“‘In Lyons,’ said twenty voices, half choked with laughter at my question. “I was thunderstruck at the news at first; but as I proceeded with my dinner, I joined in the mirth of the party, which certainly was not diminished on my telling them the object of my intended journey. “‘I think, young man,’ said the old fellow with the spectacles, ‘that you should take the occurrence as a warning of Providence that marriage will not suit you.’ I began to be of the same opinion;—but then there was the jointure. To be sure, I was to give up tobacco; and perhaps I should not be as free to ramble about as when en garcon. So taking all things into consideration, I ordered in another bottle of burgundy, to drink Mrs. Ram’s health—got my passport vised for Barege—and set out for the Pyrenees the same evening.” “And have you never heard any thing more of the lady?” said Mrs. Bingham. “Oh, yes. She was faithful to the last; for I found out when at Rome last winter that she had offered a reward for me in the newspapers, and indeed had commenced a regular pursuit of me through the whole continent. And to tell the real fact, I should not now fancy turning my steps towards Paris, if I had not very tolerable information that she is in full cry after me through the Wengen Alps, I having contrived a paragraph in Galignani, to seduce her thither, and where, with the blessing of Providence, if the snow set in early, she must pass the winter.” CHAPTER XXVIII. PARIS. [Illustration: Mr. O’Leary Creating a Sensation at the Salon des Etranges]