with great urbanity; then in French to Monsieur Berthier,-"I envy you, mon cher; you, who are able to enjoy your holiday in peace."

“I think I have some little right to enjoy it," returned the other; "I have earned it by working hard enough, I am sure. I was grinding away at the wheel until the very last moment before I came here."

"But at all events," said Monsieur Kiowski, "when you have done, you have done. Monsieur has given his lessons, Monsieur walks, Monsieur talks, Monsieur takes his leisure; while I, after working like a galleyslave in order to get the underpainting of my picture done before coming over, have brought with me two drawings, which I am absolutely obliged to finish by the end of this week, besides any quantity of letters which I have always delayed answering, from a futile idea that I should find time at Marny-les-Monts for everything I wanted to do. What a lovely day it is!" He then again said to me in English,-"How I should like to come down and bask in the sun!"

66

Why don't you come? what is it that you are doing at the present moment?" I asked rather satirically.

"Writing my letters," he answered with perfect naïveté, leaning his arms upon the window-sill and looking out at us.

"Well," said Monsieur Berthier, as we walked on, "and the interior of the house? You do not say what impression that makes upon you?" "I have been here such an instant of time," I answered, "that I hardly dare trust my own impressions. How striking little Jeanne is! She seems to me like a clasped book: if ever I get the clasps open I'm sure that I shall like what I shall read; but she is not easy to know, and I should think did not readily attach herself to strangers. However, she is exactly what I expected to find her, from all her mother had written about her to my mother."

"And Madame de Caradec," he continued, "is she also what you expected to find her ?"

“No,” said I, laughing, "for I was told that she was rather imposing, and I find her positively alarming, and I was told that she had been handsome and I think her perfectly beautiful still-don't you ?”

"I see that you are very impressionable," he said, smiling at my enthusiasm, "but of course I see her differently who have known her from her childhood. Ah! that first youth! how beautiful it is! It has a charm-a mystery-so soon lost, and that nothing afterwards, however fine, can compensate for at least such is my opinion. You think her beautiful now: then just imagine what she must have been at sixteen, when I first knew her. She was a famous beauty then, I assure you! You know I was her drawing-master, and I shall never forget the day that I gave her her first lesson. I went there never yet having seen her, and was perfectly bewildered (I too was young then) when I beheld this vision of heavenly beauty before me! Madame your mother was sitting working in the room at the time. I knew her very well-Madame Hope and I were great friends."

I

"I have constantly heard mother say so," said I, "and it has been a real delight to me to come among the people I have so often heard her speak of with affection. But did Madame de Caradec always look as proud and sad as she does now?" I inquired.

"No," answered Monsieur Berthier. "That expression came with trouble and with time: it dates back to an old story of disappointed attachment. Did Madame Hope never mention Monsieur Hamilton to you?" he asked, after a slight pause. "He used to come to the house a great deal during the time that she was in France. Well, it was for him that Madame de Caradec once had a very profound sentiment. He made no sign, however, of any corresponding feeling, beyond seeming to admire her very much; so much, indeed, that everybody was quite surprised that he did not come forward and offer to marry her, but he did not, and it was then that she first began to look proud and hard. She remained single-courted, followed, and adored as she was, until she was seven-and-twenty; and then, to the amazement of every one, as you may conceive, she suddenly chose from among all her suitors the old Comte de Caradec, who was at least sixty when she accepted him. He was a charming old man, and very fond and proud of her, and I think she might have been happy, or at all events tolerably contented with her life, if unluckily at her father's death (which took place seven or eight years after she was married) she had not found amongst his papers a letter from her old love, declaring his feeling for her, and containing a proposal of marriage. They had kept it from. her— never consulted her never even given her the little comfort of knowing that he had really cared for her. After this discovery, she had a long dangerous illness, through which her poor old husband nursed her with the tenderest devotion; but though through his care she even tually recovered, everything like happiness was at an end, and she became at once and for ever the stern melancholy woman that you see her now."

"And what became of Colonel Hamilton?" I inquired, eagerly.

