lavish favor bestowed on it by nature. An artist would still have said, " How handsome that raggamuffin must have been!"
And true is it, also, that there was yet that about the bearing of the man which contrasted his squalor, and seemed to say that he had not been born to wear rags, and loiter at midnight among the haunts of thieves. Nay, I am not sure that you would have been as incredulous now, if told that the wild outlaw before you had some claim by birth or by nurture to the rank of gentleman, as you would had you seen the gay spendthrift in his gaudy day. For then he seemed below, and now he seemed above, the grade in which he took place. And all this made his aspect yet more sinister, and the impression that he was dangerous yet more profound. Muscular strength often remains to a powerful frame long after the constitution is undermined, and Jasper Losely's frame was still that of a formidable athlete; nay, its strength was yet more apparent now that the shoulders and limbs had increased in bulk, than when it was half-disguised in the lissom symmetry of exquisite proportion—less active, less supple, less capable of endurance, but with more crushing weight in its rush or its blow. It was the figure in which brute force seems so to predominate that in a savage state it would have worn a crown —the figure which secures command and authority in all societies where force alone gives the law. Thus, under the gaslight and under the stars, stood the terrible animal—a strong man imbruted —" SOUVIENS-TOI DE TA GABRIELLE." There, still uneffaced, though the gold-threads are all tarnished and ragged, are the ominous words on the silk of the she-devil's love-token! But Jasper has now inspected the direction on the paper he held to the lamp-light, and, satisfying himself that he was in the right quarter, restored the paper to the bulky, distended pocket-book, and walked sullenly on toward the court from which had emerged the policeman who had crossed his prowling chase.
"It is the most infernal shame," said Losely, between his grinded teeth, " that I should be driven to these wretched dens for a lodging, while that man who ought to feel bound to maintain me should be rolling in wealth, and cottoned up in a palace. But he shall fork out. Sophy must be hunted up. I will clothe her in rags like these. She shall sit at his street-door. I will shame the miserly hunks. But how track the girl? Have I no other hold over him? Can I send Dolly Poole to him? How addled my brains are!—want of food—want of sleep. Is this the place? Peuh!"
Thus murmuring he now reached the arch of the court, and was swallowed up in its gloom. A few strides, and he came into
