who was just then passing. "The owners are in the country, and the only servant that is usually left has taken advantage of their absence to pay a visit to his native place."

How grateful was this information to the poor child, who teared that the guardian to whose care she was consigned was dead.

"Can you tell me, my good woman," said she, "where is Madame de Neuillant's country-house?" "Not very far from this, my little madam; and if your legs are but as quick as your eyes, two short hours will take you there. You must get out of this street, and take the first turning to the right, then the fourth to the left, then go on till you come to a great square, then turn again to the left, then to the right, then-but I had better show you the way, for I doubt if you could find it."

"You give me new life," said the little girl, wiping away the drops with which terror had moistened her brow.

On they went together, till. on reaching the open country, the woman said, "You can now find the way by yourself; you have only to go straight on; if you walk pretty fast and do not loiter on the way you will be there in less than two hours. When you come to an iron railing and a grove of acacias, you are at your journey's end." And she then left the little traveller to go on her way alone.

Françoise had good legs and good courage, she went on briskly for about two hours, but her small weak limbs did not permit of her taking very long steps, so that at the end of that time she had not made much way.

"The cocks and hens of which you are in charge, I suppose," said Françoise.

"The very same!" answered the girl. "I am not surprised at their being stolen, if you leave them thus by themselves."

"Oh, at our age we must have a bit of play." "Does that gate lead into the château ?" demanded Françoise.

"It leads into the farm-yard," replied the little peasant. "From the farm-yard you go through a grove of acacias, which leads to the offices and then-"

"Oh, once there, I shall know what to do. Thank you, my child."

At that moment the little Creole perceived a pretty white hen that a dog was worrying, and had actually under his paws. She drove away the dog, and picked up the hen; and perceiving she was not hurt, but merely frightened, she caressed her, and, warming her in her little hands, she advanced towards the farm-yard.

"Poor little thing!" said she, as she kissed the hen; "you are a little one, timid and weak as I am; but do not be afraid, I will protect you, as those who are older than I will protect me."

Thus speaking as she went along, the little traveller amused herself by driving home the inmates of the poultry-yard, who were only waiting for the door to be opened for them; and having then gently laid her white hen on the branch of a tree, where she saw the rest of the hens picking, she passed on through a little gate, opening on the acacia-grove; but hardly had she advanced a few steps in the direction of the château, when a well-known voice, proceeding from the other The sight of the long straight road still extend-side of the trees, riveted her to the spot. ing so far before her, and the sun so low in the horizon, with the feeling of hunger such as it is only felt by the very young, drew a deep sigh from her; alas! it was easy to perceive that she was accustomed to careful tendence, to a loving eye upon her, and loving arms around her. The idea of stopping to procure some refreshment never occurred to her, she thought of but one thing, and that was, to reach her journey's end.

At last she perceived in the distance the iron railing; the very sight of it revived her, and caused her to redouble her speed: she almost forgot her fatigue.

"Where is the château of the Baroness de Neuillant?" said she, to the first person she met. It was a poor little girl, about her own age, but scantily clad, and weeping.

"I am just come away from it; I can stay no longer there, the lady is too cross. I was beaten yesterday for having let some hens be stolen; to-day two turkeys have been taken, and I am running away before it is found out." home, my mother never beats me,-never."

I will go

"Poor little thing!" said Françoise, slipping a piece of money into the hand of the little poultrygirl. "Pray do not go till you show me the château."

"It is not very difficult to find it; you can see it from this," replied the little peasant, console at the sight of the silver which was now shining in her brown sunburnt hand. "Do you see that great iron railing, by the side of which there is a little gate, with cocks and hens and turkeys in front of it?"

It was the voice of Madame Germain-Madame Germain, whom she had told that she was going to the Baroness de Neuillant, who knew where she was, as she had come herself, and yet had not told her, or rather had led her wrong, by bringing her to the empty hotel in the deserted street. All these thoughts flashed rapidly through the little head of Francoise, and she trembled, she knew not why.

