Chapter V (3)

The Opera's over by one,
Lady Jersey's grows stupid at two;
I'll dance just one waltz, and have done,
Then be off, on the pony, for Kew!
My boat holds a cloak--a guitar,
And it waits by that dark bridge for me:
And I'll row, by the light of one star,
Love's own, to the old tower, by three!

I'll bring you that sweet canzonette,
That we practiced together last year;
And my own little miniature set
Round with emeralds--tis _such_ a dear!
You promised you'd love me as long
As your heart felt me close to it, there;
And, dear one! for that and the song,
_Won't_ you give me the locket of hair?

Farewell, sweet! be not in a fright,
Should your grandmamma bid you beware
Of a youth, who was murdered one night,
And whose ghost haunts the dark waters there:
For _you_ know, ever since his decease,
Of a harmless young ghost that's allow'd
To go, by the River Police,
Serenading about in his shroud!

[From the Dublin University Magazine.]

THE MYSTIC VIAL: OR, THE LAST DEMOISELLE DE CHARREBOURG.

I.--THE GAME OF BOWLS.

More than a century ago--we know not whether the revolution has left a vestige of it--there stood an old chateau, backed by an ancient and funereal forest, and approached through an interminable straight avenue of frowning timber, somewhere about fifteen leagues from Paris, and visible from the great high road to Rouen.

The appliances of comfort had once been collected around it upon a princely scale; extensive vineyards, a perfect wood of fruit-trees, fish-ponds, mills, still remained, and a vast park, abounding with cover for all manner of game, stretched away almost as far as the eye could reach.

But the whole of this palatial residence was now in a state of decay and melancholy neglect. A dilapidated and half-tenanted village, the feudal dependency of the seignorial domain, seemed to have sunk with the fortunes of its haughty protector. The steep roofs of the Chateau de Charrebourg and its flanking towers, with their tall conical caps, were mournfully visible in the sun among the rich foliage that filled the blue hazy distance, and seemed to overlook with a sullen melancholy the village of Charrebourg that was decaying beneath it.

The Visconte de Charrebourg, the last of a long line of ancient seigneurs, was still living, and though not under the ancestral roof of his chateau, within sight of its progressive ruin, and what was harder still to bear, of its profanation; for his creditors used it as a storehouse for the produce of the estate, which he thus saw collected and eventually carted away by strangers, without the power of so much as tasting a glass of its wine or arresting a single grain of its wheat himself. And to say the truth, he often wanted a pint of the one and a measure or two of the other badly enough.

Let us now see for ourselves something of his circumstances a little more exactly. The Visconte was now about seventy, in the enjoyment of tolerable health, and of a pension of nine hundred francs (L36) per annum, paid by the Crown. His creditors permitted him to occupy, besides, a queer little domicile, little better than a cottage, which stood just under a wooded hillock in the vast wild park. To this were attached two or three Lilliputian paddocks, scarcely exceeding an English acre altogether. Part of it, before the door, a scanty bit we allow, was laid a little parterre of flowers, and behind the dwelling was a small bowling-green surrounded by cherry-trees. The rest was cultivated chiefly for the necessities of the family. In addition to these concessions his creditors permitted him to shoot rabbits and catch perch for the use of his household, and that household consisted of three individuals--the Visconte himself, his daughter Lucille (scarcely seventeen years of age), and Dame Marguerite, in better times her nurse--now cook, housemaid, and all the rest.

Contrast with all this what he had once been, the wealthy Lord of Charrebourg, the husband of a rich and noble wife, one of the most splendid among the satellites of a splendid court. He had married rather late, and as his reverses had followed that event in point of time, it was his wont to attribute his misfortunes to the extravagance of his dear and sainted helpmate, "who never could resist play and jewelry." The worthy Visconte chose to forget how much of his fortune he had himself poured into the laps of mistresses, and squandered among the harpies of the gaming-table. The result however was indisputable, by whatever means it had been arrived at, the Visconte was absolutely beggared.

Neither had he been very fortunate in his family. Two sons, who, together with Lucille, had been the fruit of his marriage, had both fallen, one in a duel, the other in a madcap adventure in Naples.

And thus of course ended any hope of seeing his fortunes even moderately reconstructed.

We must come now to the lonely dwelling which serves all that is left of the family of Charrebourg for a palace. It is about the hour of five o'clock in the afternoon of a summer's day. Dame Marguerite has already her preparations for supper in the kitchen. The Visconte has gone to the warren to shoot rabbits for to-morrow's dinner. Two village lads, who take a pleasure in obliging poor old Marguerite--of course neither ever thinks of Lucille--have just arrived at the kitchen door. Gabriel has brought fresh spring water, which, from love of the old cook, he carries to the cottage regularly every morning and evening. Jacque has brought mulberries for "the family," from a like motive. The old woman has pronounced Jacque's mulberries admirable; and with a smile tapped Gabriel on the smooth brown cheek, and called him her pretty little water carrier. They loiter there as long as they can; neither much likes the other; each understands what his rival is about perfectly well; neither chooses to go while the other remains.

Jacque, sooth to say, is not very well favored, sallow, flat-faced, with lank black hair, small, black, cunning eyes, and a wide mouth; he has a broad square figure, and a saucy swagger. Gabriel is a slender lad, with brown curls about his shoulders, ruddy brown face, and altogether good-looking. These two rivals, you would say, were very unequally matched.

