employed, and had more than once hinted her disapprobation; but had been only laughed at as a prude. She had often reproached herself fr having been a party to the fraud which had been practised on me. She had not at first fathomed the whole extent of it; but now she knew how bad a matter it was. The truth was, that Miss Harper had for some time been carrying on something more than a flirtation with Capta Cox. But her father disliked the man, who, though very handsome and agreeable, bore anything but a good character,-and, therefore, Julia bat acted cautiously and guardedly in the matter, and had feigned an indi ference which had deceived Mr. Harper.

"When I first came to anchor at Canterbury, Captain Cox was 'leave of absence;' and, as he had gone away without making a de claration, it had appeared to Julia that an overt flirtation with me in the captain's absence-something that would certainly reach his ears-might stimulate him to greater activity, and elicit an unretractable avowal Her flirtation with me was intended also, to impress on Mr. Harper mind the conviction that she was really attached to me, and he ceased therefore, to trouble himself about Captain Cox. He liked me, and b encouraged me, on purpose that the odious captain might be thrown int the shade. Such was the state of affairs at the outset of Julia's flirtstion with me. But Rachel assured me that I really had made an pression on the young lady's heart, though she had not by any mea given up the gallant captain.

"I asked Rachel how this could be-how it was possible that ar heart could bear two impressions at the same time. She said, that sửa supposed some impressions were not as deep and ineffaceable as others At all events, she believed that to Miss Harper it was a matter of very vital concernment whether she married Captain Cox or Mr. Bla ham; but that she was determined to have one or other. The fact is the girl was playing a double game, and deceiving both of us. All t was very clear to me from Rachel's story. But she told me it was br own belief, that Julia would determine on taking me, after all—and the for the very excellent reason that Captain Cox was engaged elsewher At least, that was the story in the town since his return to barracks.

"Poor Rachel shed a great many tears whilst she was telling me this. She said that, having betrayed her mistress, she could not thei of remaining with her. She was decided on this point. With wa expressions of gratitude, I took her little hand into mine, and said th I would be her friend,-that she had done me an inestimable servicethat I was glad to be undeceived, that the little incident of t flowers and that of the slippers, had shaken my belief in Miss Harpe truth, that altogether my opinions had changed, and that I knew the were worthier objects of affection. Then I spoke of her own position said that of course her determination was right,-but that she w confer a very great favour on me, if she would do nothing, until she s me again. This she readily promised; and it was agreed that on $ following day, which was Sunday, she should call on me during aftern service. I pressed her hand warmly when I wished her good by, a with greedy eyes followed her receding figure across the Close.

"She came at the appointed hour, looking prettier and more lady-5 than ever. She was extremely well-dressed. I shook hands with and asked her to seat herself upon the couch beside me; and then ask her, laughingly, 'What news of Captain Cox?' She said there was !

the least doubt that Captain Cox was expedit
London; and that Miss Harper, or the preceding new
had been made acquainted with the fam

young lady had said on receiving tack teen letter i
learnt that she had been greatly excret of the
very eager to ascertain how met d
Rachel told her that I had read my the v
Captain Cox, she somewhat recent se rel
had pleaded illness as an excuse fr 17 near
had not since left her room.

T

"There was at this time yng even Miss Harper, which had been taget asked Rachel to give it to me yng any new light is thrown upon the # when she gave it to me. I penet and mo

'MY DEAR MR. BLOTEAM.

Very many thanks to you for VEY ET stupid little bungler that I am.. remark,) I sent you by numatėto Captain Cox,- for, ang I acquaintance fall into the lands of

letters to one's friends fal na die marata e Cox only to tell him i

going to be married to a

ing some time here use win the bac

my own.'

depiored deer

regretted hat that I had

PARIS IN 1852.