"Oh, the brilliant colonel went abroad and ran away with an Italian prima donna, who died soon after, leaving him an only daughter: that is the Miss Hamilton who is coming to-day. I shall be very glad to see her again I used to see a great deal of her at Florence."

"What sort of man was Colonel Hamilton?" said I. acquainted with him?

"Were you

"Yes," answered Monsieur Berthier. "He passed a considerable portion of his time in Paris; but I own he always appeared to me to be perfectly uninteresting."

"Was he handsome ?" said I.

"He was thought so in the fashionable world,” he replied;" and I have observed that that is a thing which always goes a very long way with your sex; they seldom have the courage to admire what is not generally admired by the women of their acquaintance. I confess I thought him rather insignificant-looking myself; he used to dress in the most exaggerated height

of the fashion, and always looked as if he had just walked out of the Journal des Modes.

"But," said I, "surely there must have been something remarkable about him to make a woman of that character care for him so much. Was he clever in any way, or amusing?"

"No," answered Monsieur Berthier; "he was dull, unoriginal, and commonplace; and I own I never myself could understand the attraction he had for her." Here he paused and looked at the landscape, and then added with a gentle sigh,-"Perhaps she had seen him in his uniform."

We were passing once more under Monsieur Kiowski's window, and he popped out his head again.

"Have you been as far as the stables, Miss Hope?" he inquired.

I told him that I had not yet, whereupon he addressed Monsieur Berthier. "Monsieur Berthier, have you seen the stables since you have been here this time? There is a Virginia creeper already turned crimson, growing up the wall, and all over the roof, which is too wonderfully beautiful! That crimson against the stone-colour, and the red of the leaf the red of the tiles, makes the most divine harmony I ever behold!" "Will you go and see it ?" said Monsieur Berthier to me. I was beginning to feel rather tired, so I declined.

upon

"I advise you to go and see that, mon cher," continued Monsieur Kiowski; “it is marvellously fine. There!" he said, craning his neck out of the window, until I was afraid he would fall. "When I stretch out like that, I just get a corner of the foliage gleaming like rubies against the blue sky." He then held up his hand to try the value of the fleshcoloured tone against the light, and added to me—“What a delicious air, to be sure! un venticello che consola! I really think I must come down." Why don't you?" said I, once more. "Are you working very hard at the present moment?"

66

Hélas! said he, with a sigh.

"What at ?" asked I.

"At one of my drawings," he answered quite seriously.

"Do tell me," I inquired of Monsieur Berthier, "of what nation Monsieur Kiowski is ?"

"English," he replied; "of Polish origin, I fancy, but his family is English, and so is he.

"Is not his French quite wonderful?” said I.

"Yes," he answered, "but not more so, I believe, than his Italian and German. I have heard Germans say they should have taken him for a German."

"Ah! imagine what happens to me!" screamed Madame Olympe from the house; "such a telegram from Lady Blankeney!"

She hurried out in fits of laughter, with the paper in her hand. It was as follows:

"Lady Blankeney, Hôtel Bristol, Paris, to Madame la Comtesse de

Caradec, à Marny-les-Monts, près Champenay, Oise. Dearest Countess -in despair-we bring a fiddler-too dreadful-so shocked-pardon."

"One of Ursula's queer artist friends evidently," said Madame Olympe, "or Lady Blankeney would not have thought it necessary to apologize some ill-combed genius that she has picked up abroad and brought along with her, no doubt. The question is, where on earth I am to lodge him? I haven't a corner to spare; I have been obliged to put Madame Simon, the housekeeper, who is ill, into Jeanne's room, in order to give her more air; and Jeanne already sleeps with me. There would be René's room, but then he is so uncertain that I never dare make use of it he might get bored in Paris, you know," turning to Monsieur Berthier, "and come back at any moment. There's no use in telegraphing back to say I can't take the fiddler in, for they must already have started. Monsieur Kiowski only goes away on Wednesday; what on earth am I to do ?"

