Almighty Director of every event in my life! said the old gentleman, looking up earnestly and raising his hands towards heaven-thou whose hand has led me on through such a labyrinth of strange passages down into this scene of desolation, assist the decaying memory of an old, infirm, and broken-hearted man-direct my tongue by the spirit of thy eternal truth, that this stranger may set down. nought but what is written in that Book, from whose records, said he, clasping his hands together, I am to be condemned or acquitted!--The notary held up the point of his pen betwixt the taper and his eye

It is a story, Monsieur le Notaire, said the gentleman, which will rouse up every affection in nature-it will kill the humane, and touch the heart of cruelty herself with pity.

The notary was inflamed with a desire to begin, and put his pen a third time into his ink-horn-and the old gentleman

turning a little more towards the notary, began to dictate his story in these words-And where is the rest of it, La Fleur? said I, as he just then entered the room.

WHEN La Fleur came up close to the table, and was made to comprehend what I wanted, he told me there were only two other sheets of it, which he had wrapt round the stalks of a bouquet, to keep it together, which he had presented to the demoiselle upon the Boulevards— Then pr'ythee, La Fleur, said I, step

* Nosegay.

back to her to the Count de B****'s hotel, and see if thou canst get it-There is no doubt of it, said La Fleur-and away he flew.

In a very little time the poor fellow came back quite out of breath, with deeper marks of disappointment in his looks than could arise from the simple irreparability of the fragment-Juste ciel! in less than two minutes that the poor fellow had taken his last tender farewell of herhis faithless mistress had given his gage d'amour to one of the Count's footmenthe footman to a young sempstress—and the sempstress to a fidler, with my fragment at the end of it-Our misfortunes were involved together-I gave a sighand La Fleur echoed it back again to my

ear.

How perfidious! cried La Fleur-How unlucky! said I.

I should not have been mortified, Mon

sieur, quoth La Fleur, if she had lost it— Nor I, La Fleur, said I, had I found it. Whether I did or no, will be seen hereafter.

THE man who either disdains or fears to walk up a dark entry, may be an excellent good man, and fit for a hundred things; but he will not do to make a good sentimental traveller. I count little of the many things I see pass at broad noon-day, in large and open streetsNature is shy, and hates to act before spectators; but in such an unobserved corner, you sometimes see a single short scene of her's worth all the sentiments of

a dozen French plays compounded together and yet they are absolutely fineand whenever I have a more brilliant affair upon my hands than common, as they suit a preacher just as well as a hero, I generally make my sermon out of themand for the text-" Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphilia❞—is as good as any one in the Bible.

There is a long dark passage issuing out from the Opera Comique into a narrow street; 'tis trod by a few who humbly wait for a fiacre*, or wish to get off quietly o'foot when the opera is done. At the end of it, towards the theatre, 'tis lighted by a small candle, the light of which is almost lost before you get half way down, but near the door-'tis more for ornament than use-you see it as a fixed star of the least magnitude; it burns --but does little good to the world that we know of.

Hackney-coach.