Poor Gabriel! he has made knots to his knees of salmon-color and blue, the hues of the Charrebourg livery. It is by the mute eloquence of such traits of devotion that his passion humbly pleads. He wishes to belong to her. When first he appears before her in these tell-tale ribbons, the guilty knees that wear them tremble beneath him. He thinks that now she must indeed understand him--that the murder will out at last. But, alas! she, and all the stupid world beside, see nothing in them but some draggled ribbons. He might as well have worn buckles--nay, _better_; for he suspects that cursed Jacque understands them. But in this, indeed, he wrongs him; the mystery of the ribbons is comprehended by himself alone.

He and Jacque passed round the corner of the quaint little cottage; they were crossing the bowling-green.

"And so," sighed poor Gabriel, "I shall not see her to-day."

"Hey! Gabriel! Jacque! has good Marguerite done with you?--then play a game of bowls together to amuse me."

The silvery voice that spoke these words came from the coral lips of Lucille. Through the open casement, clustered round with wreaths of vine in the transparent shade, she was looking out like a portrait of Flora in a bowering frame of foliage. Could anything be prettier?

Gabriel's heart beat so fast that he could hardly stammer forth a dutiful answer; he could scarcely see the bowls. The beautiful face among the vine-leaves seemed everywhere.

It would have been worth one's while to look at that game of bowls. There was something in the scene at once comical and melancholy. Jacque was cool, but very clumsy. Gabriel, a better player, but all bewildered, agitated, trembling. While the little daughter of nobility, in drugget petticoat, her arms resting on the window-sill, looked out upon the combatants with such an air of unaffected and immense superiority as the queen of beauty in the gallery of a tilting-yard might wear while she watched the feats of humble yeomen and villein archers. Sometimes leaning forward with a grave and haughty interest; sometimes again showing her teeth, like little coronels of pearl, in ringing laughter, in its very unrestrainedness as haughty as her gravity. The spirit of the noblesse, along with its blood, was undoubtedly under that slender drugget bodice. Small suspicion had that commanding little damsel that the bipeds who were amusing her with their blunders were playing for love of her. Audacity like that was not indeed to be contemplated.

"Well, Gabriel has won, and I am glad of it, for I think he is the better lad of the two," she said, with the prettiest dogmatism conceivable. "What shall we give you, Gabriel, now that you have won the game? let me see."

"Nothing, Mademoiselle--nothing, I entreat," faltered poor Gabriel, trembling in a delightful panic.

"Well, but you are hot and tired, and have won the game beside. Marguerite shall give you some pears and a piece of bread."

"I wish nothing, Mademoiselle," said poor Gabriel, with a melancholy gush of courage, "but to die in your service."

"Say you so?" she replied, with one of those provokingly unembarrassed smiles of good-nature which your true lovers find far more killing than the cruelest frown; "it is the speech of a good villager of Charrebourg. Well, then, you shall have them another time."

"But, as your excellence is so good as to observe, I have won the game," said Gabriel, reassured by the sound of his own voice, "and to say I should have something as--as a token of victory, I would ask, if Mademoiselle will permit, for my poor old aunt at home, who is so very fond of those flowers, just one of the white roses which Mademoiselle has in her hand; it will give her so much pleasure."

"The poor old woman! Surely you may pluck some fresh from the bush; but tell Marguerite, or she will be vexed."

"But, Mademoiselle, pardon me, I have not time: one is enough, and I think there are none so fine upon the tree as that; besides, I know she would like it better for having been in Mademoiselle's hand."

"Then let her have it by all means," said Lucille; and so saying, she placed the flower in Gabriel's trembling fingers. Had he yielded to his impulse, he would have received it kneeling. He was intoxicated with adoration and pride; he felt as if at that moment he was the sultan of the universe, but her slave.

The unconscious author of all this tumult meanwhile had left the window. The rivals were _tete-a-tete_ upon the stage of their recent contest. Jacque stood with his hand in his breast, eyeing Gabriel with a sullen sneer. _He_ held the precious rose in his hand, and still gazed at the vacant window.

"And so your aunt loves a white rose better than a slice of bread?" ejaculated Jacque. "Heaven! what a lie--ha, ha, ha!"

"Well, I won the game and I won the rose," said Gabriel, tranquilly. "I can't wonder you are a little vexed."

"Vexed?--bah! I thought she would have offered you a piece of money," retorted Jacque; "and if she _had_, I venture to say we should have heard very little about that nice old aunt with the _penchant_ for white roses."

"I'm not sordid, Jacque," retorted his rival; "and I did not want to put Mademoiselle to any trouble."

"How she laughed at you, Gabriel, your clumsiness and your ridiculous grimaces; but then you do make--ha, ha, ha!--such very comical faces while the bowls are rolling, I could not blame her."

"She laughed more at you than at me," retorted Gabriel, evidently nettled. "_You_ talk of clumsiness and grimaces--upon my faith, a pretty notion."

"Tut, man, you must have been deaf. You amused her so with your writhing, and ogling, and grinning, and sticking your tongue first in this cheek and then in that, according as the bowl rolled to one side or the other, that she laughed till the very tears came; and after all that, forsooth, she wanted to feed you like a pig on rotten pears; and then--ha, ha, ha!--the airs, the command, the magnificence. Ah, la! it was enough to make a cow laugh."

"You are spited and jealous; but don't dare to speak disrespectfully of Mademoiselle in my presence, sirrah," said Gabriel, fiercely.

"Sirrah me no sirrahs," cried Jacque giving way at last to an irrepressible explosion of rage and jealousy. "I'll say what I think, and call things by their names. You're an ass, I tell you--an ass; and as for her, she's a saucy, impertinent little minx, and you and she, and your precious white rose, may go in a bunch to the devil together."

