ceased, and they fell back from the platform, except the girl, who glided quickly between them, towards where the officers had been standing. But they were gone; and, after a vain search amidst the crowd on the carrefour, she retired back to where she had been sitting, and covering her face with her hands, was once more unheeded and alone. CHAPTER II. The Boat-mill on the River. Ar last the sun went down, and twilight fell upon the towers and pointed roofs the old châtelet. The loiterers gradually disappeared from the place and bridge. The rough voitures de place, which clattered incessantly over a pavement so rude and uneven that it became a wonder how they were enabled to progress at all, one by one withdrew from the thoroughfares, carrying a great portion of the general noise with them, not more proceeding from the hoarse voices of the drivers than from the ceaseless cracking of their long whips, which was thus always going on. The cries of those who sold things in the streets was also hushed, as well as the tolling and chiming of the innumerable bells in the steeples of the churches, which until dusk never knew rest, but tried to outclang each other as noisily as the supporters of the different sects, whose hour of meeting they announced. One or two lanterns were already glimmering from the windows of private houses: for by this means only were the streets of Paris preserved from utter darkness throughout the night and the full moon began to rise slowly behind the turrets of Notre Dame. There was little security, then, in the most public places, and few cared to be about after dusk, except in the immediate company of the horse or foot patrol, save those who only stalked abroad with the night, so that it was not long before the carrefour was nearly deserted. Two persons alone remained there. One was the assistant to the physician, who had left him in charge of the platform; and he was now occupied in harnessing two miserable mules to the waggon, in which the platform and the apparatus had been stowed away. The other was the girl whom we have before spoken of, and who had remained at the cross in almost the same attitude-one of deep sorrow and despondency. The fool had nearly finished his labours, and was preparing to leave the square, when the young female quitted her resting-place, and advanced towards him with a timid and faltering step. Believing her to be some wretched wanderer of the carrefour, proceeding to her home before the curfew sounded, he took but little notice of her; and was about to seize the mules by the bridle and lead them onwards, when she placed her hand upon his arm, and implored him to stop. "Now, good mistress-your business," said the the assistant; "for I have little time to spare. A sharp appetite hurries labour more than a sharp overseer; and my stomach keeps time better than the bell of Notre Dame." "I wished to purchase something," returned the girl. "Ah! you are too late-we have nought left but holy pebblesto and he gazed on the objects that surrounded him with the listless air of an idler. His mind was evidently but little occupied with anything he then saw. His attire was somewhat richer than his friend's, betokening a superior rank in the army. "A proof! a proof!" cried the gayer of the two, repeating his words. "Where will you have it then?" asked the mountebank, looking about the square. "Ha! there is as fair a maiden as ever a king's officer might follow, sitting at the cross. Shall she be in love with you?” Again the attention of the crowd was directed by the glance of the mountebank, towards a rude iron cross that was set up in the carrefour. At its foot was a young girl, half sitting, half reclining upon the stone-work which formed its base. She was attired in the costume of the working order of Paris. Her hair, different from that of the higher class of females, who wore it in light bunches of ringlets at the side of the head, was in plain bands, over which a white handkerchief, edged with lace, was carelessly thrown, falling in lappets on each side. Her eyes and hair were alike dark as night, but her beautiful face was deadly pale, until she found the gaze of the mob had been called towards her. And then the red blood rushed to her neck and cheeks, as she hastily rose from her seat, and was about to leave the square. "A pretty wench enough," cried the cavalier with the black hair, as he raised himself upon the step of a house to see her. She was still hidden from his companion. "I doubt not," answered the other carelessly; "but I do not care to look. No," he cried loudly to the mountebank, "I have no love to spare her in return, and that might break her heart." The girl started at his voice, and looked towards the spot from whence it proceeded. But she was unable to see him, for the intervening people. "A beryl!" cried the fool, showing a small crystal of a reddish tint to the crowd. "A beryl to tell your fortune then. Who will read the vision in it? a young maiden, pure and without guile, can alone do it; are there none in our good city of Paris?" None stepped forward. The fair-haired cavalier laughed aloud as he cried out: "You seem to have told what is past, better than you can predict what is to come. Ho! sirs, what say you to this slur upon the fair fame of your daughters and sisters-will none of them venture?" A murmur was arising from the crowd, when the physician, who had been glancing angrily at the two young officers, suddenly rose up, and shouted with a foreign accent, "If you will have your destinies unfolded, there needs no beryl to picture them. Let me look at your hands, and I will tell you all.” "A match!" cried the young soldier. "Now good people let us pass, and see what this solemn-visaged doctor knows about us." The two officers advanced towards the platform. As they approached it, the crowd fell back, and then immediately closed after them with eager curiosity. The friends stood now directly beside the waggon. "Your hands!" said the physician. They were immediately extended to him. "You are in the king's service," continued