Though the overshadowing trees rendered the darkness of the evening still greater, she made an effort to see the person who was with Madame Germain. By the richness of her attire and the authoritative tone in which she addressed her companion, who remained standing whilst she was seated, Francoise guessed she must be the Baroness de Neuillant. With all the impetuosity of her age and natural disposition, she would have sprung towards her, exclaiming, 'Here I am!' when some words that reached her ear suddenly checked the impulse.

CHAPTER III.

The baroness, with a moody and abstracted air, was listening to these words from Madame Germain :-"This child is born for misfortune, madame. Fair birth, fair life,' says the proverb; and Born unlucky, unlucky for the whole life,' say I; and I will go even further than that, madame-the unlucky bring ill-luck to those that harbor them. Now how was this little D'Aubigné born? In a prison at Niort, where her father was detained for debt, on the 27th of November, in the year 1635-it will be eight years in three

When the young creature recovered her con

well-lighted apartment. She recognized Madame Germain in the person who was busied about her, and in the tall stiff lady who was coldly looking on, the mistress of the acacia-grove, the Baroness de Neuillant.

"My aunt!" said the poor child, endeavoring to rise, and salute the baroness.

days more. I think I have her poor mother before me-Jeanne de Cardillac, of such a good fa-sciousness, she found herself in the middle of a mily at Bordeaux, with hardly sufficient to cover her poor child, and though that poor child had the honor of having as sponsors the Count Francois de la Rochefoucault and your daughter, the Countess Jeanne de Badeau, that has not broken the spell. Her infancy was passed in prison. From the prison at Niort she went to the Chateau Trompette at Bordeaux, and from thence she set out to America. On the passage she fell ill, and every one believing her to be dead, she was about to be thrown into the sea, when her mother asked to be allowed a last embrace. In this embrace she thought she perceived a slight breath of life in her daughter-so slight, indeed, that none but a mother could have perceived it; and the little one was saved. But it appears that Monsieur Constant d'Aubigné has not conducted his affairs in the new world a bit better than in the old, by his sending you his daughter to bring up."

"And how did you recognize her, Margaret?" demanded the baroness with the air of one awaking cut of a long dream.

"I have already had the honor of telling it twice to you, madame, but you have not, I believe, done me the honor of listening. You, doubtless, recollect, madame, a visit which you paid, about four years ago, to your brother M. d'Aubigné, at the Chateau Trompette, while he was detained there. You may remember a little scene which took place between the daughter of the porter of the chateau and Mademoiselle Francoise, then about four years old. The gaoler's daughter had just been paid some money, and mademoiselle was admiring the silver pieces. You would like very much to have some like this, but you are too poor,' said the little girl to her. 、 That is true,' said your niece; but I am a lady, and you are not.'

“Well, madame, it was by hearing in the office at Havre a little girl rebuke the clerk for calling her plain Francoise, and doing it with the air which belongs to your brother, and which you, too, have, madame, that I recognized the blood of the D'Aubigné family. It was on this account, merely, because she was your niece, madame, that I took care of her on the way; but once arrived at Niort, I wished to warn you, madam, lest the child might come upon you like a thunderclap, and I took the liberty of conducting her to your hotel, where, I suppose, she is knocking still. What determination have you come to, madame?" demanded Margaret, after a few moments' silence, the baroness having relapsed into her reverie.

“And what is there to decide upon ?" said the baroness, in a peevish and impatient tone. "She is my brother's daughter and my niece, so I cannot leave her in the street; but it would have been much better for him to have kept her at home than to lay such a charge upon me."

A gasping cry and a heavy fall attracted the attention of the baroness. She rose, and looking in the direction of the sound, uttered an exclamation of alarm on seeing a child stretched insensible on the ground.

"It is she, madame," said Margaret, approaching. "It is the little traveller-it is Mademoiselle d'Aubigné.”

"Since you are better now, mademoiselle," returned her aunt, coldly waving her hand, “you may go with Madame Germain, and she will give you anything you may want."