And so saying, he dealt a blow with his hat at the precious relic. A quick movement of Gabriel's, however, arrested the unspeakable sacrilege. In an instant Jacque was half frightened at his own audacity; for he knew of old that in some matters Gabriel was not to be trifled with, and more than made up in spirit for his disparity in strength. Snatching up a piece of fire-wood in one hand, and with the other holding the sacred flower behind him, Gabriel rushed at the miscreant Jacque, who, making a hideous grimace and a gesture of ridicule, did not choose to await the assault, but jumped over the low fence, and ran like a Paynim coward before a crusader of old. The stick flew whizzing by his ear. Gabriel, it was plain, was in earnest; so down the woody slope toward the stream the chase swept headlong; Jacque exerting his utmost speed, and Gabriel hurling stones, clods, and curses after him. When, however, he had reached the brook, it was plain the fugitive had distanced him. Pursuing his retreat with shouts of defiance, he here halted, hot, dusty, and breathless, inflamed with holy rage and chivalric love, like a Paladin after a victory.

Jacque meanwhile pursued his retreat at a slackened pace, and now and then throwing a glance behind him.

"The fiend catch him!" he prayed. "I'll break his bird-traps and smash his nets, and I'll get my big cousin, the blacksmith, to drub him to a jelly."

But Gabriel was happy: he was sitting under a bush, lulled by the trickling of the stream, and alone with his visions and his rose.

The noble demoiselle in the mean time took her little basket, intending to go into the wood and gather some wild strawberries, which the old Visconte liked; and as she never took a walk without first saluting her dear old Marguerite--

"Adieu, ma bonne petite maman," she said, running up to that lean and mahogany-complexioned dame, and kissing her heartily on both cheeks; "I am going to pick strawberries."

"Ah, ma chere mignonne, I wish I could again see the time when the lackeys in the Charrebourg blue and salmon, and covered all over with silver lace, would have marched behind Mademoiselle whenever she walked into the park. Parbleu, that was magnificence!"

"Eh bien, nurse," said the little lady, decisively and gravely, "we shall have all that again."

"I hope so, my little pet--why not?" she replied, with a dreary shrug, as she prepared to skewer one of the eternal rabbits.

"Ay, why not?" repeated the demoiselle, serenely. "You tell me, nurse, that I am beautiful, and I think I am."

"Beautiful--indeed you are, my little princess," she replied, turning from the rabbit, and smiling upon the pretty questioner until her five thin fangs were all revealed. "They said your mother was the greatest beauty at court; but, _ma foi_! she was never like you."

"Well, then, if that be true, some great man will surely fall in love with me, you know, and I will marry none that is not richer than ever my father, the Visconte, was--rely upon that, good Marguerite."

"Well, my little pet, bear that in mind, and don't allow any one to steal your heart away, unless you know him to be worthy."

At these words Lucille blushed--and what a brilliant vermilion--averted her eyes for a moment, and then looked full in her old nurse's face.

"Why do you say that, Marguerite?"

"Because I feel it, my pretty little child," she replied.

"No, no, no, no," cried Lucille, still with a heightened color, and looking with her fine eyes full into the dim optics of the old woman; "you had some reason for saying that--you know you had!"

"By my word of honor, no," retorted the old woman, in her turn surprised--"no, my dear; but what is the matter--why do you blush so?"

"Well, I shall return in about an hour," said Lucille, abstractedly, and not heeding the question; and then with a gay air she tripped singing from the door, and so went gaily down the bosky slope to the edge of the wood.

II.--THE GENTLEMAN IN BLUE AND SILVER.

Lucille had no sooner got among the mossy roots of the trees, than her sylvan task commenced, and the fragrant crimson berries began to fill her basket. Her little head was very busy with all manner of marvelous projects; but this phantasmagoria was not gloomy; on the contrary, it was gorgeous and pleasant; for the transparent green shadow of the branches and the mellow singing of the birds toned her daydreams with their influence.

In the midst of those airy pageants she was interrupted by a substantial and by no means unprepossessing reality. A gentleman of graceful form and mien, dressed in a suit of sky-blue and silver, with a fowling-piece in his hand, and followed closely by a bare-legged rustic, carrying a rude staff and a well-stored game-bag, suddenly emerged from behind a mass of underwood close by. It was plain that he and Lucille were acquainted, for he instantly stopped, signing to his attendant to pursue his way, and raising his three-cornered hat, bowed as the last century only could bow, with an inclination that was at once the expression of chivalry and ease. His features were singularly handsome, but almost too delicate for his sex, pale, and with a certain dash of melancholy in their noble intelligence.

"You here, Monsieur Dubois!" exclaimed Lucille, in a tone that a little faltered, and with a blush that made her doubly beautiful. "What strange chance has conducted you to this spot?"

"My kind star--my genius--my good angel, who thus procures me the honor of beholding Mademoiselle de Charrebourg--an honor than which fortune has none dearer to me--no--none _half_ so prized."

"These are phrases, sir."

"Yes; phrases that expound my heart. I beseech you bring them to the test."

"Well, then," she said, gravely, "let us see. Kneel down and pick the strawberries that grow upon this bank; they are for the Visconte de Charrebourg."

"I am too grateful to be employed."

"You are much older, Monsieur, than I."

"No doubt."

"And have seen more of the world, too."

"True, Mademoiselle," and he could not forbear smiling.

"Well, then, you ought not to have tried to meet me in the park so often as you did--or indeed at all--you know very well you ought not."

