der!' said the old lady as she turned her eyes up to the ceiling ; why, you unfortunate young man, you are not company for a cannibal by this book'-and she kissed her fan'I won't stretch legs under the same mahogany until Father Malachi has made a Christian of you.'

"I was sent for with all speed, and the messenger found me mounting my horse to give the rites to Tim Daly's mother who wasn't expected to pass the night over ; but as the castle was in the way, and Mrs. Andrews had begged me to lose no time, I set off with the servant. I was soon closeted with the dear old lady; and in sore distress she told me the story. I knew that when Frank left home he was no great shakes of a Catholic; but to come back a heathen was awful. He was sent for to the stable, and I was shut in the back drawing-room to await the penitent. In he came presently-as loose a looking lad as you would meet in a month of Sundays. His hat was stuck upon three hairs, and he held his fore-finger out to be shaken, as carelessly as he would have presented it to a dog-breaker. 'How wags the world with thee, Malachi? I remember when I went abroad, that your nose was red, and you were a ten-tumbler man. D-n me! it's a regular mulberry now. Have you raised the alcoholic mixture to fifteen, eh! old chap? There was a penitential address from a sinner to the man who was about to shrive him! I hinted the object of my visit, and mentioned that my services were required elsewhere. Then, my dear Malachi, do not let me detain you. I should regret that Mother Daly were stopped a night or two at Fiddler's Green, because you were not in time to give her the last polish, and book her direct to Paradise.' I told him that his spiritual state had given his mother the deepest sorrow, and urged him by penitence to reconcile himself to Holy Church. That is, I suppose, by fish-eating on a Friday,' exclaimed the reprobate. I hate fish. They surfeited me with woolly turbot when a boy, and lean haddocks the Lent before I left home; and ever since I detest anything that wears a fin, as much as old Clootie abominates holy water.' Well, sir,' I returned indignantly, 'you might have declined attention to your mother's wishes, without offering offence to me. I shall apprize her that, to his parent and his priest, Mr. Francis is equally respectful. Stop, Father Malachi. I would not annoy the dear old lady for the world. Do you plead guilty to the fifteen tumblers? Nay, don't take a joke amiss. Come, let's to business at once. Here I go down upon my marrow-bones. Wipe the account off the slate at once, and put me down, to save time and trouble, for every crime in the kalendar but highway robbery and wilful murder.''

"

"Upon my word, the confession was brief but comprehensive. Any symptoms of moral amendment since, Father Malachi?"

"Yes," returned the priest, "if turning a cook off because she religiously demurred against cooking eggs and bacon for breakfast on Good Friday. Now, sir, what think you of Frank Andrews?"

Why, that the aforesaid Francis is a sinner past praying for."

There was not, throughout "the far west," a churchman who had mediated more successfully in affairs of honour, or brought so many intended and actual faction-fights to bloodless termination, than

honest Malachi. In pulpit oratory there might have been abler theologians. Sancho Panza, a matter-of-fact reasoner, cunningly observes, that "soft words butter no parsnips;" and his reverence held similar opinions. If priests' souls transmigrate, Father Tuck had slipped into the outer man of Father Malachi. In height, he was some five feet nine, and, at five-and-thirty, weighed fifteen stone of bone and muscle, without an ounce of offal. To immense strength, he united wonderful activity, and would do tricks that you might expect rather from the monkey than the buffalo. The best men have enemies; and it was broadly insinuated that Malachi put more reliance in the carnal weapon than was canonical, and hence, that his most lasting impressions were made upon the carcase and not the conscience of the sinner.

Malachi's was a wild mountain parish, and his flock were in keeping with it. The honest churchman laboured hard with his blackthorn through the week, and on Sunday cursed until the old women feared that he would lift the slates off the chapel; and still his flock remained rebellious. During a visit he made to the house of a Protestant gentleman, whose wife was a great favourite, the unhappy divine poured out his sorrows for her consolation.

My heart's fairly broke, my lady, and the thieves will be the death of me. The divil himself-Christ pardon me for naming him!

-wouldn't knock the fear of God into the hearts of these malefactors. I half murdered Panrike More last Wednesday; and, by the blessing of God, I'll curse the village of Cloonsallagh, root and branch, to-morrow."

"But," said the lady, when she had listened patiently to his jeremiad, "my dear Father Kavanagh, when battery and banning are ineffective, might not a course of scriptural instruction prove beneficial?"

