like the wizard we used to read of in our wonderful fairy books, who was an ogre one moment and a mouse the next. He is more potent than the philosopher's stone; for that changed everything into gold only, while he becomes, at will, all the ores and alloys of creation. Fortunatus's wishing-cap and Prince Hussein's tapestry were baby toys to him. They whisked their owners away to the place where they wished, at the moment, to be. He is ubiquitous. He lurks under the liberty-cap of the goddess whose features are stamped in the shining gold, and his laugh is the clink of the jingling pieces. He turns himself into a regal sceptre that sways the gaping crowd, and it becomes a magnet that draws with resistless power the outstretched, itching palms of men. He takes the witching form of woman, paints her pulpy cheek with peachy bloom, knots into grace her mass of wavy hair, lights in her sparkling eye the kindling flame, hangs on her pouting lip the expectant kiss, and bids her supple waist invite caress; and more seductive far than gold or power are these cunning lures to win men to bow down in abject, grovelling worship of his might. My dear Madam, I would not imply that your beauty and grace are exhibitions of his skill. By no manner of means! I faithfully believe that Frank was drawn to you by the holiest, purest, best of emotions. But then, you know, so many of your lovely sex are under the influence of that cunning gentleman while they least suspect it. When a poor girl who owns but one jewel on earth--the priceless one that adorns and ennobles her lowliness--barters that treasure away for the cheap glitter of polished stones or the rustling sweep of gaudy silk, is not the basilisk gleam of the Mephistophelean eye visible in the sparkling of those gewgaws and the sheen of that stuff? When your friend Asmodeus, honest in his modest self-respect, is most ignominiously ignored by the stylish Mrs. Money,--her father was a cobbler,--more noted for brocades than brains,--or the refined Miss Blood,--her grandfather was third-cousin to some Revolutionary major,--more distinguished for shallowness than for spirit,--does he not smile in his sleeve, with great irreverence for the brocades and the birth, at the easy way in which the old fellow has wheedled them into his power by tickling their conceit and vanity? He creeps into all sorts of corners, and lurks in the smallest of hiding-places. He lies _perdu_ in the folds of _figurante's_ gauze, nestles under the devotee's sombre veil, waves in the flirt's fan, and swims in the gossip's teacup. He burrows in a dimple, floats on a sigh, rides on a glance, and hovers in a thought.