"But, Mademoiselle, what harm can the most ill-natured of human critics discover----"

"Oh, but listen to me. I begin to fear I have been wrong in talking to you as I have done; and if so, you ought not to have presented yourself to me as you did. I have reflected on it since. In fact, I don't know who you are, Monsieur Dubois. The Charrebourgs do not use to make companions of everybody; and you may be a roturier, for anything I can tell."

Monsieur Dubois smiled again.

"I see you laugh because we are poor," she said, with a heightened color and a flashing glance.

"Mademoiselle misunderstands me. I am incapable of that. There is no point at which ridicule can approach the family of Charrebourg."

"That is true, sir," she said, haughtily; and she added, "and on that account I need not inquire wherefore people smile. But this seems plain to me--that I have done very wrong in conversing alone with a gentleman of whom I know nothing beyond his name. You must think so yourself, though you will not say it; and as you profess your willingness to oblige me, I have only to ask that all these foolish conversations may be quite forgotten between us. And now the _petit pannier_ is filled, and it is time that I should return. Good evening, Monsieur Dubois--farewell."

"This is scarcely a kind farewell, considering that we have been good friends, Mademoiselle de Charrebourg, for so long."

"Good friends--yes--for a long time; but you know," she continued, with a sad, wise shake of her pretty head, "I ought not to allow gentlemen whom I chance to meet here to be my friends--is it not so? This has only struck me recently, Monsieur Dubois; and I am sure you used to think me very strange. But I have no one to advise me; I have no mother--she is dead; and the Visconte seldom speaks to me; and so I fear I often do strange things without intending; and--and I have told you all this, because I should be sorry you thought ill of me, Monsieur Dubois."

She dropped her eyes for a moment to the ground, with an expression at once very serious and regretful.

"Then am I condemned to be henceforward a stranger to _dear_ Mademoiselle de Charrebourg?"

"I have told you all my thoughts, Monsieur Dubois," she answered, in a tone whose melancholy made it nearly as tender as his own. But, perhaps, some idea crossed her mind that piqued her pride; for suddenly recollecting herself, she added, in a tone it may be a little more abrupt and haughty than her usual manner--

"And so, Monsieur Dubois, once for all, good evening. You will need to make haste to overtake your peasant attendant; and as for me, I must run home now--adieu."

Dubois followed her hesitatingly a step or two, but stopped short. A slight flush of excitement--it might be of mortification--hovered on his usually pale cheek. It subsided, however, and a sudden and more tender character inspired his gaze, as he watched her receding figure, and followed its disappearance with a deep sigh.

But Monsieur Dubois had not done with surprises.

"Holloa! sir--a word with you," shouted an imperious voice, rendered more harsh by the peculiar huskiness of age.

Dubois turned, and beheld a figure, which penetrated him with no small astonishment, advancing toward him with furious strides. We shall endeavor to describe it.

It was that of a very tall, old man, lank and upright, with snow-white mustaches, beard, and eyebrows, all in a shaggy and neglected state. He wore an old coat of dark-gray serge, gathered at the waist by a belt of undressed leather, and a pair of gaiters, of the same material, reached fully to his knees. From his left hand dangled three rabbits, tied together by the feet, and in his right he grasped the butt of his antiquated fowling-piece, which rested upon his shoulder. This latter equipment, along with a tall cap of rabbit skins, which crowned his head, gave him a singular resemblance to the old prints of Robinson Crusoe; and as if the _tout ensemble_ was not grotesque enough without such an appendage, a singularly tall hound, apparently as old and feeble, as lank and as gray as his master, very much incommoded by the rapidity of his pace, hobbled behind him. A string scarce two yards long, knotted to his master's belt, was tied to the old collar, once plated with silver, that encircled his neck, and upon which a close scrutiny might have still deciphered the armorial bearings of the Charrebourgs.

There was a certain ludicrous sympathy between the superannuated hound and his master. While the old man confronted the stranger, erect as Don Quixote, and glaring upon him in silent fury, as though his eyeballs would leap from their sockets, the decrepit dog raised his bloodshot, cowering eyes upon the self-same object, and showing the stumps of his few remaining fangs, approached him with a long, low growl, like distant thunder. The man and his dog understood one another perfectly. Conscious, however, that there might possibly be some vein of ridicule in this manifest harmony of sentiment, he bestowed a curse and a kick upon the brute, which sent it screeching behind him.

"It seems, sir, that you have made the acquaintance of Mademoiselle de Charrebourg?" he demanded, in a tone scarcely less discordant than those of his canine attendant.

"Sir, I don't mean to consult you upon the subject."

Robinson Crusoe hitched his gun, as though he was about to "let fly" at the invader of his solitudes.

"I demand your name, sir."

"And _I_ don't mean to give it."

"But give it you shall, sir, by ----."

"It is plain you understand catching rabbits and dressing their skins better than conversing with gentlemen," said the stranger, as with a supercilious smile he turned away.

"Stay, sir," cried the old gentleman, peremptorily, "or I shall slip my dog upon you."

"If you do, I'll shoot him."

"You have insulted me, sir. You wear a _couteau de chasse_--so do I. Destiny condemns the Visconte de Charrebourg to calamity, but not to insult. Draw your sword."

"The Visconte de Charrebourg!" echoed Dubois, in amazement.

"Yes, sir--the Visconte de Charrebourg, who will not pocket an affront because he happens to have lost his revenues."

Who would have thought that any process could possibly have metamorphosed the gay and magnificent courtier, of whose splendid extravagance Dubois had heard so many traditions, into this grotesque old savage.

