New Year\'s Day. Or, as the French more emphatically term it, the Jour de l\'An. Gay groups went strolling along the Boulevards in the glowing sunshine, gazing at the costly étrennes displayed in the tempting shops: women glancing at the perfect attire of other women that passed; men doffing their hats so perpetually that it almost seemed they might as well have kept them off altogether; children in their fantastic costumes chattering to their mothers, and turning their little heads on all sides: all, men, women, and children, apparently free from every care, save that of pleasure, which constitutes so observable a feature in Parisian life.

Amidst the crowd, passing onwards with a listless step, as if pleasure had no part in his heart and he had no use for étrennes, was a solitary individual: a distinguished looking man of pleasing features and altogether refined face, whom few of the traversers could have mistaken for aught but an Englishman. His mourning apparel and a certain air of sadness that pervaded his face seemed to be in unison. Several women--ingrained coquettes from their birth, as French women nearly always are born to be--threw glances of admiration at the handsome man, in spite of the fact that their husbands--for that one day--were at their side; and wondered what near relative he had lost. But the gentleman passed on his listless way, seeing them not, and utterly unconscious that any answering glances from his own eyes were coveted. It was Sir Karl Andinnian.

Close upon the burial of his ill-fated brother Adam, Mrs. Andinnian, prostrate with grief and trouble, took to confine herself to her own apartment at Foxwood Court: for it was at that residence she thenceforth took up her abode. Karl found himself nearly altogether excluded from her presence. Even at meals she declined to join him, and caused them to be served for herself apart. "Do you wish me away from Foxwood?" Karl one day asked her. "I do; I would be entirely alone," was her reply. "I am aware that Foxwood is yours now, Karl, and you may think I have no right even to express a hint that you might for a time leave it; but I feel that the chance of my regaining strength and spirits would be greater if left entirely to myself: your presence here is a strain upon me."

The answer was to Karl welcome as sunshine in harvest. He had been longing to travel; to try and find some relief from his thoughts in hitherto untrodden scenes: consideration for his mother--the consciousness that it would be wrong both in duty and affection
to leave her--had alone prevented his proposing it. Within
four-and-twenty hours after this he had quitted Foxwood.

But Karl was not so soon to quit England. Various matters had to be settled in regard to the estate; and when he reached London his lawyers, Plunkett and Plunkett, said they should want him for a little while. The crime committed by Sir Adam so immediately upon the death of Sir Joseph, had caused a vast deal of necessary business to remain in abeyance. Certain indispensable law proceedings to be gone through, had to be gone through now. So Karl Andinnian perforce took up his temporary abode in London; and at the end of a week or two, when he found himself at liberty, he crossed over the water, Vienna being his first halting place. The sojourn there of a former brother officer, Captain Lamprey, who had been Karl\'s chiefest friend and stuck to him in his misfortunes, induced it. Captain Lamprey was staying in Vienna with his newly married wife, and he wrote to ask Karl to join them. Karl did so. Captain Lamprey\'s term of leave expired the end of December. He and his wife were going home to spend the Christmas, and Karl accompanied them as far as Paris. Mrs. Andinnian, in answer to a question from Karl, whether she would like him to return to her for Christmas, had written back to him a resolute and ungracious No.

So here he was, in Paris. It was all the same to him; this
resting-place or that resting-place. His life had been blighted in more ways than one. Of Lucy Cleeve he thought still a great deal too much for his peace. She was far enough removed from him in all senses of the word. In a letter received by Captain Lamprey from some friends at Winchester, it was stated that the Cleeves were wintering in Egypt. Where Karl\'s own place of sojourn was next to be, he had not decided, but his thoughts rather turned towards every chief continental city that was famed for its gallery of paintings. He thought he would make a pilgrimage to all of them. Karl had the eye of a true artist: to gaze at good paintings was now the only pleasure of his life. He had not yet anything like done with those in Paris and Versailles.

On, upon his course along the Boulevards, passed he. Now and again his eyes turned towards the lovely étrennes with a longing: once in a way, when the throngs allowed him, he halted to look and admire: a longing to buy étrennes himself, and that he had some one to give them to when bought. It was not well possible for any body to feel more completely isolated from the happy world than did Karl Andinnian.

"How d\'ye do, Sir Karl? Charming day for the holiday, is it not!"

Sir Karl made some answering assent, raised his hat, bowed, and passed on. The remark had come from an Englishman with whom he had a slight acquaintance, who had come out shop-gazing with his flock of daughters.

He went straight home then to his hotel--Hotel Montaigne, Rue Montaigne. As he crossed the courtyard, the landlord--a ponderous gentleman with a ponderous watch-chain--came out and gave him some letters. From some cause the English delivery had been late that morning.