"Oh, my poor mother," exelaimed the little one, as she sorrowfully followed Madame Germain. "If you only knew the reception that awaited your child!"

CHAPTER IV.

Francoise was put to sleep in a very pretty little room. The next day, on rising, a milliner came to take her measure for some dresses; the shoemaker brought shoes; the hairdresser came to force her beautiful hair from its own natural curl. Breakfast was brought to her, but when she asked to see her aunt, the reply was that she was engaged.

"Fine dresses, nice shoes, everything but ca resses," said she, as she paced the long and for mal avenue. "Oh, how much better to be with mamma, where I had but little, but still I had caresses.'

In her walk she approached the poultry yard. Mechanically she opened the door, a pretty little hen flew to meet her, and saluted her with a joy. ful cackle. It was the little white hen which she had rescued from the dog. She recognized it by the feathers of the wings being ruffled. "Come," said she, taking it up, "you are lonely here, without a mother like me. Without any one to love you, and that is like me too. Well, I will love you, and you shall love me, and neither of us need be lonely any more. Come, my pretty white hen, you must love me deeply, I entreat of you, that is a good little hen." Such was the first introduction of the little Francoise to her aunt, who had received her as one whom it would be disgraceful to turn away, but whose arrival was otherwise a matter of perfect indifference. The poor child felt deeply her aunt's cold and utter neglect, and wept over it in secret. She had none but her poor hen to whom she could pour out her touching regrets, so touching, that had they been heard, some one must have had pity on her. But who were there to hear? No one listened to her -no one cared enough about her even to listen to her. The poor child finding in the yard the only beings who seemed to have any feeling for her-the only beings who welcomed her approach, spent the greater part of the day there; and the servants ended by abandoning to her the care of this part of the establishment.

"I began by reigning in a poultry-yard,” said she, a little later, when ruling all France.

The mind of a child exposed to misfortune, is like fruit unprotected by friendly foliage from the burning heat of the sun-it ripens before its time. Sad thoughts and sorrowful reflections had, with Francoise, taker. the place of the thoughtless gaiety of childhood.

"What a sullen, unsocial little thing!" was often said by those who visited the baroness. Alas! they ought rather to have said unhappy and proud, for the child already possessed all the pride that misfortune so often gives to the char-poor Francoise which affection would not have

Then, pressing in both her pretty hands those of the worthy woman from whom she had received so much kindness, she hastened after her aunt, and was quickly seated in the carriage, which immediately took the way to Niort.

was," she turned to her aunt, saying, with a cold-room, to the very spot where she stood leaning ness nearly approaching to her own, "I am ready on the back of her aunt's chair. She might have for you, madame." As she passed the porter's believed Madame de Neuillant was the object of lodge, "I have but little to offer you," said she, all this attention, but there was an expression of holding out her little parcel to her kind humble surprise in the gaze of curiosity, which made the friend, "but it is all that I have. Take it, I am young girl almost instinctively feel that it was yet mistress of it; take it, for to-morrow, nay, not her aunt but she herself who thus attracted even in an hour, I shall have nothing of my own, their notice. Was there anything about her not even myself." particularly odd or strange? Suddenly it flashed across her mind that it must be her dress, with its short waist and narrow skirts and its two-year old fashion. Gladly would she have sunk into the ground to avoid the gaze which, even with downcast eyes, she knew was fixed upon her, and which made her cheeks burn and her heart beat, but refuge she found none; and at length her confusion became so great, her blushes so painful, that she covered her face, in a paroxysmn of tears. But how she was mistaken! had thus drawn upon her every eye was not her short dress, nor her costume, a little passé; it was rather her modest beauty-a beauty enhanced by her own perfect unconsciousness of it. It was rather that timid embarassment, that shrinking bashfulness, which is such a charm in early youth. Even her tears, which stamped her as artless as she was beautiful, seemed but a grace the more.

CHAPTER V.

