the regal whiteness of the rich Louvre was so near, and the tilted pavilion-roofs of the great, gaunt, high-chimneyed Tuileries. The various stages and storeys of inhabitants descended beyond sight, as to abysses that were bottomless. The air felt clearer than elsewhere, and the sky seemed nearer in its blue purity. It was all such a spectacle as might have absorbed the faculties of a prophet; indeed the thought could not but have struck a mind used to interpret its own consciousness, of how slightly human distinctions might weigh, and in what trivial account they would result, could magnificence so beyond the furniture of palaces be familiar, or often accessible. With the English baronet, it was rather the sudden perception of what vast concerns were going on the while, under necessity to be sustained, round about the particular affairs of his own business or experience: added to which came emphatically enough that strange sense, sometimes resembling the superstitious, of time gigantically pressing on to destiny—when with a hurtling, heaving sound before it, and a crash that made all the chimneys vibrate, the hard walls clang, the roofs rattle, and the windows tingle and ring, the clock of Notre Dame, hard by, sent out its first stroke of the hour. The elder woman let the child sink in her lap, gravely crossing herself at every stroke; here and there, outside, a face could be seen turned to it involuntarily. The bootmaker, setting down the writing-materials he had procured after a somewhat long absence, appeared to hear with a savage grin and gleam of satisfaction, whether still caused by the money or by later news; he nodded his head to each long, artillery-like stroke, rolling and reverberating away among the piles of the Cité and St Louis, and made a whistling noise of pleasure as he looked, till it was done. “And now, my good woman,” said Sir Godfrey, when he had written the required paper, with an order for the money, “let me bid you farewell.” He took Suzanne’s shrivelled hand, and she made a motion to rise up, with decorous gravity. There was a confused murmur of gratitude, as if appealing to her daughter for fuller explanation; but he saw her eyes moisten again, silently, when he said he would cause the means to be taken for at least enabling her son to communicate with and assist her. Suzanne Deroux shook her head, she seemed almost to groan; while the same wavering feebleness of mind again turned her to the window and the child. It appeared doubtful whether she really had a distinct notion who Sir Godfrey was, or what relation he bore to her former master. “Are you aware,” he added apart, to the daughter, ere turning to the staircase, “whether your mother ever expressed any idea as to the cause of the fire in the house—if it was accidental or otherwise?” The answer was in the negative.