the mirrors on his way out.

“I devote you,” said this person, stopping at the last door on his

way, and turning in the direction of the sanctuary, “to the Devil!”

With that, he shook the snuff from his fingers as if he had

shaken the dust from his feet, and quietly walked downstairs.

He was a man of about sixty, handsomely dressed, haughty in

manner, and with a face like a fine mask. A face of a transparent

paleness; every feature in it clearly defined; one set expression on

it. The nose, beautifully formed otherwise, was very slightly

pinched at the top of each nostril. In those two compressions, or

dints, the only little change that the face ever showed, resided.

They persisted in changing colour sometimes, and they would be

occasionally dilated and contracted by something like a faint

pulsation: then, they gave a look of treachery, and cruelty, to the

whole countenance. Examined with attention, its capacity of

helping such a look was to be found in the line of the mouth, and

the lines of the orbits of the eyes, being much too horizontal and

thin; still, in the effect the face made, it was a handsome face, and

a remarkable one.

Its owner went downstairs into the courtyard, got into his

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carriage, and drove away. Not many people had talked with him at

the reception; he had stood in a lit