Middletown transcript., 1869-06-12
nopular Iales.
THE SAPPHIRE RING.

The last mutterings of the French Rev.
olution were dying away amid the echoes
of tho victorious cannon which heralded
the Empire.
1t was one of those nights of seet and
cold that empty the streets of Paris, and
fill its theatres and cabarets. Through Il
lovely street in the quarter known as la
Clcte." and which is, in fact, the oldest
part of Paris, man, wrapped i'll Il large
cloak. his hat drawn well down to shed'the
sleet from his face, pushed hastily along.
He was a tall fellow, walked with long
springing stride-the quick, elastic step
of youth-and was evidently in hurry to
get home, or somewhere else, out of the
rain and cold. Stepping closer to the
house, to avoid a puddle of muddy water,
his foot struck against something lying on
the pavement, and he saved himself from
headlong fall only by a very crcditable
gymnastic effort. AT the same time some
thing between a groan and a sigh. seemed
to come up from the stumbling block.
Recovering himself, and peering down,
light, not unlike that from cats eye
seen through the dark, shonc upwards from
the ground.
The young man pushed the brim of his
tapped hat up from his face, threw back
his cloak. and, STOPPING down, felt about
with his hands. He made out that wo-
mans body was crouched down in an an
gle of an old wall, place where the dark
ness was almost tangible, with the feet
sticking out towards the trottoir," or
sidewalk.
His first idea was that crime had been
committed, and the body of the victim
thrust into that obscure corner; but as he
passed his hands over the clothes and
shawl, which marked the sex of the object,
he felt, or thought he felt, feeble futter-
ing of the heart. His next idea, there
fore, was that of man of generosity and
action, and he accordingly executed it.
He picked the woman up in his arms, and
carried her hundred yards on to where a
street lamp winked and glimmered through
the foggy mist.
The womans head hung hclplessly over
his shoulder, and her arm dropped along
her side, limp and useless.
She was not dead, but so near it that an
hour or two more lying out there in the
street, would have finished for her all the
sorrows of earth.
Her clothes were very poor and thin |;
and her shawl though of good fabric, old
and threadbare. That he saw with the
first rays which fell on her from the street
lamp. But those rays showed him some
thing else; for, looking dawn, he saw what
had seemed like a cats eye in the dark
ness. 1t was sapphire ring of price.
She wore the ring on the second finger of
her left hand, and the bezel was turned
inwards to the palm of the hand.
Between the great value of the jewel
and the squalid garments, the contrast was
strange and striking.
Then the young man raised the head,
lying with closed eyes on his shoulder, and
saw that it was young; pale, almost corpse
like, and so thin and drawn that the cheek
bones stood out unnaturally-but it was
clearly young face. A strange face, too,
even in its dead power. A low, womanly
forehead, now half covered with mass Of
blonde hair, not without many threads of
Venice gold woven in it. Strong brows
above the hollows of the closed eyes, and
nose only saved from Delng Grecian by
slight indentation below the forehead, and
having piece, as it were, Clipped off the
end of it.
All this the young man saw in scant
three seconds of clock time; and In three
more he had flung his great cloak around
them both. gathered the woman closer in
his arms, and was trudging on with the
step Of one who has made up his mind,
and knows exactly what he means to do.
Without meeting Gend' d'arme or Ser
geant dc Vile; he reached the next street.
and minute after drew the cord of the
Sonnette, and passed through the Porter's
lodge of gloomy looking old hotel.
The concierge opening for him, rubbed
his eyes and gaped then opened them still
wider, as he perceived the burden he bore.