Malachi raised his eyes in horror and astonishment. "Scriptural instruction to vagabonds like them! them up with the Scriptures!"

Arrah! cock

Malachi, twenty years ago, went to his account. He was a generous and kindly soul, and the only thing to which he seemed to have a fixed aversion, was a capital letter, for he always wrote the pronoun personal with a little "i." I recollect his funeral well; and Protestant and Catholic followed him with sorrow to the grave. Peace to thy ashes, honest Malachi! Were all thy order like thyself, Ireland would be a Goshen !

A DAY IN THE VINES OF VOUVRAY.

AMONGST the many agreeable drives which may be found in the neighbourhood of Tours one of the most striking is that to the village of Roche Corbon, on the banks of the Loire, as far as the ruined Chateau of Moncontour, whose long range of windowless chambers let in to their dim recesses the bright light of the sunny sky against which the old walls stand out on the rocky height which supports them.

I had walked nearly as far as this spot several times, but having no particular object in view had contented myself with a mere glance and then returned. At length, however, I was induced to accept an invitation from a family who occupied a very remarkable domicile in the rocks of Vouvray, close to Moncontour, and I accordingly set out one day, accompanied by two friends, in order to pass the day with Monsieur and Madame Andraud, whose hospitable entreaties could no longer be resisted.

One of my companions was a lady who, in our society at Tours, was generally designated as La Parisienne. She was one of those agreeable French women who have the talent de bien raconter in perfection: she had travelled a good deal, and told her adventures so well that she made all who heard her at once familiar, by a few graphic touches, with her scenes and her personages. She was fond of adventures, and was delighted to meet with a chance of excitement. It must be confessed that Tours affords but few, but she had fled from some domestic vexations to a drearier solitude than even that dull town presents, for she had been wandering on the shores of Brittany, from Croisic to Pornic, in search of sea-bathing, and had escaped from the latter place because there were only three people in that boasted watering-place, and only one lodging to be had, the convenient elegance of which she could not acknowledge. She had begun to find the superior brilliancy even of Tours fade, and was singularly amused when I proposed that she should join our party to the rocks of Vouvray.

Mademoiselle Loriot, my other companion, was a brisk little maiden lady of a certain age, whose occupation was giving lessons to the English, when she could get pupils, and whose income-independent of those uncertain gains-was twelve francs a-month, out of which she contrived to do so many charities and make so many little presents on fête days, that one almost believed her to be in the right when she assured us-for she was a devout Catholic-that La Bonne Vierge never allowed her to want under any circumstances. She was always talking or singing, always in good-humour, and the most ready, handy, animated little person possible, observing everybody's wants at a glance, and rectifying all sorts of minor vexations in the most cheerful and obliging manner possible.

La Parisienne and La Petite Loriot, as she was generally called, were continually carrying on a comic warfare, the one being inclined to the modern Socialist and liberal school, the other bigoted to her religion, and a staunch Legitimist.

In spite of the extreme mediocrity of her pecuniary resources,

La Petite Loriot had managed to save a small sum, which she subscribed to the fund destined to procure that magnificent toilet-table presented by the loyal ladies of France to the Duchess of Parma, which is now the boast of the French portion of the great Hyde Park Exhibition, and in which at this moment she takes so personal an interest, that I expect, every time I go into the French department, to see her standing before that exquisite creation of art, lost in admiration of the result of her own generosity.

But the great Exhibition had not been thought of as we drove merrily along the borders of the sparkling river, with Roche Corbon in view. She told us-for she knew everything-that the fine ruin had lately been bought by a speculator who intended to restore it, in the hope of letting it to some English family, as the English always fix on the most picturesque sites-and this is particularly attractive, commanding the country for several miles, as well as a long sweep of the Loire and all its sunny islands.

The ruin reminds one of some of those shells which stand perched on the vine-covered hills above the Rhine, shadowy and spectral, but full of poetical beauty. Moncontour is likewise shrined amongst vines, for those of Vouvray begin on this spot. This côteau is famous throughout Touraine for the sparkling wine it produces, which is there considered not inferior to Champagne. So full of fire and spirit is it, that, as Monsieur Andraud, who met us at this point, informed us, it is necessary to let it remain for two or three years in cask before it is safe to bottle it, as it would infallibly break the bottles that confined it: the cask which imprisons this subtle essence must, like the tomb of a mighty necromancer, be seven times hooped with iron to restrain its first impetuosity. After this captivity, subdued by age and coercion, it may be safely transferred to more fragile bonds, and it then

"Comes sparkling to you, love, and me,"

with all the fire and frolic of its elder brother of Epernay.

