pride, "my conscience sustains me, and envy will fall abashed before the sacred torch of hymen." This _respectable_ phrase was the last remnant of the romances of Ducray-Dumenil, the first books Celestine ever read when she was cook of the advocate her god-father. But this interesting love passion was suddenly brought to a close by a very painful circumstance for the vanity of the young lady. Whether Mlle. Crepineau had laced herself more tightly even than usual, or that in aspirations after sylphic grace, she had been rather too active when Señor Nuñez was by--she was seized one fine day with a pain in the small of her back, translatable only by the word rheumatism--a constant attendant of her delicate organization. A forced construction was put on the pain--which became a cold or a strain, but she had, in spite of the effort to get rid of it by an _euphonism_, to go to bed. Then the devotion of the Spaniard became heroic. He was unwilling that Mlle. Celestine should intrust any one else with her daily occupation, and undertook to replace her in the menage of Doctor Matheus. The proposition did not awaken much of the doctor's gratitude; and though he accepted the substitute, he promised to watch him very closely. One morning the doctor was forced to leave very suddenly, just as the Spaniard was cleaning and dusting the consultation room. Matheus had been sent for by the Duke d'Harcourt, and apprehending some new indisposition of his young patient, Von Apsberg, for the first time left the Señor Nuñez in his room. For a few moments, the Spaniard continued his occupation. When, however, he saw the doctor leave, and from the window saw him turn down the _rue de Bac_, he said, "Now what I have so long sought for is in my grasp." Looking on every side of the room, lifting up the papers, opening the portfolios and examining the furniture, he discovered a secret drawer in a bureau, within which he found a key. "Here," said he, "is the key of the laboratory--of the mysterious room in which I shall find all I need. This is it," said he, looking anxiously at the key, "I know it by its shape." Hurrying to the third floor of the house, he paused at the door. His hand trembled--the key entered--turned--the wards moved, and the stranger entered the laboratory.