deep window-seat, or read some wild legend, some old story of romace, of knight or paladin, or pored over some ancient chronicle, or revelled in the sweet thoughts and bright fancies of my favourite poets, sitting in my low chair beside him, or on the little stool at his feet. Sometimes I could beguile him into laying aside his books for a time, and coming into the garden with me to admire the herbs and flowers, in which I took an especial pride, and cultivated entirely myself, with a little aid from Blaise or Pierre in the more laborious work. Sometimes I could persuade him to climb the hills with me, once or twice even as far as the old red castle on the Colline Rouge; and, as I grew in his confidence, he would tell of his deep thoughts; of the visions he cherished of benefiting, not his country only, but his age-not France only, but mankind; means by which the burdens of life were to be equalized, abuses corrected, and Earth made a Paradise. He would tell me, too, of his disappointments: how from time to time he had, as he thought, launched a great work into the world, and waited with triumphant hope for the stirring of the dry bones; and then met sneers, and ridicule, and anger, and found it by-and-by lying unsold on the shelves of the booksellers. And then he would tell me of the great work of his life, upon which he had been engaged for years, which he feared would be yet uncompleted at his death. He would even read to me portions he had written ; and at last, when his eyesight began to fail, employ my willing fingers to add page after page to the great piles of manuscript heaped up at one side of his table, or to search out and read to him passages from the various authors whose works he consulted. I did not know then, I do not know now, how it was that he, who seemed to me so wise, whose mind was certainly a storehouse of knowledge, whose thoughts flowed in a strong current of eloquence and power, and appeared to me, at least, great and grand, should remain as he had done, unnoticed and unknown.

But one thing I do know, though I do not think it was that which made his writings unacceptable to men,—all his ideas, and dreams, and hopes were based on sand, because they rested on the foundation of man's wisdom, not of God's truth.

My father was a Deist. How I discovered this I do not know. He never spoke to me of his religious views, never suffered me to read or write anything for him which interfered with those in which I had been brought up. Yet the knowledge came to me. I did not fully realize it, but I saw that while he recognised God in creation he did not acknowledge him otherwise. I had no thought of God myself; my ideas of religion went no further than the fêtes and ceremonials of the Church in which I had been trained. I had no thought beyond this present life,-no sense of need or sin. But, as a child, my father's absence from mass and confessional had perplexed me, and I had often asked Barbe why it was. Το this, and all other questions relating to my father's habits, or my dead mother's thoughts upon them, she only replied by a shake of the head and a heavy sigh ;—and when Barbe chose to speak, no one could make her silent; when she chose to be silent, no one could make her speak.

But I am dwelling too long on this part of my story. Happy in my father's love, and in the simple pleasures of my home, these things did not trouble me. Barbe would never allow me to take any part in house-keeping cares. She ruled supreme; and, indeed, her strict economy and excellent management were only too necessary to eke out our narrow means. I had no companions; there were no girls in the village above the peasant rank, and poor as we were my father never forgot his family was one of the oldest in France, and would not have suffered me to associate with those whom he considered beneath me in birth and station. I did not feel the want. I had books in plenty ; I had my garden and my needle, both occupations in which I delighted. Sometimes, indeed, I visited the cottages of the peasants and played with their children; often I took long rambles in the woods and up the steep mountain-paths, weaving at once bright garlands of earth's flowers and earth's hopes-dreaming brilliant dreams of a future in which my father should at length stand on the height towards which he had long toiled; while I-. But who cannot tell what a young girl's dreams would be, breathing as I did the atmosphere of chivalry and romance in my favourite books! Dreams indeed!-airy nothings!-bright and beautiful as a sunset

cloud, radiant with the rosy hues of hope, and fading as soon! A day came when I was to wake suddenly.

It was my birthday, my last birthday-only twelve months to-day-that the awakening came. How

it all comes back to me, from my opening my eyes to the consciousness of the flood of sunshine pouring into my room and lighting up the dark red roofs of the village on the hill-side, even as it was illuminating the city spires this morning! From my window I looked on the village, nestling close among the woods; the latter stretching far to right and left, with the gray towers of the stately Château de Maurence rising above their vivid and varied tints of green, the mountain towering high above; and nearer, nearest of all, the little gray church, and the white marble cross on my mother's grave. The latter was always visible, but as I leaned through my window, and felt the soft breeze on my face, wafting up the dewy fragrance of the flowers and opening buds, bearing in the joyous carolling of birds, and the busy humming of insects, my eyes were fixed upon it, and my thoughts turned with unwonted intensity of remembrance to her who had so long been gone from our midst, so long lain unconscious of the beauty and gladness and life that had awoke round her resting-place as spring after spring came round.

