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I summoned my valet "Who sent this?" I demanded

"Madaravity "There is a card attached, if the eccelenza will be pleased to look"

I did look It was -card, and on it ritten in her own delicate penmanship-"To remind the conte of his proer possessed lossy bit of pasteboard and flung it aside The led odors of the fruit and flowers offendedfor these trifles," I said, addressing Vincenzo alhter of the hotel-keeper; she is a child, she will appreciate them Take them away at once"

Obediently Vincenzo lifted the basket and bore it out of the roorance and color had vanished I, to receive as a gift, the product of arden! Half vexed, half sore at heart, I threw hed aloud! So! Mada theseof beyond that he is reported to be fabulously wealthy Gold, gold forever! What will it not do! It will bring the proud to their knees, it will force the obstinate to servile compliance, it will conquer aversion and prejudice The world is a slave to its yellow glitter, and the love of woman, that perishable article of commerce, is ever at its command Would you obtain a kiss from a pair of ripe-red lips that seem the very abode of honeyed sweetness? Pay for it then with a lustrous diaer the kiss! The et The jeunesse doree who ruin themselves and their ancestral homes for the sake of the newest and prettiest feh I s look iven me when she said, "You do not see of her eyes; I had not studied their liquid lights and shadows so long for nothing My road to revenge was a straight and perfectly smooth line--almost too smooth I could have wished for some difficulty, some obstruction; but there was none--absolutely none The traitors walked deliberately into the trap set for theain I asked myself quietly and in cold blood--was there any reason why I should have pity on the point in their characters? Was there any nobleness, any honesty, any real sterling good quality in either of them to justify my consideration? And always the answer came, NO! Hollow to the heart's core, hypocrites both, liars both--even the guilty passion they cherished for one another had no real earnestness in it save the pursuit of present pleasure; for she, Nina, in that fatal interview in the avenue where I had been a tortured listener, had hinted at the possibility of tiring of her lover, and HE had frankly declared to me that very day that it was absurd to suppose a man could be true to one wo fate Such men as Guido and such woh in all classes of society, but they are not the less pernicious ani extermination as much, if not more, than the less harmful beasts of prey The poor beasts at any rate tell no lies, and after death their skins are of some value; but who shall ue--and of what use is the corpse of a liar save to infect the air with pestilence? I used to wonder at the superiority of men over the rest of the aniained by excess of selfish cunning The bulky, good-natured, ignorant lion who has only one honest way of defending hi two-legged little rascal who hides hier brute's heart Yet the lion's mode of battle is the braver of the two, and the cannons, torpedoes and other implements of modern warfare are proofs of man's cowardice and cruelty asthe ordinary lives ofthem by their abstract virtues merely--I am inclined to think the beasts the more respectable of the two!