another sence I was a boy, an' dandled her many a time on my knee. Yes, and her young Leddyship, Lady Elizabeth that is, too, wen she was a little girl."

"My regard for you goes up a thousand-fold, my friend," said O'Neill, smiling; "I could almost envy you your opportunities. Would I had been you!"

"'Tain't no use wishin' that," said the old sergeant, shaking his head; "there never was no Frenchman could ever take my place."

"Quite right," replied O'Neill, smiling; "'twould be clearly impossible."

"Come along, then, yer Honor."

"Stay a moment," returned the enraptured Irishman; "a year at gaze would not sate me with the beauty of this picture. How like is the fair image!" murmured the entranced young man, approaching nearer and fairly holding his breath under the influence of the moment. He stretched out his hand toward the painting with a little reverential gesture.

"Look out, sir!" said the sergeant, warningly; "the picture hangs very loose, an' the frame--"

What evil fate was it that determined its fall at that moment? There was a tremendous crash, something gave way, and the great frame dropped from its place on the wall and fell across the heavy oaken chair which stood beneath it, and the picture was impaled upon its Gothic points. The two men sprang to seize it and lift it up. Alas! it had been literally torn to pieces. The canvas had evidently been originally a defective one, for it had split in every direction. Restoration was clearly impossible.

"Good Heaven!" said the Irishman, "what a misfortune!"

"It had to come, an' it's too late to be mended now," said the sergeant, philosophically, "so we must get on."

"Very good," said O' Neill, tenderly lifting the frame, with the rags of the tattered canvas hanging to it, back against the wall; "there is nothing to keep us here now. Unlucky fool that I am, even the semblance of the original is not for me!"

 

 

 

 

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