"There are some houses, and foremost among the number that of Charrebourg," said the young man, with marked deference, raising his hat, "which no loss of revenue can possibly degrade, and which, associated with the early glories of France, gain but a profounder title to our respect, when their annals and descent are consecrated by the nobility of suffering."

Nebuchadnezzar smiled.

"I entreat that Monsieur le Visconte will pardon what has passed under a total ignorance of his presence."

The Visconte bowed, and resumed, gravely but more placidly--

"I must then return to my question, and ask your name."

"I am called Dubois, sir."

"Dubois! hum! I don't recollect, Monsieur Dubois, that I ever had the honor of being acquainted with your family."

"Possibly not, sir."

"However, Monsieur Dubois, you appear to be a gentleman, and I ask you, as the father of the noble young lady who has just left you, whether you have established with her any understanding such as I ought not to approve--in short, any understanding whatsoever?"

"None whatever, on the honor of a gentleman. I introduced myself to Mademoiselle de Charrebourg, but she has desired that our acquaintance shall cease, and _her_ resolution upon the subject is, of course, decisive. On the faith of a gentleman, you have there the entire truth frankly stated."

"Well, Monsieur Dubois, I believe you," said the Visconte, after a steady gaze of a few seconds; "and I have to add a request, which is this--that, unless through me, the acquaintance may never be sought to be renewed. Farewell, sir. Come along, Jonquil!" he added, with an admonition of his foot, addressed to the ugly old brute who had laid himself down. And so, with a mutual obeisance, stiff and profound, Monsieur Dubois and the Visconte de Charrebourg departed upon their several ways.

When the old Visconte entered his castle, he threw the three rabbits on the table before Marguerite, hung his fusil uncleaned upon the wall, released his limping dog, and stalked past Lucille, who was in the passage, with a stony aspect, and in total silence. This, however, was his habit, and he pursued his awful way into his little room of state, where seated upon his high-backed, clumsy throne of deal, with his rabbit-skin tiara on his head, he espied a letter, with a huge seal, addressed to him, lying on his homely table.

"Ha! hum. From M. Le Prun. The ostentation of the Fermier-General! the vulgarity of the bourgeois, even in a letter!"

Alone as he was, the Visconte affected a sneer of tranquil superiority; but his hand trembled as he took the packet and broke the seal. Its contents were evidently satisfactory: the old man elevated his eyebrows as he read, sniffed twice or thrice, and then yielded to a smile of irrepressible self-complacency.

"So it will give him inexpressible pleasure, will it, to consult my wishes. Should he become the purchaser of the Charrebourg estate, he entreats--ay, that is the word--that I will not do him the injustice to suppose him capable of disturbing me in the possession of my present residence." The Visconte measured the distance between the tiled floor and the ceiling, with a bitter glance, and said, "So our bourgeois-gentilhomme will permit the Visconte de Charrebourg--ha, ha--to live in this stinking hovel for the few years that remain to him; but, _par bleu_, that is fortune's doing, not his. I ought not to blame this poor bourgeois--he is only doing what I asked him. He will also allow me whatever '_privileges_' I have hitherto enjoyed--that of killing roach in the old moat and rabbits in the warren; scarce worth the powder and shot I spend on them. _Eh, bien!_ after all what more have I asked for? He is also most desirous to mark, in every way in his power, the profound respect he entertains for the Visconte de Charrebourg. How these fellows grimace and caricature when they attempt to make a compliment! but he can't help that, and he is trying to be civil. And, see, here is a postscript I omitted to read."

He readjusted his spectacles. It was thus conceived:--

"P.S.--I trust the Visconte de Charrebourg will permit me the honor of waiting upon him, to express in person my esteem and respect; and that he will also allow me to present my little niece to Mademoiselle de Charrebourg, as they are pretty nearly of the same age, and likely, moreover, to become neighbors."

"Yes," he said, pursuing a train of self-gratulation, suggested by this postscript; "it was a _coup_ of diplomacy worthy of Richelieu himself, the sending Lucille in person with my letter. The girl has beauty; its magic has drawn all these flowers and figures from the pen of that dry old schemer. Ay, who knows, she may have fortune before her; were the king to see her----"

But here he paused, and, with a slight shake of the head, muttered, "Apage sathanas!"

III.--THE FERMIER-GENERAL.

The Visconte ate his supper in solemn silence, which Lucille dared not interrupt, so that the meal was far from cheerful. Shortly after its conclusion, however, the old man announced in a few brief sentences, as much of the letter he had just received as in any wise concerned her to know.

"See _you_ and Marguerite to the preparations; let everything, at least, be neat. He knows, as all the world does, that I am miserably poor; and we can't make this place look less beggarly than it is; but we must make the best of it. What can one do with a pension of eight hundred francs--bah!"

The latter part of this speech was muttered in bitter abstraction.

"The pension is too small, sir."

He looked at her with something like a sneer.

"It is too small, sir, and ought to be increased."

"Who says so?"

"Marguerite has often said so, sir, and I believe it. If you will petition the king, he will give you something worthy of your rank."

"You are a pair of wiseheads, truly. It cost the exertions of powerful friends, while I still had some, to get that pittance; were I to move in the matter now, it is more like to lead to its curtailment than extension."

"Yes, but the king admires beauty, and I am beautiful," she said, with a blush that was at once the prettiest, the boldest, and yet the purest thing imaginable; "and I will present your petition myself."

