One fine, frosty Sunday in November, Frances and I took a long walk; we made the tour of the city by the Boulevards; and, afterwards, Frances being a little tired, we sat down on one of those wayside seats placed under the trees, at intervals, for the accommodation of the weary. Frances was telling me about Switzerland; the subject animated her; and I was just thinking that her eyes spoke full as eloquently as her tongue, when she stopped and remarked —

“Monsieur, there is a gentleman who knows you.”

I looked up; three fashionably dressed men were just then passing — Englishmen, I knew by their air and gait as well as by their features; in the tallest of the trio I at once recognized Mr. Hunsden; he was in the act of lifting his hat to Frances; afterwards, he made a grimace at me, and passed on.

“Who is he?”

“A person I knew in England.”

“Why did he bow to me? He does not know me.”

“Yes, he does know you, in his way.”

“How, monsieur?” (She still called me “monsieur”; I could not persuade her to adopt any more familiar term.)

“Did you not read the expression of his eyes?”

“Of his eyes? No. What did they say?”

“To you they said, ‘How do you do, Wilhelmina, Crimsworth?’ To me, ‘So you have found your counterpart at last; there she sits, the female of your kind!’”

“Monsieur, you could not read all that in his eyes; He was so soon gone.”

“I read that and more, Frances; I read that he will probably call on me this evening, or on some future occasion shortly; and I have no doubt he will insist on being introduced to you; shall I bring him to your rooms?”

“If you please, monsieur — I have no objection; I think, indeed, I should rather like to see him nearer; he looks so original.”

As I had anticipated, Mr. Hunsden came that evening. The first thing he said was:—

“You need not begin boasting, Monsieur le Professeur; I know about your appointment to — College, and all that; Brown has told me.” Then he intimated that he had returned from Germany but a day or two since; afterwards, he abruptly demanded whether that was Madame Pelet-Reuter with whom he had seen me on the Boulevards. I was going to utter a rather emphatic negative, but on second thoughts I checked myself, and, seeming to assent, asked what he thought of her?

“As to her, I’ll come to that directly; but first I’ve a word for you. I see you are a scoundrel; you’ve no business to be promenading about with another man’s wife. I thought you had sounder sense than to get mixed up in foreign hodge-podge of this sort.”

“But the lady?”

“She’s too good for you evidently; she is like you, but something better than you — no beauty, though; yet when she rose (for I looked back to see you both walk away) I thought her figure and carriage good. These foreigners understand grace. What the devil has she done with Pelet? She has not been married to him three months — he must be a spoon!”

I would not let the mistake go too far; I did not like it much.

“Pelet? How your head runs on Mons. and Madame Pelet! You are always talking about them. I wish to the gods you had wed Mdlle. Zoraide yourself!”

“Was that young gentlewoman not Mdlle. Zoraide?”

“No; nor Madame Zoraide either.”

“Why did you tell a lie, then?”

“I told no lie; but you are is such a hurry. She is a pupil of mine — a Swiss girl.”

“And of course you are going to be married to her? Don’t deny that.”

“Married! I think I shall — if Fate spares us both ten weeks longer. That is my little wild strawberry, Hunsden, whose sweetness made me careless of your hothouse grapes.”

“Stop! No boasting — no heroics; I won’t hear them. What is she? To what caste does she belong?”

I smiled. Hunsden unconsciously laid stress on the word caste, and, in fact, republican, lordhater as he was, Hunsden was as proud of his old —-shire blood, of his descent and family standing, respectable and respected through long generations back, as any peer in the realm of his Norman race and Conquest-dated title. Hunsden would as little have thought of taking a wife from a caste inferior to his own, as a Stanley would think of mating with a Cobden. I enjoyed the surprise I should give; I enjoyed the triumph of my practice over his theory; and leaning over the table, and uttering the words slowly but with repressed glee, I said concisely —

“She is a lace-mender.”

Hunsden examined me. He did not say he was surprised, but surprised he was; he had his own notions of good breeding. I saw he suspected I was going to take some very rash step; but repressing declamation or remonstrance, he only answered —

“Well, you are the best; judge of your own affairs. A lace-mender may make a good wife as well as a lady; but of course you have taken care to ascertain thoroughly that since she has not education, fortune or station, she is well furnished with such natural qualities as you think most likely to conduce to your happiness. Has she many relations?”

“None in Brussels.”

“That is better. Relations are often the real evil in such cases. I cannot but think that a train of inferior connections would have been a bore to you to your life’s end.”

After sitting in silence a little while longer, Hunsden rose, and was quietly bidding me good evening; the polite, considerate manner in which he offered me his hand (a thing he had never done before), convinced me that he thought I had made a terrible fool of myself; and that, ruined and thrown away as I was, it was no time for sarcasm or cynicism, or indeed for anything but indulgence and forbearance.

“Good night, William,” he said, in a really soft voice, while his face looked benevolently compassionate. “Good night, lad. I wish you and your future wife much prosperity; and I hope she will satisfy your fastidious soul.”

I had much ado to refrain from laughing as I beheld the magnanimous pity of his mien; maintaining, however, a grave air, I said:—

“I thought you would have liked to have seen Mdlle. Henri?”

“Oh, that is the name! Yes — if it would be convenient, I should like to see her — but ——.” He hesitated.

“Well?”

“I should on no account wish to intrude.”

“Come, then,” said I. We set out. Hunsden no doubt regarded me as a rash, imprudent man, thus to show my poor little grisette sweetheart, in her poor little unfurnished grenier; but he prepared to act the real gentleman, having, in fact, the kernel of that character, under the harsh husk it pleased him to wear by way of mental mackintosh. He talked affably, and even gently, as we went along the street; he had never been so civil to me in his life. We reached the house, entered, ascended the stair; on gaining the lobby, Hunsden turned to mount a narrower stair which led to a higher story; I saw his mind was bent on the attics.