PARIS, to whomsoever turns an eye-glass upon it from London, a present appears, with its million of inhabitants, a city utterly lost in the heavy atmosphere of politics. Nothing else, we are apt to imagine, is either seen or breathed. Enter it, however, penetrate into its saloons, and mingle with its crowds, and never could you find so little of the political element mingling with conversation and with life. Politics no doubt have their influence, but it is indirect, remote. It is like fate idle to rail against, and hopeless to discuss. The French have univer sally turned their attention to something else, either to pleasure-seeking or money-getting, and most people have delivered themselves up to the profound research, of what and how the best is to be made of a new order of things.

The charm of Paris to a stranger has always been the social changes which it undergoes. Quit London, and unless you make a ten years absence, you find pretty much the same laureates, the same dandies. | the same modes, and the same ideas. But the Parisian must have a new piece every season on that great stage, metropolitan life, and tragedy does not differ more from pantomime than one season from another. But three years have brought changes with a vengeance, nes plots, new catastrophes, a new list of dramatis personce. Louis Napole may not be altogether the fashion; but if he has not yet succeeded to instal his own image in that temple he has, at least, thrown dos! and smashed all the old idols.

The most marked and manifest effect produced by the events of the last year, and the final upshot of these events has been to give a greater éclat, preponderance, and value to wealth, than it has ever had even in Paris. In England mere wealth is eclipsed and very ofte snubbed. In France, political, scientific, and intellectual eminente disputed the palm with it. But riches now carry the day. There no political notability to look down upon it, no room for any eminent member of the Institute to boast ignorance of Rothschild. Weak alone seems to have solidity and duration in it. Wealth, therefore, being noblesse, gentility, and eminence, every one pretends to it, and puts for the blazon. Hence there is more display, more of what the French call luxe, and which is anything but luxury. The political saloons have closed, but the salons dorés have opened, and the crowd, not merely d pleasure-seekers, but of ambitieux, and intriguans, is quite as great.

The prominent representatives of wealth are no longer the legit mate pains-taking heads of mercantile houses, who have spent a life as the work. Their wealth is not the result of two generations of pars mony and wisdom; it is rather of the Arabian Nights' fabric, built one day and in full display the next. Nothing can have so bad an effect a these instances of quick-gotten wealth. They drive men into all sorts of exaggerated efforts and fabulous speculations. The princely fortunes of the Rothschilds and the Barings have a good moral effect. The tell society that the first rank and influence in the world may be al tained by industry, but that it is by long, pains-taking industry. Such examples excite no envy, for all that is got has been hardly earned, an tempt to no folly.

He

One of the first social positions in Paris is occupied by a personage, who was agent or Intendente for a well-known Spanish noble. had not been many years Intendente when the grandee was ruined and obliged to sell his estates, when the Intendente himself came forward to purchase them. It is somewhat of the old story of Castle Rackrent. But the Thady of Miss Edgeworth did not open a house in Grosvenor Square and gather nobility and gentry into his crowded routs. This is what the Intendente now does in Paris, and no one disputes his right to do so, for he is intelligent as well as rich, and his lady of excellent demeanour and accomplishments, although from the lowest rank of life.

At first there was a great inclination on the part of the old legitimist and noble families to open their houses, closed during the twenty-eight years of the Orleanist rule; and many did so, possessing the belief and confidence that the President would enact the part of Monk, and do homage, sooner or later, before the great principle of legitimacy. That belief, fortunately for decorators, confectioners, and milliners, remained strong during the winter months, and gave birth to some balls, where, after all, it was found very difficult to make any pleasant amalgamation of imperialist and royalist notabilities. With the spring, however, the belief and confidence, which gave rise to this, have very much diminished. The Count de Chambord has forbidden oath-taking and ball-giving; and those who remain firm are the needy legitimists, glad of place and of excuses for keeping it.