Her father looked at her for a moment with a gaze of inquiring wonder, which changed into a faint, abstracted smile; but he rose abruptly from his seat with a sort of shrug, as if it were chill, and, muttering his favorite exorcism, "Apage sathanas!" walked with a flurried step up and down the room. His face was flushed, and there was something in its expression which forbade her hazarding another word.

It was not until nearly half an hour had elapsed that the Visconte suddenly exclaimed, as if not a second had interposed--

"Well, Lucille, it is not _quite_ impossible; but you need not mention it to Marguerite."

He then signed to her to leave him, intending, according to his wont, to find occupation for his solitary hours in the resources of his library. This library was contained in an old chest; consisted of some score of shabby volumes of all sizes, and was, in truth, a queer mixture. It comprised, among other tomes, a Latin Bible and a missal, in intimate proximity with two or three other volumes of that gay kind which even the Visconte de Charrebourg would have blushed and trembled to have seen in the hands of his child. It resembled thus the heterogeneous furniture of his own mind, with an incongruous ingredient of superinduced religion; but, on the whole, unpresentable and unclean. He took up the well-thumbed Vulgate, in which, of late years, he had read a good deal, but somehow, it did not interest him at that moment. He threw it back again, and suffered his fancy to run riot among schemes more exciting and, alas! less guiltless. His daughter's words had touched an evil chord in his heart--she had unwittingly uncaged the devil that lurked within him; and this guardian angel from the pit was playing, in truth, very ugly pranks with his ambitious imagination.

Lucille called old Marguerite to her bedroom, and there made the astonishing disclosure of the promised visit; but the old woman, though herself very fussy in consequence, perceived no corresponding excitement in her young mistress; on the contrary, she was sad and abstracted.

"Do you remember," said Lucille, after a long pause, "the story of the fair demoiselle of Alsace you used to tell me long ago? How true her lover was, and how bravely he fought through all the dangers of witchcraft and war to find her out again and wed her, although he was a noble knight, and she, as he believed, but a peasant's daughter. Marguerite, it is a pretty story. I wonder if gentlemen are as true of heart now?"

"Ay, my dear, why not? love is love always; just the same as it was of old is it now, and will be while the world wags."

And with this comforting assurance their conference ended.

The very next day came the visit of Monsieur Le Prun and his niece. The Fermier-General was old and ugly, there is no denying it; he had a shrewd, penetrating eye, moreover, and in the lines of his mouth were certain unmistakable indications of habitual command. When his face was in repose, indeed, its character was on the whole forbidding. But in repose it seldom was, for he smiled and grimaced with an industry that was amazing.

His niece was a pretty little fair-haired girl of sixteen, with something sad and even _funeste_ in her countenance. The fragile timidity of the little blonde contrasted well with the fire and energy that animated the handsome features of her new acquaintance. Julie St. Pierre, for that was her name, seemed just as unconscious of Lucille's deficient toilet as she was herself, and the two girls became, in the space of an hour's ramble among the brakes and bushes of the park, as intimate as if they had spent all their days together. Monsieur Le Prun, meanwhile, conversed affably with the Visconte, whom he seemed to take a pleasure in treating with a deference which secretly flattered alike his pride and his vanity. He told him, moreover, that the contract for the purchase of the Charrebourg estate was already completed, and pleased himself with projecting certain alterations in the Visconte's humble residence, which would certainly have made it a far more imposing piece of architecture than it ever had been. All his plans, however, were accompanied with so many submissions to the Visconte's superior taste, and so many solicitations of "permission," and so many delicate admissions of an ownership, which both parties knew to be imaginary, that the visitor appeared in the attitude rather of one suing for than conferring a favor. Add to all this that the Fermier-General had the good taste to leave his equipage at the park gate, and trudged on foot beside his little niece, who, in rustic fashion, was mounted on a donkey, to make his visit. No wonder, then, that when the Croesus and his little niece took their departure, they left upon the mind of the old Visconte an impression which (although, for the sake of consistency, he was still obliged to affect his airs of hauteur) was in the highest degree favorable.

The acquaintance thus commenced was not suffered to languish. Scarce a day passed without either a visit or a _billet_, and thus some five or six weeks passed.

Lucille and her new companion became more and more intimate; but there was one secret recorded in the innermost tablet of her heart which she was too proud to disclose even to her gentle friend. For a day--days--a week--a fortnight after her interview with Dubois, she lived in hope that every hour might present his handsome form at the cottage door to declare himself, and, with the Visconte's sanction, press his suit. Every morning broke with hope, every night brought disappointment with its chill and darkness, till hope expired, and feelings of bitterness, wounded pride, and passionate resentment succeeded. What galled her proud heart most was the fear that she had betrayed her fondness to him. To be forsaken was hard enough to bear, but to the desolation of such a loss the sting of humiliation superadded was terrible.

One day the rumble of coach-wheels was heard upon the narrow, broken road which wound by the Visconte's cottage. A magnificent equipage, glittering with gold and gorgeous colors, drawn by four noble horses worthy of Cinderella's state-coach, came rolling and rocking along the track. The heart of Lucille beat fast under her little bodice as she beheld its approach. The powdered servants were of course to open the carriage-door, and Dubois himself, attired in the robes of a prince, was to spring from within and throw himself passionately at her feet. In short, she felt that the denouement of the fairy tale was at hand.

The coach stopped--the door opened, and Monsieur Le Prun descended, and handed his little niece to the ground; Lucille wished him and Dubois both in the galleys.