Everything turned out just as Mademoiselle d'Aubigné had foreseen; her days passed slowly and sorrowfully away, alone in a house where a word of love never came to revive the young spirit, bent down and withered by the chill blast of misfortune. She shuddered as she thought of the many years that must thus pass before she should grow old and rejoin her mother in heaven. A circumstance, apparently most trivial, changed the entire destiny of the young girl.

Madame de Neuillant went every year to Paris, and made a point of never missing Scarron's soirées. He was a comic author, an old infirm bachelor, but so cheerful, so agreeable, so witty, that he drew around him the best society of Paris. Madame de Sevigné, Mademoiselle de Scuderi, the Coulenges, the d'Albrets, the Saint Livremonts-in fact, we may say all that were distinguished either in the court or the city. One day, as if for the first time waking to the perception that her niece was grown both tall and beautiful, Madame de Neuillant suddenly took it into her head that she should acoompany her.

The young girl's heart thrilled as if with the presentiment of some great danger, and it was trembling she went to make her toilet. It was two years since Françoise had returned to her aunt's. At that time her wardrobe had been fully supplied, but had not since then been renewed, and Mademoiselle d'Aubigné who, from fourteen to sixteen, had grown amazingly, found, when she went to choose a dress, that the skirts and waists were much too short. What was to be done? There was no time to remedy the mishap, even if she had the means at command Françoise consoled herself with the thought that her utter insignificance would efficiently screen her from any notice in such a circle. She dressed herself therefore without any great anxiety as to her toilet, and soon seated in her aunt's carriage, she was rolling on to the house of M. de Scarron, and certainly thinking more of what she was to see than of exhibiting her own little person, accustomed as she had hitherto been to little notice being taken of her. They enter: the lights, the movement, the splendid dresses, the brilliant yet easy tone of conversation, touching upon every subject without exhausting any-all this confused Mademoiselle d'Aubigné, nay, actually bewildered hero, that for the first few moments she scarcely knew what was passing around her. But when, these first few moments over, she ventured to raise her eyes and look around she was terrified on perceiving all eyes directed to one part of the

What

Scarron, surprised at this e notion, inquired who the pretty young girl was who shed tears because she was looked at. He was told that it was Mademoiselle d'Aubigné; that she was poor, and not very happy with her aunt. He was delighted with the cause of the tears he had seen her shed, and he felt an irresistible desire to rescue the young creature from a life that scarcely deserved the name, to which this poor hot-house plant could never be inured. He offered his name and hand.

The short dress thus became the prelude to the elevation of Mademoiselle d'Aubigné; for as Madame Scarron, she found herself in a circle capable of appreciating her, and in which she might desplay all her rich stores of mind and all the charms of her conversation. She was so full of anecdote, and related so agreeably, that one day, at a great dinner given in her own house, a servant whispered to her, "A story, madam; there is a roast wanting to-day."

And no one perceived the absence of the dish. Good, gentle, and pious, Madame Scarron soothed the last hours of her husband, who died blessing her, leaving her a widow and poor at twenty-six years of age. Her poverty being no secret, Madame de Richelieu offered her apartments in her hotel; but her natural independence of character would not allow of her accepting them; she preferred having again recourse to her needle, which, as she was a clever workwoman, furnished her with at least the necessaries of life.

The widow of Scarron affords another proof that true talent can never remain wholly concealed. She was sought for in her humble asylum to bring up the children of Louis XIV., who, as some little recompense for her assiduous cares, settled upon her the Chateau de Maintenon, and the right to assume the title of countess, by which he himself was the first to salute her.

The monarch knew how to appreciate the treasures of knowledge and the depth of tender feelings possessed by this charming woman. When he became a widower, not being able openly to

offer the title of Queen, or to share the throne of France with the widow of Scarron, he married her privately. She was then just entering her forty-third year.

Madame de Maintenon founded St. Cyr, that admirable institution for young girls, to which she retired on the death of the king, which took place the 1st of September, 1705, and where she remained happy and beloved to the close of her life. She died calmly and peacefully at the age of eighty-three, on the 17th of April, 1719.