One of the letters was from Captain Lamprey, the other from Plunkett and Plunkett. Neither contained any interest; neither thought to wish him happiness for the New Year. It was all the same to Karl Andinnian: the New Year could not have much happiness in store for him.

He strolled out again, turning his steps towards the Champs Elysées. It was but one o\'clock yet, and the brightest part of the day. At one of the windows of the palace he fancied he caught a transient glimpse of the Empress. Shortly afterwards, the peculiar clatter of the Prince Imperial\'s escort was heard advancing, surrounding the little prince in his carriage.

The Champs Elysées were bright to-day. Children attired in silks and satins were playing in the sun, their bonnes sitting by in their holiday costume. New Year\'s Day and All Saints\' Day are the two most dressy epochs in the year in France--as everybody knows. Invalids sat in the warmth: ladies flitted hither and thither like gay butterflies. By a mere chance, Karl always thought it so, his eyes fell on two ladies seated alone on a distant bench. Involuntarily his steps halted; his heart leaped up with a joyous bound. They were Mrs. and Miss Cleeve.

But, ah how ill she looked--Lucy. The bounding heart fell again as though some dead weight were pressing it. Thin, worn, white; with dark circles round the eyes, and lips that seemed to have no life in them. For a moment Karl wondered whether he might not approach and question her: but he remembered his bargain with Colonel Cleeve.

They did not see him: they were looking at some children in front of them; playing at "Marlborough s\'en va-t-en guerre." Karl pursued the path he was on, which would carry him away from their bench at right angles. He resolved that if they saw him he would go up and speak: if they did not, he must continue his way.

And he had to continue it. Mrs. Cleeve, Who did not look to be in strong health either, seemed absorbed by the play and the childish voices chanting the chanson; Lucy had now bent her forehead upon her hand, as though some ache were there. Karl went on, out of sight, his brow aching too.

"Bon jour, monsieur."

The salutation, which had a touch of surprised pleasure in its tone, came from a natty-looking little Frenchwoman, with a thin red face and shrewd grey eyes. She might have been given five-and-thirty years: but in the register of her native Mairie she would have been found hard upon forty. Sir Karl stopped. She was Lucy\'s maid: formerly Lucy\'s nurse.

"C\'est vous, Aglaé!"

"Mais oui, monsieur."

"I thought I saw Mrs. and Miss Cleeve sitting on a bench just now," continued Karl; changing his language. "Are you staying in Paris?"

"Oh, very long since," replied Aglaé, to whom both languages were nearly alike. "Our apartment is close by, sir--a small house in the Avenue d\'Antin. The delight to find myself in my proper land again, where I can go about without one of those vilain bonnets and hear no street gamins hoot at me for it, is untellable."

"I understood that Colonel Cleeve and his family had gone to Egypt for the winter," observed Karl.

"To Egypt, or to some other place of barbarisme: so it was projected, sir. But my young lady, Miss Lucy, is not strong enough to be taken."

"What is the matter with her?" asked Karl, with assumed quietness.

"The matter? Oh! The matter is, that she has got no happiness left in her heart, sir," cried Aglaé, explosively, as if in deep resentment against things in general. "It\'s dried up. And if they don\'t mind, she will just go unwarningly out of life. That\'s my opinion: and, mind, sir, I do not go to say it without reason."

A slight blush mantled in Karl\'s face. He seemed to be watching a red paper kite, that was sailing beneath the blue sky.

"They see it now, both of them; the Colonel and Madame; they see that she\'s just slipping away from them, and they are ill. Ah but! the senseless--what you call it--distinctions--that the English set up!"

"But what is the cause?" asked Karl. Though it seemed to him that he could discern quite well without being answered.

Aglaé threw her shrewd eyes into his.

"I think, sir, you might tell it for yourself, that. She has not been well since that fever. She was not well before the fever, since--since about the month of May."

He drew in his lips. Aglaé, with native independence, continued to stare at him.

"Why don\'t you call and see her, sir?"

"Because--well, I suppose you know, Aglaé. I should not be welcome to Colonel and Mrs. Cleeve."

"And the poor young lady, who never did harm to living soul, is to be let shrink down into her grave for the sake of English prejudice! I can see. I\'ve got my wits about me, and have seen it all along. My service to you, sir. Bon jour."

The maid went on in a rage, her dainty cap nodding, her smart boots going down rather more noisily than was needful. Sir Karl passed on his way, thinking deeply. He walked about until the daylight was fading, and then strode back rapidly to his hotel, with the air of a man who is about to carry out some resolution that will not wait. He was. A resolution that had been floating in his mind before he\' saw Lucy or encountered her maid.

Colonel Cleeve was seated alone that evening in his dining-room in the Avenu............