The character of his face was peculiar, for while the forehead and eyes were intellectual and candid, the lower jaw and mouth revealed his Calmuck origin, an expression of intense, unrelenting cruelty being the impression at once conveyed by the thin, straight, compressed lips, and the long, projecting chin, seeming even longer from the black-pointed beard he wore. There was nothing vulgar or common-place about him; he never could have passed unobserved anywhere, and yet he was equally far from the type of high birth. His manners were perfectly well bred; and although he spoke seldom, his quiet and attentive air and his easy smile showed he possessed the still rarer quality of listening well. There was another figure, not exactly of this group, but at a little distance off, beside a table in a recess, on which a number of prints and drawings were scattered, and in the contemplation of which he affected to be absorbed; while, from time to time, his dark eyes flashed rapidly across to note all that went forward. He was a tall and singularly handsome man, in the dress of a priest. His hair, black and waving, covered a forehead high, massive, and well developed; his eyes were deep-set, and around the orbits ran lines that told of long and hard study, for the Abbe D'Esmonde was a distinguished scholar; and, as a means of withdrawing him for a season from the overtoil of reading, he had been attached temporarily as a species of Under-secretary to the Mission of the “Nonce.” In this guise he was admitted into all the society of the capital, where his polished address and gentle manner soon made him a general favorite. Equally removed from the flippant levity of the abbe as a class, and the gross and sensual coarseness of the “old priest,” D'Esmonde was a perfect man of the world, so far as taking a lively interest in all the great events of politics, watching eagerly the changeful features of the times, and studying acutely the characters of the leading men, at whose dictates they were modified. Its pleasures and amusements, too, he was willing to partake of moderately and unobtrusively; but he held himself far apart from all those subjects of gossip and small-talk which, in a society of lax morality, occupy so considerable a space, and in which the great dignitaries who wear scarlet and purple stockings are often seen to take a lively and animated share. Some ascribed this reserve to principle; others called it hypocrisy; and some, again, perhaps with more truth, deemed it the settled line of action of one who already destined himself for a high and conspicuous station, and had determined that his character should add weight and dignity to his talents.