Madame de Maintenon was one of the greatest examples of the vicissitudes of human life. Twice was she reduced to support herself by the labour of her hands; and she owed her elevation

to her talents and her virtues.

MY FOLLY.

it; which was, to make long walks succeed the morning's book-work; nor were they always companionless. Amongst other French acquaintances, I had contracted an intimacy with a Dr. Lemaire, a young medical man, who had lately established himselt in the town, and who was fast rising into good practice. He spoke no English, and could only comprehend a few words of that language; which was all the more fortunate for my improvement. He was well read, full of unhackneyed information; several years' service in Algeria had rendered hin singularly free from prejudice. We got on exceedingly well together without exactly knowing why or wherefore.

One bright Monday afternoon at the end of June, he called to say that he was going to visit a patient in the marshes close by; would I was an only child, and lost my parents in I like to accompany him? I gladly consented. early youth. My principal guardian was a We were soon outside the walls of the town. neighboring squire-a friend of the family- A discussion respecting the merits of Richa 'good sort of man,' who never did any harm ard's Moeurs Arabes beguiled our way along and who was much too indolent to do any the footpath through the rising cornfields and good. He thought that he would be perfect the blossoming beans; a debate on the beauly fulfiling his duty if he turned me off his ties of Nodier's novels led us down from the hands when I arrived at the age of twenty-arable upland, by a grass-grown road, flanked one, sound in wind and limb, and with the on each side by broad ditches, wherein floatsame amount of renta! to receive as I had oned snowy lilies and shining patches of dark the day when my father died. During my green foliage. For indescribable beauty, and pupilage, I shaped my own course pretty near-multitude both of animal, vegetable, and inly as I liked. From the public school I went sect life, you must betake yourself in early to Cambridge, and was entered as a fellow summer to the wide spread marsh. There commoner; but having no need of a profes- bloom the loveliest and the most fragile flowsion to support me, I only remained there two ers-there glance the most brightly-gilded or three terms, and did not wait long enough flies-there dart the resplendent reptile and to take any degree. It struck me that the the silvery fish. The song of birds amongst modern languages and modern politics would the reeds soon interrupted our literary gossip. be more serviceable in after life than a super- Butterflies diverted our thoughts, and made abundant knowledge of Latin, Greek, and the us feel like a couple of children. The air was differential calculus. The conversations which perfumed by the scent of mint crushed beI often had in our Combination-room with neath our tread. We crossed two or three those fellows of our college who had travelled wooden bridges; then a single rough-hewed on the continent, confirmed me in the idea.beam; were obliged to walk carefully, in InI threw aside my tasseled cap, and my gold-dian file, over black boggy ground, which laced gown, communicated the project to my trembled beneath us, and only made passable guardian, who consented to it because it gave by a slight stratum of sticks and straw thrown him no trouble, arranged the mode of receiv-over its surface. ing my allowance, and soon was steaming across the channel to France.

"We are going," said my companion, "to a place which is called the English Folly. It After an excursive trip of discovery, I de- once belonged to a compatriot of yours, who termined to settle for a year or two in one of seems to have made use of it as a country the northern departments, in a town which box for fishing and wild-duck shooting. My possessed a good public library, and the means patient, old Father Boisson, whom I guess to of easy communication with England. The be past hope, somehow obtained possession of neighborhood also furnished capital fishing it, and it now will fall to the inheritance of and shooting, besides other out door pleasures his only child André, the son. Here we are, to which I had been accustomed at home. I We have only to cross this narrow plank, engaged a French master, studied with re- which serves as a drawbridge entrance. You spectable assiduity, and had the satisfaction of will come too? The people will like to see discovering, at the end of a month or two, you." that I was leading a rational, independent and economical life.

From the very first week of my residing abroad, I always retained one Cambridge hab

"No," I replied; "I will amuse myself till you have finished your visit, with watching the proceedings of those workmen yonder."

He disappeared behind the corner of the