Secessions are as bad a manœuvre in society as in Parliamentary life. The Faubourg St. Germain, which boudoit, and remained solitary in its chateaux during Napoleon's reign, and which gave splendour and weakness, not strength, to the Restoration, has by its second secession during the Orleans reign, become forgotten and ignored. Even great names, when totally withdrawn from public cognizance, cease to be great names, when there are but wealth unemployed and birth unnoticed to recommend them. Napoleon, during his reign, could not efface the old noblesse, because he had no wealthy and eminent civilian class to take their social place. But in the reign of Louis Philippe there did arise a number of wealthy and eminent notabilities, country gentlemen, too many of them, well seen and well endowed. And these, though not of the premier noblesse, took the first place in society with effect, and were then known to all. These have now receded from society, and as M. de Beaumont wrote the other day to the papers, reside in the country chez eux, and never make their appearance in Paris but for a séance de l'Institut, or other unpolitical ceremony.

In fact, the chief, if not the only power that remains to the Orleans party, is a puissance de societé, that power which the legitimists imagine themselves to possess, but which they have lost by abdication and neglect. Despised by the people and uncared for by the middle class, which should most care for them, the Orleanists have no friends save in that good and genteel society which predominates nowhere more than in France.

A great deal was said of M. de Morny's dismissal from the cabinet of Louis Napoleon after having implicated himself in the great work of the coup d'état. The fact is, he had no quarrel or difference with the President, but he found himself cut in society, backs turned upon him in that club, and menaced with the loss of his acquaintances. He

who had braved everything could not brave that. Louis Napolest laughed at his susceptibility; but M. de Morny, who cared not for being execrated by France, would not stand the désagrément of being cut by his club. The President thinks him chicken-hearted to have strangled the republic, kicked out the chambers, and defied the Orleanists politically, yet tremble before their social verdict, and resig after rather than brave it. Such, however, is the truth of De Morny. Every one knows his long and constant attachment to Madame Leh-, a lady who has contrived to make her beauty, her wealth, and her splendour survive the ruin of her husband's family. She inhabits that splendid mansion at the Rond Point of the Champs Elysées, so distinguished by gilding and red drapery. By the side of this gorgeous palace there stands a small bachelor house, consisting of a couple of rooms, and one story. In this dwells M. de Morny; and this small tenement at the gate of the big palace so much resembles the wooden box, so generally appropriated to the favourite dog, that the Parisians call M. de Morny's house by no other name than that of the Niche à fidèle.

There is great regret amongst the Bonapartists that M. de Mory was not retained by the President in the post of home minister; not be that M. Persigny, who has replaced him, is able. But Persigny, like the President himself, is a rêveur, a man who dreams, who shuts himself in his cabinet, and amuses himself by setting his imagination to work to raise political plans, concoct schemes of French glory and European regeneration. The old and the cold heads dread this facility of con ception, followed too often by precipitateness of execution in Los Napoleon and in M. de Persigny; and they would prefer seeing the active and imaginative brain of the Prince, counteracted by a minister like De Morny, who, as a man of the world, lives amongst and amids facts, and gives no reins to his imagination.

M. de Morny, however, is too glad to escape the disagreeable task of espioneering and snubbing, not only all the gentlemen but even the ladies of that good society, in which he was wont to live. Imagine the position of a statesman whose duty it is to keep Frenchmen from intriguing and French women from talking politics. An Englishma can never see the necessity for any such duties. His invariable answer would be, why not let things alone? why not let M. Thiers talk in his own salons at the very top of his anger and his lungs. Seeing his talking could not do so much harm, as an arbitrary decree sending him out of the country for such a crime. To such a remark the Napoleonist will reply, that it was indispensable to silence the Orleanists and that, though driven from the helm and the press, they would st keep up a guerre de salon, most dangerous if not summarily put

down.

The war has, however, ceased to be one of salon, or of genera society. For people dread the fall of M. Thiers, and do not wish to be expatriated. But it is carried on not the less, and good society in Paris is merciless, as described in the case of De Morny, against all whe openly embrace the cause of the President. This is a matter of sore embarrassment to diplomatists. They always wish to be of the side f good society, and this led Lord Normanby into hostilities with the President. Lord Cowley, who has succeeded to him, is a man nature and connexion more inclined to ally with birth and herd with *ra-monarchies than Lord Normanby, but he dared not.

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Were such