And as my heart answered rapturously to all the sweet influences of life and loveliness around me, I felt a strange pity for her, gone from them all-shut out from them all. And then I thought, Where was she? Was heaven as fair as the smiling scene around? Could it be fairer? But was she in heaven? Was there not a terrible ordeal to be passed through before that heaven could be reached,-purgatory? Yes; but that terrible place was to cleanse from the taint of sin, to burn away all the dross of impurity and defilement contracted here below. And my gentle mother,-oh! surely there was no stain on her pure spirit; no fiery pangs were necessary to prepare her to join the other happy ones in the Blessed Virgin's presence. No; the blessed Mother of God had, we were told, a mother's tender heart, a woman's sympathy and love; and would not she welcome one so good and pure as my mother, and shield her in the awful and

majestic presence of her holy Son? But all was so misty, so vague to me. Then I remembered (somehow I had forgotten, or rather not thought of it for long,) that for the last few months, or it may have been years, of her life, she did not go as before to mass or confessional so regularly as Father Lefevre wished; and I know he was angry with her about it. But then she was very weak and ill. And then flashed upon me the words that had so roused my childish wonder,"In heaven, whatever the priest might say!"

Yes; I was sure of it. But heaven seemed very distant; a strange, far-off place, fenced off from my sight by a dazzling barrier of awful glory, and my heart yearned after the lost presence which had once been so precious to me. I ever rejoice in it again? win those shining heights? God was so severe and terrible a judge-so very hard to please, and I had never even tried to please him,—how should I begin?

Should How should I ever

I strove to turn from these painful thoughts by recalling the days when my mother was on earth, and of earth, when no impassable gulf divided us. Vividly rose before me the pale, sweet face, so lovely in its faded beauty; the large, dark, wistful eyes, whose sad, far-away look, would change for one of such deep tenderness when they met mine; and the low, soft voice, so seldom heard, yet whose tones were to me the sweetest of earthly music. I could almost feel again the touch of the thin fingers stroking my head; the light weight of the wasted hand on my shoulder, as I guided her feeble steps, proud to think I was of use. And then the strange change in her look before the last parting. I recalled how I used to wonder what made mamma always so sad. I thought it was because she was ill, and going to leave papa and me, who loved her so dearly. "Very soon,” as she often told me; but still she lingered so long, that when the end at last came, it appeared to be a sudden shock.

CHAPTER III.

MY MOTHER'S DEATH.

OFTEN and often had I thought of all this before; but this morning all came before me with

startling clearness, and took a new meaning. I went over those last days again, from the one, when coming in from the garden loaded with mamma's favourite flowers to arrange in her room, she did not leave the house, the autumn winds were too cold, she said, and I never dreamed of her being weaker or worse. Coming in, as I said, out of the sunny garden, I saw Father Lefevre on the threshold. He was a cold, grave, austere man, with a worn, sallow face, and dark, glittering eyes, deeply sunk in their sockets, and I always shrank from him in dread. I knew my mother feared him too. I had seen her clasp her hands as in terror when she saw him approaching, and her pale face was always paler, and a look of greater sadness, sometimes almost of despair, rested upon her set features and in the quiet agony of her dark eyes.

I was never present at those interviews. I would have stayed if permitted, for my thought was that he came to scold mamma for not going to mass. But he always dismissed me at once; and when I pleaded with her for permission to remain, she gently but decidedly refused.

That day I had not known of his coming, and mamma had sent me out into the fresh air while she rested. I remember how strangely pale and tired, even for her, she had looked; and my first feeling at the sight of Father Lefevre was one of anger and annoyance against him for disturbing her. Not wishing to meet him, I loitered among the shrubs. But when I looked again, I saw him eagerly beckoning to me. Then I went quickly forward, and saw that his countenance was greatly agitated and paler even than its wont.

"Your mamma is very ill, Léonie," he said in a hurried and troubled tone; "you must not go into her room or disturb her. I am going for Dr. Duprât." And then he passed on quickly, before I could recover from the shock. Disregarding his injunction, I rushed into the boudoir, where I had left my mother. Oh, how what I saw then is photographed on my mind! Mamma lay back on a fauteuil, pale as death, and the front of her white dress was covered with a crimson stain. I rushed frantically up to her, shrieking out that Father Lefevre had killed her, and imploring her to speak to her little Léonie once more. It was with difficulty Barbe pacified

His

me by assuring me, as well as her trembling lips would let her, that she was not dead; that Father Lefêvre had gone for the doctor; that he had not hurt her; it was her illness-she would be better. Then the doctor came, heated and panting with the haste he had made. first care was to send me from the room with Susette, who was scarcely less terrified than myself; but I resisted going further than the closed door, where I sat among the bright blossoms I had thrown down, in a stupor of grief.

