‘What a worthy, excellent man!’ joyfully exclaimed the abbess; for, in the noble integrity of her heart, she had no suspicion that he could take advantage of her circumstances.

However Simon settled the matter with his conscience, the abbess, trained in the school of adversity to be content with being preserved from absolute want, passed the remainder of her life quietly and happily with her good Margaret, both every day invoking blessings on the head of him whom they regarded as a generous benefactor.  Madame de Vatteville lived to the age of one hundred, and her faithful Margaret survived only a few months the mistress to whom she had given such affecting proofs of attachment.

But Simon’s detestable fraud proved of no use to him.  After keeping his treasure for several years, he thought the Emperor’s coronation presented a favourable opportunity for disposing of it.  Unfortunately for him, his grasping avarice one morning suggested a thought which his ignorance prevented his rejecting:  ’Since this ruby—­old-fashioned and stained as it is—­can be worth so much, what would be its value if freed from all defect, and in modern setting?’ And he soon found a lapidary, who, for a sum of 3000 francs, modernised it, and effaced the spot, and with it the impress, the stamp of its antiquity—­all that gave it value, beauty, worth!  This wanting, no jeweller could recognise it:  it was no longer worth a thousand crowns.

It was thus that the most splendid ruby in Europe lost its value and its fame; and its name is now only to be found in The Lapidaries’ Guide, as that which had once been the most costly of gems.  It seemed as if it could not survive the last of the illustrious house to which it owed its introduction into Europe, and its name.

HENRY TAYLOR.

    ’There is delight in singing, though none hear
    Beside the singer:  and there is delight
    In praising, though the praiser sit alone,
    And see the praised far off him, far above.’ 
                                        —­W.S.  LANDOR.

It has been said, with more of truth than flattery, that literature of any kind which requires the reader himself to think, in order to enjoy, can never be popular.  The writings of Mr Henry Taylor are to be classed in this category.  The reader of his dramas must study in order to relish them; and their audience, therefore, must be of the fit, though few kind.  Goethe somewhere remarks, that it is not what we take from a book so much as what we bring to it that actually profits us.  But this is hard doctrine, caviare to the multitude.  And so long as popular indolence and popular distaste for habits of reflection shall continue the order of the day, so long will it be difficult for writers of Mr Taylor’s type to popularise their meditations; to see themselves quoted in every provincial newspaper and twelfth-rate magazine; to be gloriously pirated by eager hordes