“Bella tucked her arm in his, with a merry, noiseless laugh, and they went down to the kitchen on tiptoe, she stopping on every separate stair to put the tip of her forefinger on her rosy lips, and then lay it on his lips, according to her favorite petting way of kissing pa.” “The purity with which in these words she expressed something of her own love and her own suffering made a deep impression on him for the passing time. He held her, almost, as if she were sanctified to him by death, and kissed her, once, almost as he might have kissed the dead.” * * * * * Some of our best writers of fiction have successfully tried their descriptive power upon the “torrent, tempest, and whirlwind of passion” which maybe concentrated in a burning kiss, but none of them surpass Victor Hugo in graphic vigor. Take the following passages, for example, from “The Hunchback of Notre Dame.” In the exciting scene between Esmeralda, the gipsy, and Captain Phœbus, the unfortunate girl proceeds: “‘Look at me! look on her who came to seek you. My soul, life, body, all are yours. Let us not marry, if it displeases you,—and then, what am I? a wretched stroller, while you, my Phœbus, are a gentleman. A pretty thing, truly, for a dancing-girl to wed an officer! I was out of my mind. No, Phœbus, I will be your toy, your plaything, a slave to you. I am made for that; sullied, scorned, dishonored, but loved! I will be the proudest and gladdest of women. And when I shall be old, Phœbus, when my days for loving you are over, you will, won’t you, still allow me to serve you? Let others broider your scarfs; I, the servant, may take care of them, and your sword and your spurs. You will grant me this, Phœbus? So, take me! we gipsies only are made for the free air and to love.’ “She had flung her arms around the officer’s neck, supplicating him with a smile shining through her tears. Her delicate throat was scratched by the rough lace. The intoxicated captain glued his burning lips on the rounded Moorish shoulders. The young girl, kneeling, her eyes looking upward, her head thrown back, quivered under the kiss. All at once, above the stooping head of Phœbus, she beheld another head, with a livid, convulsed face, wearing the look of a damned soul; near it was a hand armed with a dagger. It was the face and hand of the priest; he had burst through the door, and was there. Phœbus could not perceive him. The girl was frozen stiff and mute by the fear-inspiring apparition,—like a dove raising its head as the osprey stares over its nest with its round, unwinking eyes. She could not even utter a scream. She saw the poniard fall on Phœbus and rise smoking. “‘Malediction!’ groaned the captain, and he fell. “She swooned. “As her eyes closed, as feeling vanished from her, she fancied she felt impressed on her lips a print of fire, a kiss more burning than the executioner’s red-hot branding-iron.