He was more richly dressed than usual, more ceremonious, and if possible more gracious. He saluted Lucille, and after a word or two of commonplace courtesy, joined the old Visconte, and they shortly entered the old gentleman's chamber of audience together, and there remained for more than an hour. At the end of that time they emerged together, both a little excited as it seemed. The Fermier-General was flushed like a scarlet withered apple, and his black eyes glowed and flashed with an unusual agitation. The Visconte too was also flushed, and he carried his head a little back, with an unwonted air of reserve and importance.

The adieux were made with some little flurry, and the equipage swept away, leaving the spot where its magnificence had just been displayed as bleak and blank as the space on which the pageant of a phantasmagoria has been for a moment reflected.

The old servant of all work was charmed with this souvenir of better days. Monsieur Le Prun had risen immensely in her regard in consequence of the display she had just gloated upon. In the estimation of the devoted Marguerite he was more than a Midas. His very eye seemed to gild everything it fell upon as naturally as the sun radiates his yellow splendor. The blue velvet liveries, the gold-studded harness, the embossed and emblazoned coach, the stately beasts with their tails tied up in great bows of broad blue ribbons, with silver fringe, like an Arcadian beauty's chevelure, the reverential solemnity of the gorgeous lacqueys, the _tout ensemble_ in short, was overpowering and delightful.

"Well, child," said the Visconte, after he and Lucille had stood for a while in silence watching the retiring equipage, taking her hand in his at the same time, and leading her with a stately gravity along the narrow walk which environed the cottage, "Monsieur Le Prun, it must be admitted, has excellent taste; _par bleu_, his team would do honor to the royal stables. What a superb equipage! Happy the woman whom fortune will elect to share the splendor of which all that we have just seen is but as a sparkle from the furnace--fortunate she whom Monsieur Le Prun will make his wife."

He spoke with so much emotion, directed a look of such triumphant significance upon his daughter, and pressed her hand so hard, that on a sudden a stupendous conviction, at once horrible and dazzling, burst upon her.

"Monsieur!--for the love of God do you mean--do you mean----?" she said, and broke off abruptly.

"Yes, my dear Lucille," he returned with elation, "I _do_ mean to tell you that you--_you_ are that fortunate person. It is true that you can bring him no wealth, but he already possesses more of that than he knows how to apply. You can, however, bring him what few other women possess, an ancient lineage, an exquisite beauty, and the simplicity of an education in which the seeds of finesse and dissipation have not been sown, in short, the very attributes and qualifications which he most esteems--which he has long sought, and which in conversation he has found irresistible in you. Monsieur Le Prun has entreated me to lay his proposals at your feet, and you of course convey through me the gratitude with which you accept them."

Lucille was silent and pale; within her a war and chaos of emotions were struggling, like the tumult of the ocean.

"I felicitate you, my child," said the Visconte, kissing her throbbing forehead; "in you the fortunes of your family will be restored--come with me."

She accompanied him into the cottage; she was walking, as it were, in a wonderful dream; but amidst the confusion of her senses, her perplexity and irresolution, there was a dull sense of pain at her heart, there was a shadowy figure constantly before her; its presence agitated and reproached her, but she had little leisure to listen to the pleadings of a returning tenderness, even had they been likely to prevail with her ambitious heart. Her father rapidly sketched such a letter of complimentary acceptance as he conceived suitable to the occasion and the parties.

"Read that," he said, placing it before Lucille. "Well, that I think will answer. What say you, child?"

"Yes, sir," she replied with an effort; "it is true; he does me indeed great honor; and--and I accept him; and now, sir, I would wish to go and be for a while alone."

"Do so," said her father, again kissing her, for he felt a sort of gratitude toward her as the prime cause of all those comforts and luxuries, whose long despaired-of return he now beheld in immediate and certain prospect. Not heeding this unwonted exuberance of tenderness, she hurried to her little bed-room, and sat down upon the side of her bed.

At first she wept passionately, but her girlish volatility soon dried these tears. The magnificent equipage of Monsieur Le Prun swept before her imagination. Her curious and dazzled fancy then took flight in speculations as to the details of all the, as yet, undescribed splendors in reserve. Then she thought of herself married, and mistress of all this great fortune, and her heart beat thick, and she laughed aloud, and clapped her hands in an ecstasy of almost childish exultation.

Next day she received a long visit from Monsieur Le Prun, as her accepted lover. Spite of all his splendor, he had never looked in her eyes half so old, and ugly and sinister, as now. The marriage, which was sometimes so delightfully full of promise to her vanity and ambition, in his presence most perversely lost all its enchantment, and terrified her, like some great but unascertained danger. It was however too late now to recede; and even were she free to do so, it is more than probable that she could not have endured the sacrifice involved in retracting her consent.

The Visconte's little household kept early hours. He himself went to bed almost with the sun; and on the night after this decisive visit--for such Monsieur Le Prun's first appearance and acceptation in the character of an affianced bridegroom undoubtedly was--Lucille was lying awake, the prey of a thousand agitating thoughts, when, on a sudden, rising on the still night air came a little melody--alas! too well known--a gay and tender song, chanted sweetly. Had the voice of Fate called her, she could not have started more suddenly upright in her bed, with eyes straining, and parted lips--one hand pushing back the rich clusters of hair, and collecting the sound at her ear, and the other extended toward the distant songster, and softly marking the time of the air. She listened till the song died away, and covering her face with her hands, she threw herself down upon the pillow, and sobbing desolately, murmured--"too late!--too late!"

IV.--THE STRANGE LADY IN WHITE.

