Nevertheless there was about him that air of dignity or distinction which those who are reared from their cradle in the pride of birth acquire so unconsciously that it seems hereditary and inborn. It must also be confessed that the young man himself was endowed with a considerable share of that nobility which Nature capriciously distributes among her favourites with little respect for their pedigree and blazon, the nobility of form and face. He was tall and well shaped, with graceful length of limb and fall of shoulders; his face was handsome, of the purest type of French masculine beauty,--the nose inclined to be aquiline, and delicately thin, with finely-cut open nostrils; the complexion clear,--the eyes large, of a light hazel, with dark lashes,--the hair of a chestnut brown, with no tint of auburn,--the beard and mustache a shade darker, clipped short, not disguising the outline of lips, which were now compressed, as if smiles had of late been unfamiliar to them; yet such compression did not seem in harmony with the physiognomical character of their formation, which was that assigned by Lavater to temperaments easily moved to gayety and pleasure. Another man, about his own age, coming quickly out of one of the streets of the Chausee d’Antin, brushed close by the stately pedestrian above described, caught sight of his countenance, stopped short, and exclaimed, “Alain!” The person thus abruptly accosted turned his eye tranquilly on the eager face, of which all the lower part was enveloped in black beard; and slightly lifting his hat, with a gesture of the head that implied, “Sir, you are mistaken; I have not the honour to know you,” continued his slow indifferent way. The would-be acquaintance was not so easily rebuffed. “Peste,” he said, between his teeth, “I am certainly right. He is not much altered: of course I AM; ten years of Paris would improve an orang-outang.” Quickening his step, and regaining the side of the man he had called “Alain,” he said, with a well-bred mixture of boldness and courtesy in his tone and countenance, “Ten thousand pardons if I am wrong. Put surely I accost Alain de Kerouec, son of the Marquis de Rochebriant.” “True, sir; but--” “But you do not remember me, your old college friend, Frederic Lemercier?” “Is it possibly?” cried Alain, cordially, and with an animation which charged the whole character of his countenance. “My dear Frederic, my dear friend, this is indeed good fortune! So you, too, are at Paris?” “Of course; and you? Just come, I perceive,” he added, somewhat satirically, as, linking his arm in his new-found friend’s, he glanced at the cut of that friend’s coat-collar. “I have been here a fortnight,” replied Alain. “Hem! I suppose you lodge in the old Hotel de Rochebriant. I passed it yesterday, admiring its vast facade, little thinking you were its inmate.” “Neither am I; the hotel does not belong to me; it was sold some years ago by my father.”