"Dear Madame Olympe," said I, "do pray make some use of my room. I see that there is a sofa-bed in it; why shouldn't you put Miss Blankeney or Miss Hamilton into my bed and let me sleep on that? You know the cabinet de toilette affords every sort of convenience for double dressing."

This was an obvious arrangement to propose. My room was large and cheery, with only the bed in it to prevent it from looking like a pretty sitting-room, and beyond, opening into it, there was another smaller room, with all the washing and dressing appurtenances kept completely to themselves.

"You save my life!" said Madame Olympe. "Miss Blankeney is frightened to death if she is not quite close to her mother; but Ursula was to have had the little room next to yours. We will stick the fiddler in there, and put Ursula up with you, since you are good enough to have her. She shall sleep on the sofa, though--I won't have you turned out of your comfortable bed for any one. And now come in, for you are looking quite exhausted, and you must put your feet up upon the sofa."

She took me in, and established me, in spite of the feeble remonstrance I ventured to make, upon a wonderful sort of gigantic double sofa that stood in the drawing-room, midway between the fire-place and an oriel window, which commanded a lovely view of the river and the forest. She arranged the pillows for me, and then went out into the hall and brought back a soft shawl, with which she wrapped my feet round as tenderly as mother would, looking all the while so grand, and stately, and abstracted, that I was quite confused, and felt as though I were being waited upon by some great queen.

She went to the piano, opened it, and began one of Beethoven's sonatas. She played with a good deal of power and feeling, and with an evident love of her subject. I listened in enchantment. Monsieur Berthier took a book and sat down in a corner, but I saw that he was looking from underneath his eyebrows much oftener at her than at his book.

While she was still playing, a carriage drove up to the door, and Lady Blankeney was announced. I was going to get up from the sofa, when Madame Olympe, who had left the piano, put me down again with a strong arm, and saying in an imperative voice, "Don't move! don't move!" held me there steadily till the whole party had entered the room. First came a short thin old lady, fashionably dressed in a brown gown and pink bonnet; then a tall woman in a complete travelling suit of grays, with fair hair and projecting teeth, and then a young lady with a sallow face and large black eyes: she was dressed in black, and was closely followed by a little pale miserable-looking mortal, muffled from head to foot in a long greatcoat, and with a huge comforter rolled two or three times round his throat. "How d'ye do, dear Madame de Caradec! How d'ye do! Here we all are at last! Is that the princess?" she said, in a low voice, looking at me; "so delightful to find her still here! Pray present me. I shall be so charmed to make her acquaintance!"

"It isn't the princess," said Madame Olympe, rather drily; "it's only Miss Hope, my old governess's daughter." At which piece of information all the smiles vanished in an instant from Lady Blankeney's countenance, and she looked carefully in another direction.

"Miss Hamilton," said Madame Olympe, going up to the young lady in black, "I am glad to see you at Marny."

"And I to be here," answered a full contralto voice, with a remarkably distinct utterance. "This is Monsieur Dessaix," she continued, introducing her friend. "He has come all the way from Germany to see me, and if I had not brought him along with me, I must have stayed behind myself, so I hope you will forgive the liberty I have taken."

Madame Olympe bowed slightly, and so did the little man. He and Miss Hamilton were standing close together at the head of the sofa, and presently I heard him say to her in a low querulous voice,

"My angel, I am suffocating!"

"Take off your comforter then, you stupid old owl," she answered, in a whisper.

"It will have a much better air if I wait till I go upstairs- -but I am suffocating!"

"Then suffocate," she said, and went off into a giggle.

"Do not laugh, I entreat of thee," he continued; "thou wilt make me ridiculous before all these people; thy young friend with the teeth detests me already; if she could kill me she would. Well! what is going to be done now?" he continued, looking round with a discontented air; "is everybody going away? Ah, pour l'amour de Dieu, ne me laisse pas seul avec la morte!" This last was said in a sudden agonized whisper, as he saw Miss Hamilton preparing to follow the other ladies out of the room, but his terror made it quite audible, and "the morte" could not help laughing too. They then all went out together to take a turn in the grounds, and I remained lying on my sofa, rather tired, a little puzzled, and very much diverted.