lation,
when he continued: "Nay, nay, do not deny it. Your eyes are the most
fathomless orbs that ever I beheld--large, too, and lustrous--the very
eyes I have been searching for these five years past. A judge of color;
a rare judge of color! How is your father to-day, my child?"

The tone of voice in which this last remark was made had in it more of
the curious than the tender. It seemed to have been propounded more as a
matter of business than of feeling. Still, Lucile replied respectfully,
"Oh! worse, sir; a great deal worse. Doctor White declares that it is
impossible for him to recover, and that he cannot live much longer."

"Not live?" replied Pollexfen, "not live?" Then, as if musing, he
solemnly added, "When your father is dead, Lucile, come to me, and I
will make your fortune. That is, if you follow my advice, and place
yourself exclusively under my instructions. Nay, but you shall earn it
yourself. See!" he exclaimed, and producing a bank deposit-book from his
pocket, "See! here have I seven thousand five hundred dollars in bank,
and I would gladly exchange it for one of your eyes."

Astonishment overwhelmed the girl, and she could make no immediate
reply; and before she had sufficiently recovered her self-possession to
speak, the photographer hastily added, "Don't wonder; farewell, now.
Remember what I have said--seven thousand five hundred dollars just for
one eye!"

Lucile was glad to escape, without uttering a syllable. Pursuing her way
homewards, she pondered deeply over the singular remark with which
Pollexfen closed the conversation, and half muttering, said to herself,
"Can he be in earnest? or is it simply the odd way in which an eccentric
man pays a compliment?" But long before she could solve the enigma,
other thoughts, far more engrossing, took sole possession of her mind.

She fully realized her situation--a dying father, and a sick lover, both
dependent in a great measure upon her exertions, and she herself not yet
past her seventeenth year.

On reaching home she found the door wide open, and Courtland standing in
the entrance, evidently awaiting her arrival. As she approached, their
eyes met, and a glance told her that all was over.

"Dead!" softly whispered Courtland.

A stifled sob was all that broke from the lips of the child, as she fell
lifeless into the arms of her lover.

I pass over the mournful circumstances attending the funeral of the
exiled Frenchman. He was borne to his gr