The visits of the happy Fermier-General occurred, of course, daily, and increased in duration. Meanwhile preparations went forward. The Visconte, supplied from some mysterious source, appeared to have an untold amount of cash. He made repeated excursions to the capital, which for twenty years he had not so much as seen; and handsome dresses, ornaments, &c., for Lucille, were accompanied by no less important improvements upon his own wardrobe, as well as various accessions to the comforts of their little dwelling--so numerous, indeed, as speedily to effect an almost complete transformation in its character and pretensions.

Thus the time wore on, in a state of excitement, which, though checkered with many fears, was on the whole pleasurable.

About ten days had passed since the peculiar and delicate relation we have described was established between Lucille and Monsieur Le Prun. Urgent business had called him away to the city, and kept him closely confined there, so that, for the first time since his declaration, his daily visit was omitted upon this occasion. Had the good Fermier-General but known all, he need not have offered so many apologies, nor labored so hard to console his lady-love for his involuntary absence. The truth, then, is, as the reader no doubt suspects, Lucille was charmed at finding herself, even for a day, once more her own absolute mistress.

A gay party from Paris, with orders of admission from the creditors, that day visited the park. In a remote and bosky hollow they had seated themselves upon the turf, and, amid songs and laughter, were enjoying a cold repast. Far away these sounds of mirth were borne on the clear air to Lucille. Alas! when should she laugh as gaily as those ladies, who, with their young companions, were making merry?--when again should music speak as of old with her heart, and bear in its chords no tone of reproach and despair? This gay party broke up into groups, and began merrily to ramble toward the great gate, where, of course, their carriages were awaiting them.

Attracted mournfully by their mirth, Lucille rambled onward as they retreated. It was evening, and the sunbeams slanted pleasantly among the trees and bushes, throwing long, soft shadows over the sward, and converting into gold every little turf, and weed, and knob, that broke the irregular sweep of the ground.

She had reached a part of the park with which she was not so familiar. Here several gentle hollows were converging toward the stream, and trees and wild brushwood in fresh abundance clothed their sides, and spread upward along the plain in rich and shaggy exuberance.

From among them, with a stick in his hand, and running lightly in the direction of her father's cottage, Gabriel suddenly emerged.

On seeing her at the end of the irregular vista, which he had just entered, however, he slackened his pace, and doffing his hat he approached her.

"A message, Gabriel?" she inquired.

"Yes, if Mademoiselle pleases," said he, blushing all over, like the setting sun. "I was running to the Visconte's house to tell Mademoiselle."

"Well, Gabriel, and what is it?"

"Why, Mademoiselle, a strange lady in the glen desires me to tell Mademoiselle de Charrebourg that she wishes to see her."

"But did she say why she desired it, and what she wished to speak to me about?"

"No, Mademoiselle."

"Then tell her that Mademoiselle de Charrebourg, knowing neither her name nor her business, declines obeying her summons," said she, haughtily. Gabriel bowed low, and was about to retire on his errand, when she added--

"It was very dull of you, Gabriel, not to ask her what she wanted of me."

"Madame, without your permission, I dare not," he replied, with a deeper blush, and a tone at once so ardent and so humble, that Lucille could not forbear a smile of the prettiest good nature.

"In truth, Gabriel, you are a dutiful boy. But how did you happen to meet her?"

"I was returning, Mademoiselle, from the other side of the stream, and just when I got into the glen, on turning round the corner of the gray stone, I saw her standing close to me behind the bushes."

"And I suppose you were frightened?" she said, archly.

"No, Mademoiselle, indeed; though she was strangely dressed and very pale, but she spoke to me kindly. She asked me my name, and then she looked in my face very hard, as a fortune-teller does, and she told me many strange things, Mademoiselle, about myself; some of them I knew, and some of them I never heard before."

"I suppose she _is_ a fortune-teller; and how did she come to ask for me?"

"She inquired if the Visconte de Charrebourg still lived on the estate, and then she said, 'Has he not a beautiful daughter called Lucille?' and I, Mademoiselle, made bold to answer, 'O yes, madame, yes, in truth.'"

Poor Gabriel blushed and faltered more than ever at this passage.

"'Tell Mademoiselle,' she said, 'I have something that concerns her nearly to tell her. Let her know that I am waiting here; but I cannot stay long.' And so she beckoned me away impatiently, and I, expecting to find you near the house was running, when Mademoiselle saw me."

"It is very strange; stay, Gabriel, I _will_ go and speak to her, it is only a step."

The fact was that Lucille's curiosity (as might have been the case with a great many of her sex in a similar situation) was too strong for her, and her pride was forced to bend to its importunity.

"Go you before," she said to Gabriel, who long remembered that evening walk in attendance upon Lucille, as a scene so enchanting and delightful as to be rather a mythic episode than an incident in his life; "and Gabriel," she added, as they entered the cold shadow of the thick evergreens, and felt she knew not why, a superstitious dread creep over her, "do you wait within call, but so as not to overhear our conversation; you understand me."

They had now emerged from the dark cover into the glen, and looking downward toward the little stream, at a short distance from them, the figure of the mysterious lady was plainly discernible. She was sitting with her back toward them upon a fragment of rock, under the bough of an old gnarled oak. Her dress was a sort of loose white robe, it might be of flannel, such as invalids in hospitals wear, and a red cloak had slipped from her shoulders, and covered the ground at her feet. Thus, solitary and mysterious, she suggested the image of a priestess cowering over the blood of a victim in search of omens.

Lucille approached her with some trepidation, and to avoid coming upon her wholly by surprise she made a little detour, and thus had an opportunity of seeing the features of the stranger, as well as of permitting her to become aware of her approach.