"You, at least, can not reproach me, father! An hour of irresistible temptation comes to us women. We feel ourselves dragged to the edge of the precipice with a terrible grasp. Other women have some thing to cling to, some God to cry to; but I could find nothing to seize hold of. I screamed for help, but none came. I looked to Heaven, but you had taught me it was empty. I know what you are going to say. My shame and disgrace are known all over the city. I can feel the pitiless finger of scorn pointed at me. I am fallen so low that, if I did not have an angel for a sister, not one compassionate glance would fall on me. This degradation is your work, father. Are you not proud of it? God, the soul, eternity, the Virgin--they may be foolish, old-fashioned superstitions; but women without them are helpless and lost." She turned again to the door. "Odette, Odette, where are you going?" cried the unhappy father. "I am going where all women go whose honor is lost, who are desperate, who believe in neither God, nor goodness, nor justice. I am going--to perdition!" And she disappeared, leaving her father's gray head bowed in despair, while Germaine was kneeling, her eyes and hands raised to Heaven. * * * * * All Paris remembers Claude Sirvin's attempt at suicide. The famous artist shot himself in the breast, but fortunately he recovered from the dangerous wound. I met him not long since, gay and smiling, with a pretty little actress on his arm. * * * * * But no one seemed so thoroughly contented and happy as Count David de Bruges; that is, until the day when his handsome horses ran away with him and overturned the carriage. His injuries were comparatively slight, but his companion, the beautiful Odette, was carried home lifeless. In a beautiful villa, almost hidden by the grand old elm trees surrounding it, in Paissy, that lovely suburb of Paris, lives the author of that work on "Comparative Legislation," which last Winter attracted such attention in the legal circles of the old and the new world. A quiet peace and contentment reign in this charming home, where Elaine and Paul, in their true and tender affection for each other, have sought and found forgiveness and forgetfulness of the sad, sad past. The future shines bright with hope, for Paul is soon to bring Germaine to his mother as his tenderly loved wife. With Elaine's devoted affection, and Germaine's true, noble heart that for so many years has worshiped him in secret, Paul Frager will surely find that beautiful happiness of home that is ----"The only bliss Of Paradise that has survived the fall." THE SUCCESS OF THE YEAR. HAMMOCK SERIES, NO. 1. "No Gentlemen." The brightest, most readable and entertaining novel of the season. _WHAT THE PRESS SAY OF IT._