jubilee, as if a thousand bards had struck their harps and raised their voices in a song of victory. These were sounds which the ear never hears, which only the heart can dream when it rests at night on a beloved breast. Perhaps also the heart can grasp them in the bright light of day, when it loses itself with joy in the curves of beauty in a Grecian work of art...." "Or when one has drunk one too many bottles of champagne!" broke in suddenly a laughing voice, which woke our story-teller as from a dream. Turning round, he saw the doctor, who, under the guidance of black Deborah, had gently entered the room to inform himself of the effect of his medicine on the patient. "That sleep does not please me," he said, pointing to the sofa. Maximilian, who, absorbed in the fancies of his own discourse, had not observed that Maria had long since fallen asleep, bit his lip with vexation. "That sleep," the doctor pursued, "gives to her countenance already the appearance of death. Does it not look like those white masks, those plaster casts, in which we seek to preserve the features of the dead?" "I should like," Maximilian whispered in his ear, "to have such a cast of our friend's face. Even as a corpse she would be very lovely." "I do not advise you to do so," answered the doctor. "Such masks spoil the recollection of those we love. We think that in the plaster we have procured something of their life, but it is only death that we have caught. Beautiful regular features get something horribly rigid, mocking, fatal, with which they terrify rather than delight us; but the casts of those faces whose charm was of a more spiritual kind, whose features were less regular than interesting, are absolute caricature; for as soon as the graces of life are extinguished, the real declinations from the line of ideal beauty are no longer compensated by the spiritual charm. A certain enigmatic expression is common to all these casts, which, after long contemplation, send an intolerable chill through our souls; they look as if on the point of going a long journey." "Whither?" asked Maximilian, as the doctor took his arm and led him from the room. SECOND NIGHT. "And why will you torment me with this horrible medicine, since I must die so soon?" It was Maria who, as Maximilian entered, spoke these words. The doctor was standing before her with a medicine bottle in one hand and in the other a little glass in which a brownish liquor frothed nauseously. "My dear fellow," he exclaimed, turning to the new-comer, "you have just come at the right time; try and persuade Signora to swallow these few drops; I am in a hurry." "I entreat you, Maria!" whispered Maximilian, in that tender voice which one did not often observe in him, and which seemed to come from so wounded a heart that the patient, singularly touched, took the glass in her hand. Before she put it to her mouth, she said, smiling, "Will you reward me with the story of Laurence?"