“Here, Mr. Hunsden,” said I quietly, tapping at Frances’ door. He turned; in his genuine politeness he was a little disconcerted at having made the mistake; his eye reverted to the green mat, but he said nothing.

We walked in, and Frances rose from her seat near the table to receive us; her mourning attire gave her a recluse, rather conventual, but withal very distinguished look; its grave simplicity added nothing to beauty, but much to dignity; the finish of the white collar and manchettes sufficed for a relief to the merino gown of solemn black; ornament was forsworn. Frances curtsied with sedate grace, looking, as she always did, when one first accosted her, more a woman to respect than to love; I introduced Mr. Hunsden, and she expressed her happiness at making his acquaintance in French. The pure and polished accent, the low yet sweet and rather full voice, produced their effect immediately; Hunsden spoke French in reply; I had not heard him speak that language before; he managed it very well. I retired to the window-seat; Mr. Hunsden, at his hostess’s invitation, occupied a chair near the hearth; from my position I could see them both, and the room too, at a glance. The room was so clean and bright, it looked like a little polished cabinet; a glass filled with flowers in the centre of the table, a fresh rose in each china cup on the mantelpiece gave it an air of fete, Frances was serious, and Mr. Hunsden subdued, but both mutually polite; they got on at the French swimmingly: ordinary topics were discussed with great state and decorum; I thought I had never seen two such models of propriety, for Hunsden (thanks to the constraint of the foreign tongue) was obliged to shape his phrases, and measure his sentences, with a care that forbade any eccentricity. At last England was mentioned, and Frances proceeded to ask questions. Animated by degrees, she began to change, just as a grave night-sky changes at the approach of sunrise: first it seemed as if her forehead cleared, then her eyes glittered, her features relaxed, and became quite mobile; her subdued complexion grew warm and transparent; to me, she now looked pretty; before, she had only looked ladylike.

She had many things to say to the Englishman just fresh from his island-country, and she urged him with an enthusiasm of curiosity, which ere long thawed Hunsden’s reserve as fire thaws a congealed viper. I use this not very flattering comparison because he vividly reminded me of a snake waking from torpor, as he erected his tall form, reared his head, before a little declined, and putting back his hair from his broad Saxon forehead, showed unshaded the gleam of almost savage satire which his interlocutor’s tone of eagerness and look of ardour had sufficed at once to kindle in his soul and elicit from his eyes: he was himself; as Frances was herself, and in none but his own language would he now address her.

“You understand English?” was the prefatory question.

“A little.”

“Well, then, you shall have plenty of it; and first, I see you’ve not much more sense than some others of my acquaintance” (indicating me with his thumb), “or else you’d never turn rabid about that dirty little country called England; for rabid, I see you are; I read Anglophobia in your looks, and hear it in your words. Why, mademoiselle, is it possible that anybody with a grain of rationality should feel enthusiasm about a mere name, and that name England? I thought you were a lady-abbess five minutes ago, and respected you accordingly; and now I see you are a sort of Swiss sibyl, with high Tory and high Church principles!”

“England is your country?” asked Frances.

“Yes.”

“And you don’t like it?”

“I’d be sorry to like it! A little corrupt, venal, lord-and-king-cursed nation, full or mucky pride (as they say in —-shire), and helpless pauperism; rotten with abuses, worm-eaten with prejudices!”

“You might say so of almost every state; there are abuses and prejudices everywhere, and I thought fewer in England than in other countries.”

“Come to England and see. Come to Birmingham and Manchester; come to St. Giles’ in London, and get a practical notion of how our system works. Examine the footprints of our august aristocracy; see how they walk in blood, crushing hearts as they go. Just put your head in at English cottage doors; get a glimpse of Famine crouched torpid on black hearthstones; of Disease lying bare on beds without coverlets, of Infamy wantoning viciously with Ignorance, though indeed Luxury is her favourite paramour, and princely halls are dearer to her than thatched hovels —-”

“I was not thinking of the wretchedness and vice in England; I was thinking of the good side — of what is elevated in your character as a nation.”

“There is no good side — none at least of which you can have any knowledge; for you cannot appreciate the efforts of industry, the achievements of enterprise, or the discoveries of science: narrowness of education and obscurity of position quite incapacitate you from understanding these points; and as to historical and poetical associations, I will not insult you, mademoiselle, by supposing that you alluded to such humbug.”

“But I did partly.”

Hunsden laughed — his laugh of unmitigated scorn.

“I did, Mr. Hunsden. Are you of the number of those to whom such associations give no pleasure?”

“Mademoiselle, what is an association? I never saw one. What is its length, breadth, weight, value — ay, value? What price will it bring in the market?”

“Your portrait, to any one who loved you, would, for the sake of association, be without price.”

That inscrutable Hunsden heard this remark and felt it rather acutely, too, somewhere; for he coloured — a thing not unusual with him, when hit unawares on a tender point. A sort of trouble momentarily darkened his eye, and I believe he filled up the transient pause succeeding his antagonist’s home-thrust, by a wish that some one did love him as he would like to be loved — some one whose love he could unreservedly return.

The lady pursued her temporary advantage.

“If your world is a world without associations, Mr. Hunsden, I no longer wonder that you hate England so. I don’t clearly know what Paradise is, and what angels are; yet taking it to be the most glorious region I can conceive, and angels the most elevated existences — if one of them — if Abdiel the Faithful himself” (she was thinking of Milton) “were suddenly stripped of the faculty of association, I think he would soon rush forth from ‘the ever-during gates,’ leave heaven, and seek what he h............