f impatience at this speech, that showed how
little he liked the sentiment, and then said,--

"There are the lights of Ostend. What a capital passage we have made!
I can't express to you," said he, with more animation, "what a relief it
is to me to feel myself on the soil of the Continent. I don't know how
it affects others, but to me it seems as if there were greater scope and
a freer room for a man's natural abilities there."

"I suppose you think we are cursed with 'respectability' at home."

"The very thing I mean," said he, gayly; "there's nothing I detest like
it."

"Colonel Paten," cried the steward, collecting his fees.

"Are you Colonel?" asked Stocmar, in a whisper.

"Of coarse I am, and very modest not to be Major-General. But here we
are, inside the harbor already."

Were we free to take a ramble up the Rhine country, and over the Alps to
Como, we might, perhaps, follow the steps of the two travellers we have
here presented to our reader. They were ultimately bound for Italy, but
in no wise tied by time or route. In fact, Mr. Stocmar's object was
to seek out some novelties for the coming season. "Nihil humanum a me
alienum puto" was his maxim. All was acceptable that was attractive.
He catered for the most costly of all publics, and who will insist on
listening to the sweetest voices and looking at the prettiest legs in
Europe. He was on the lookout for both. What Ludlow Paten's object was
the reader may perhaps guess without difficulty, but there was another
"transaction" in his plan not so easily determined. He had heard much
of Clara Hawke,--to give her her true name,--of her personal attractions
and abilities, and he wished Stocmar to see and pronounce upon her.
Although he possessed no pretension to dispose of her whatever, he held
certain letters of her supposed mother in his keeping which gave him a
degree of power which he believed irresistible. Now, there is a sort of
limited liability slavery at this moment recognized in Europe, by which
theatrical managers obtain a lease of human ability, for a certain
period, under nonage, and of which Paten desired to derive profit by
letting Clara out as dancer, singer, comedian, or "figurante," according
to her gifts; and this, too, was a purpose of the present journey.

The painter or the sculptor, in search of his model, has no higher
requirements than those of form and symmetry; he deals solely with
externals, while the impresario most carry his inv