Breach-of-promise trials are of frequent occurrence in the English courts, and any contribution to the law of the subject is received with interest. The English papers, therefore, comment with great relish upon the definition of a marriage engagement given by Judge Neilson, of Brooklyn, who, in a suit for money damages for blighted affections, charged the jury that the “gleam of the eye and the conjunction of the lips are overtures when they become frequent and protracted.” In the face of such a decision he is a rash man who would say, in the words of the song, “I know an eye both soft and bright,” and that variety of kiss known as the “lingering” is positively interdicted to gentlemen who do not mean business, or who are liable to a change of mind. THE INGENUITY OF THIEVES. When the Pope’s chamberlain, who was captured by Italian brigands, paid fifty thousand francs as ransom-money to the leader of the band, the sight of the money so transported him that he fell on his knees and begged to kiss the hand of his captive before he departed. The prelate stretched out his hand to him, forgetting that he wore a ring of great value, which the scoundrel, as he kissed the hand, slyly slipped over the finger and appropriated to himself. This incident was more than paralleled by French dexterity in a case which is thus reported by a Paris correspondent: There is a pretty little creature who has bestowed upon herself the cognomen of Diane de Bagatelle, with whom a well-known young viscount is madly in love. Mlle. Diane is a very romantic young lady, with a taste for the plays and novels of the younger Dumas, and especially for the “Dame aux Camellias.” So she was not surprised when one day the card of the Count de X——, the father of the viscount in question, was handed to her, and an elegant elderly gentleman, faultlessly dressed, and with the red ribbon of the Legion of Honor at his button-hole, was ushered into her boudoir. “My son loves Mademoiselle,” began the count, without further preface. “I know it,” sighed Diane. “He has——” “A sister!” exclaimed the lady, remembering the interview between Marguerite Gautier and the elder Duval. “No, not a sister, but a cousin,—his cousin Blanche, to whom he has been betrothed for years. She pines and weeps, and you, mademoiselle, you and your fatal charms are the cause.” “Alas!” sighed Diane, feeling herself Doche and Blanche Pierson rolled into one and in real earnest. “Your sensibility does you honor. Will you break with my son at once and forever? And if two hundred thousand francs——” “Two hundred thousand francs!” “I will draw you a check at once.” “Sir,” exclaimed the lady, “you have not made appeal to a callous heart. I will make the sacrifice; I will give up Henri. You said, I think, two hundred thousand?” “I did. Blessings on you, my child!” exclaimed the count, fervently. “Write the letter I shall dictate, and the check shall be yours.”