he. "Our dresses would tell you that," said the darker of the two. "But they would not tell me that you are married," answered the physician. You have two children-a fair wife-and no friend." "Tis a lie!" exclaimed the cavalier with the light hair. "It is true," replied the necromancer coldly, directing the gaze of his piercing eye full upon him. "But our destiny, our destiny," said the dark officer with impatience. "You would care but little to know," returned the other, "if all should turn out as I here read it. I have said your wife is fair-a score and a half of years have robbed her but of little of her beauty; and I have said you have no friend. Now read your own fate." "Come away," said the fair cavalier, trying to drag his friend by the arm from the platform. "We will hear no more—he is an impostor." As the soldier spoke, a hectic patch of colour rose on the pale cheek of the physician, and his eye lighted up with a wild brightness. He raised his arm in an attitude of denunciation, and cried, with a loud but hollow voice: "You are wrong, young man; and you shall smart for thus bearding one to whom occult nature is as his alphabet. We have met before-and we shall meet again." “Pshaw! I know you not," replied the other heedlessly. "But I know you," continued the physician. "Do you remember an inn at Milan-do you recollect a small room that opened upon the grape-covered balcony of the Croce Bianca? Can you call that to mind, Gaudin de Sainte-Croix ?” As the officer heard his name pronounced, he turned round; and stared with mingled surprise and alarm at the physician. The latter beckoned him to return to the platform, and he eagerly obeyed. The crowd collected round them closer than ever, hustling one another in their anxiety to push nearer to the platform, for affairs appeared to be assuming a turn rather more than ordinary. And so intent were they upon the principal personages of the scene, that they paid no attention to the girl who had been sitting at the cross, and who, upon hearing the name, started from her resting-place, and rushed to the outside of the throng that now closely surrounded the waggon. But the crowd was too dense for her to penetrate; and she passed along from one portion to the other, vainly endeavouring to force her way through it. Some persons roughly thrust her back; others bade her desist from pressing against them; and not a few launched out into some questionable hints, as to the object of her anxiety to get closer to the two officers. Meanwhile, Sainte-Croix, as we may now call him, had again reached the edge of the platform. The physician bent down and whispered a word or two in his ear, which, with all his efforts to retain his selfpossession before the mob, evidently startled him. He looked with a scrutinizing attention, as if his whole perception were concentrated in that one gaze, at the face of the other, and then with an almost imperceptible nod of recognition, caught his companion by the arm, and dragged him forcibly through the crowd. As the two cavaliers departed, the interest of the bystanders ceased, and they fell back from the platform, except the girl, who glided quickly between them, towards where the officers had been standing. But they were gone; and, after a vain search amidst the crowd on the carrefour, she retired back to where she had been sitting, and covering her face with her hands, was once more unheeded and alone. CHAPTER II. The Boat-mill on the River. AT last the sun went down, and twilight fell upon the towers and pointed roofs the old châtelet. The loiterers gradually disappeared from the place and bridge. The rough voitures de place, which clattered incessantly over a pavement so rude and uneven that it became a wonder how they were enabled to progress at all, one by one withdrew from the thoroughfares, carrying a great portion of the general noise with them, not more proceeding from the hoarse voices of the drivers than from the ceaseless cracking of their long whips, which was thus always going on. The cries of those who sold things in the streets was also hushed, as well as the tolling and chiming of the innumerable bells in the steeples of the churches, which until dusk never knew rest, but tried to outclang each other as noisily as the supporters of the different sects, whose hour of meeting they announced. One or two lanterns were already glimmering from the windows of private houses: for by this means only were the streets of Paris preserved from utter darkness throughout the night: and the full moon began to rise slowly behind the turrets of Notre Dame. There was little security, then, in the most public places, and few cared to be about after dusk, except in the immediate company of the horse or foot patrol, save those who only stalked abroad with the night, so that it was not long before the carrefour was nearly deserted. Two persons alone remained there. One was the assistant to the physician, who had left him in charge of the platform; and he was now occupied in harnessing two miserable mules to the waggon, in which the platform and the apparatus had been stowed away. The other was the girl whom we have before spoken of, and who had remained at the cross in almost the same attitude-one of deep sorrow and despondency. The fool had nearly finished his labours, and was preparing to leave the square, when the young female quitted her resting-place, and advanced towards him with a timid and faltering step. Believing her to be some wretched wanderer of the carrefour, proceeding to her home before the curfew sounded, he took but little notice of her; and was about to seize the mules by the bridle and lead them onwards, when she placed her hand upon his arm, and implored him to stop. "Now, good mistress-your business," said the the assistant; "for I have little time to spare. A sharp appetite hurries labour more than a sharp overseer; and my stomach keeps time better than the bell of Notre Dame." "I wished to purchase something," returned the girl. "Ah! you are too late-we have nought left but holy pebbles to |