Presently Barbe came and told me my mother was better. She had opened her eyes, but she must not speak or be spoken to-must be kept very, very quiet. They had carried her to her bed, and I must be very good and still; and in a few days she would be better and able to see me. Soon the doctor too came and told me the same; but his cheery tones were more reassuring than poor Barbe's anxious face and tremulous voice, and I was something comforted.

But night came, and the next day, and the next, and brought no change. Dreary days, whose long hours dragged tediously through. My father was away. He had been written to, but could not arrive for some time; communications were somewhat uncertain, and travelling slow. Those weary days, when we crept about with noiseless steps and hushed voices, seem more like a dream than a reality. My mother had often been ill before, but I had always had access to her room at times, and this complete exclusion bewildered and distressed me. How I longed for my father's return! I used to sit in a window that commanded the poplar avenue, hour after hour, longing with that feverish intensity which makes the heart sick, for the sight of the post-chaise that should bring him home.

At last he came. It was the evening of the third day. The house was stiller than ever. Dr. Duprât had been again and again, and even his round rosy face looked pale and anxious. Barbe never left my mother's room. Susette was weeping and telling her beads. Father Lefêvre too was there; not in my mother's room, but pacing the hall with gloomy brow and folded arms. Many times he had come through those days; but the doctor and Barbe prevented his entering

to that book as specially for my father and me. But he had left immediately after, and I had never seen him since. By degrees I grew to think less and less about it, and at length for

She lay still a few moments; and then, opening her eyes with a look of wonderful gladness and brightness, she repeated slowly, gaspingly, "Yes, light-light-out-of-darkness!" Her last words.

Barbe rose and led me unresisting from the room. No one told me; but I knew she was dead. I saw her once more, and laid her favourite flowers over her. The reflection of that strange brightness and peace seemed to rest still upon the slumbering face. The next day they laid her to rest under the great chestnut tree by the church-yard wall. My father shut himself up in his study, and I was left with my grief, alone -oh, how alone!

But childhood's grief, though sharper and deeper than most suppose, does not last long. Ere many weeks had passed, I had grown accustomed to my loss, and played and ran about as gaily as before. Still, I did not forget; and one of my best loved tasks was to deck her grave with flowers.

Often and often that strange scene on her death-bed had recurred to me, and I had longed to know what it all meant. What was the light that had come, that made her brighter and happier in death than I ever remembered her in life I asked Barbe. But she either could not or would not give me any answer. Once I had asked, after a fruitless search, for the book she had held in her dying hand. But Barbe crossed herself with an invocation to the Virgin, and said Father Lefevre had taken it. And then I remembered, what I scarce noticed at the time that the day she died the priest had lingered long in my mother's boudoir. And when, in my aimless wanderings through the darkened house, I went listlessly in, I saw him with a little pile of books and papers before him, which he was evidently preparing to take away.

I almost think, had he remained in Drécy, I should have ventured to ask him for it, as I

But that bright May morning, as I stood and looked at the joyous sunlight flooding the spot where she had lain in darkness more than nine years, all came back, as I said before, with an intensity of remembrance, and startling clearness of realization, unlike anything I had previously experienced. I had not meant to dwell so long upon these scenes, but the vivid recalling of them that morning is so linked with the revolution in heart and life which was to begin that day, and the reminiscences themselves are so infinitely sweet and soothing, now I have a key that explains all that was so puzzling to me then, that I have been drawn on into writing all this. I know now that a power, stronger than that of memory-an influence weightier than that of mere natural emotion and affection, was upon me that morning. Depths were stirred in my being that were never reached before. I believe that Spirit whose workings are like the viewless wind, coming whence we know not, going whither we know not, bringing we know not what on its rushing wings, was breathing the breath of life on my soul. Thoughts deep and solemn rose in my mind-Life-Death-Eternity. I looked at the fair scene around me :-life was there-life was mine! I looked at the many graves in the churchyard :-there was death. And beyond, eternity. Life was mine then; it had once been the portion of those who lay there-now, it was death and eternity! And death and eternity would one day be my lot too.

Never before had I in any measure realized the awful import of that solemn word which now seemed ringing through the inmost recesses of my being, like an alarm-bell: Eternity-eternityeternity: the mysterious--the endless-the unknown!

I know now it was God's voice that spoke within me in those thoughts. There was nothing in my training, in my associations, in what I knew of religion even, to arouse such.

Close to my mother's grave was a flower