he esteemed most
valuable, what right had he to withhold it from the lawful owner, could
the owner indeed be found? Perhaps the person who had lost it would part
with it; perhaps the money contained in the purse was of more value to
that person than the miniature. At any rate, justice required that he
should endeavour to find to whom it belonged: this he might do by
advertising, which he immediately concluded upon, resolving, should the
owner appear, to purchase the miniature, if possibly within his power.

Passing into another street, he saw several hand-bills stuck up on the
walls of houses; stepping up to one, he read as follows:

"Lost, between the hours of nine and ten last evening, in the _Rue de
Loir_, a small silk purse, containing a few pieces of money, and a
lady's miniature. One hundred crowns will be given to the person who may
have found it, and will restore it to the owner at the _American Hotel_,
near the