"It was a cold November morning. Cold it was certainly, but in compensation the morning vapour was as fine as snow turned into mist. Yonder in the crowded, populous, sooty quarters of the city, in Paris busy with trade and industry, this early vapour which settles in the broad streets is not to be found; the hurry of awakening life, and the confused movement of country carts, omnibuses, and heavy, rattling freight-waggons, have scattered, divided, and dispersed it too quickly. Every passer-by bears it away on his shabby overcoat, on his threadbare comforter, or disperses it with his baggy gloves. It dribbles down the shivering blouses and the waterproofs of toiling poverty, it dissolves before the hot breath of the many who have passed a sleepless or dissipated night, it is absorbed by the hungry, it penetrates into shops which have just been opened, into gloomy backyards, and it floats up the staircases, dripping on the walls and banisters, right up to the frozen attics. And that is the reason why so little of it remains outside. But in the spacious and stately quarter of Paris, upon the broad boulevards planted with trees and the empty quays the mist lay undisturbed, section over section, like an undulating mass of transparent wool in which one felt isolated, hidden, almost imbedded in splendour, for the sun rising lazily on the distant horizon already shed a mild purple glow, and in this light the mist level with the tops of the houses shone like a piece of muslin spread over scarlet." [Illustration: _Cassell & Co._ HEILBUTH. FINE WEATHER.]