The charming vine, which is nursing this volatile spirit, runs. wildly along, clinging to the surface of the sun-exposed rock for about half a league: all the mouths of the numerous caves, which dot the whole extent with mysterious-looking domiciles, are festooned with its graceful wreaths of leaves and glowing fruit, very like, in taste and colour, the famous chasselas of Fontainebleau. Not a wall, or a gate, or a bit of ruin, not an arch, or a pillar, or a fence, but supports a delicate network of this wandering vine, and the whole face of the irregular côteau gleams with its rich clusters.

Both the Parisienne and I were loud in our exclamations of delight at the beauty of the scene, much to the gratification of Mons. Andraud, who bowed and smiled, and placed his hand on his heart, as if we were complimenting him in particular: but he loved his côteau as if it belonged to him exclusively, and nothing, however extravagantly enthusiastic, that the excited Parisienne could say, was too much for his large appetite for praise. La Petite Loriot assured us that all was owing to the attachment to the spot of the blessed Virgin of Marmontiers, and in spite of the laughter of our sceptical friend, encouraged by Mons. Andraud-himself a Breton and Legitimist-insisted on relating instances of the holy patroness's demonstrations in favour of the Côteau of Vouvray.

We had looked with interest, midway in our drive, at the venerable gateway, now all that remains of the once enormous and powerful Abbaye of Marmontiers, which gave laws for centuries to the whole country. The pretty light suspension-bridge beyond Tours, which spans the Loire from island to island, flying across the broad river on airy wings, replaces a heavy antique bridge of stone erected by the grim old castle-builder of a remote age, Grise Gonelle, lord of Anjou. This bridge fitly conducted the pilgrim in days of old to the far-extending walls of the famous monastery, and all the sites made sacred by the numerous Roman fakeers who, hid in holes of the rocks of St. Radegonde and Symphorin, passed their secluded lives in what may be called the vanity of holiness.

Even La Petite Loriot could not now point out to my curiosity the spots where Saint Martin of Tours, Saint Brice, Saint Patrick, and others, retired to pray and be prayed to, but she exultingly indicated to us a spot, lately disclosed by a fall of rock, which the sisters of the Sacré Cœur, who occupy the convent as it now stands, have discovered to a certainty to be the real cavern where that very erratic body of pilgrims, the Seven Sleepers, reposed in one of their remarkable visits to Touraine from the far East. None of the good nuns doubted the facts broadly advanced by La Petite Loriot, that these ubiquitous travellers were natives of Touraine, and being on their return from a pilgrimage, entered this cavern to repose awhile, and, once betrayed into slumber, never woke again.

A fountain sprang upon the site of this event which, La Parisienne finished the legend by observing, had proved of more use than the miracle, for it supplied the water to the English brewery hard by, where such excellent beer can be procured by devotees to that national beverage.

"Nonsense! exclaimed La Petite Loriot, "if the tradition were not true, why should it be painted so beautifully on the windows of the Cathedral of Tours? and why should no violence have ever been able to destroy those very windows?"

"That is a fact!" joined in our host; "no one can deny that." "No, no," cried the devotee, exultingly ; " and you can show the cave up above there, where Saint Beatrix retired after her return from the world. Who knows," she added, slyly, looking at La Parisienne," whether other folks, disgusted with the world, may not, after all, choose the rock of Vouvray for a retreat?”

La Parisienne laughed, for our gallant host was a widower, living with his mother, and a little flirtation never comes amiss to a Frenchwoman, so she chose to take the allusion to a life of retirement in the sense that amused her most,—and the suddenly awakened idea of adding another victim to her beaux yeux giving her fresh spirits, we proceeded as gaily as possible on our steep ascent to the widower's abode; for we preferred dismissing our carriage when we reached the foot of his côteau, observing that the rugged, stony road which led to it was little adapted to wheels.

La Parisienne's smart little bottines stood a chance of being damaged in the ascent, but she bore her trial with fortitude, for it attracted the attention of our host to her pretty feet, and she accepted his arm graciously, laughing with renewed sprightliness at every stumble. M. Andraud encouraged us by describing the beauty of a fête, of which his house had been the site, on the occasion of the pro