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things, Florent; and we must have a pair of candlesticks; we might just as well buy the mayor's, what say you ?

I knew these candlesticks were her weak point, and answered,

“All right, Marie-Barbe; we can leave at eleven, after school."

But she could not wait so long patiently, and came to look at the clock several times, through the sash-window.

From my place in the school-room I could see, what was going on round the mayor's house. The sale had commenced very early, and all sorts of things had been carried out on the tables brought down in the yard. There were gridirons, cauldrons, kettles, roasting-jacks, bottles, chairs, clocks; in fact, movables which for fifty years had accumulated from the cellar to the loft; spinning-wheels, bundles of flax, the winder, the barometer, table-linen, bed-linen, . . . and, Heavens above! what money must have been spent on that house! Such houses are perfect gulfs, and women never have enough; if they were listened to, one would buy every thing.

The crier, Lemoine, and the attorney, Bajolet de Lorquin, with his head clerk, Schott, were in the centre of the busy crowd. Lemoine's shouts, from the top of the table on which he stood, could be heard at the other end of the village.

"Going, going; one-two-two. No one to bid any higher? A magnificent kettle three francs, ten sous."

He then lifted the kettle for every body to take stock of it.

"Three francs, ten sous."
"Four francs," cried a voice.

"Four francs," went on Lemoine; "one, two, the kettle is going for four francs. No one says a word more? Going, going one, two, three gone! The kettle belongs to Pierre Jean Machet."

I could follow all this, and notice my wife coming down every now and then besides. Such exciting scenes do not, fortunately, occur very often, as they would put an end to all teaching and learning in a village. As to my scholars, they were quite impatient to be on the field of action; therefore, just on the stroke of eleven I called for prayers, and the last word, "Amen," was scarcely uttered, when a general scramble out ensued, the children flocking off like sheep, and wishing me a hearty good-bye.

I was not sorry to get rid of them, for my wife was again at the sash-window, reminding me it was high time to be off.

"I'm ready," I replied, much amused and to the sale we went.

It was a great relief to find that the brass candlesticks were not yet sold, though such small articles were nearly all disposed of. The plates, glasses, saucepans, and other kitchen utensils, had just been carried off; the cupboards, chairs, and armchairs were now coming on. Marie-Barbe pulled me on by the arm, till we got all among the people, who not only swarmed around, but filled the mayor's house from roof to cellar, and were shouting from the windows to their friends in the street. It was a fearful din.

"Come this way, Monsieur Florent," cried Botte, the forest-keeper, as soon as he saw us. He was a good-humoured, stout man, and his big green over-coat, with a hood to it, was rather tight for his corpulent figure. "This way, Monsieur and Madame Florent," he again cried, clearing a passage for us with his wide shoulders.

"So you, too, have a mind to bid for something, Monsieur Florent?" he asked. I was going to reply that we meant to have the candlesticks, but my wife stopped me by pulling my arm.

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Well," she put in, "that all depends, Monsieur Botte; we shall see.”

We were close to the table, near the clerk, who was making entries in a register on a desk; and there was the lawyer in a great passion with parties who were known to be bad pay and would insist on bidding without offering any caution. He, after some altercation, settled them by striking their names off the list; the consequence was, they clenched their fists at him, threatening all manner of things. The gendarme Lallemand was fortunately standing by, with his hand resting on the hilt of his sword; and, when the confusion became too unbearable to be tolerated, he had but to cast a glance around, and look at the riotous in a way which quieted them instantly. After this, unruly purchasers made up for their disappointment by drinking the wine of the sale, for it was a great fashion in those times to keep up people's spirits by giving them as much wine as they liked. Some drank as many as two and three measures of red or white, and, though it cost nothing at the time, they found it very dear the next day. We were pretty quiet when we once found standing-room among the crowd. The villagers exchanged friendly greetings, many offering to take wine with me, and talking, as we did so, over their great bargains, principally of the landed property that was going to be sold. There was an end to bidding such small sums as two

Father Botte, who was standing next to me, said, "This is only the beginning as yet, Monsieur Florent; the skirmishing is over, and now the real fight is coming ou."

and three francs; hundreds and thousands seem to be contagious, and that he is unwere coming on, and purchasers were not dergoing the same sensations as the chief plentiful. The two Jews, Samuel Levy actors. I was, therefore, riveted to the and tall Judas Mayer d'Imling, were pres- spot, looking forward to the sale of fields, ent. They were standing with others at meadows, orchards, and the house as if the farther end of the deceased mayor's they concerned me. ground-floor room. Short drovers' sticks hung from a leather cord to their wrists, and flat caps were pulled over their eyes. There were present also the Restignat brothers, Monsieur Barabino der Harberg, Monsieur Bauquel de Saintquirin, Mon- He was right. Towards half-past sieur Ristraph d'Abrecheville, sur- eleven, all the furniture being sold, there named "the Prince," on account of his im- was some talk of putting the rest of the mense fortune; finally, all the big heads sale off to the following day; but the atof the environs, and, besides these, there torney, who was a sly fox, seeing the purwere Jean and Jacques Rantzau in the chasers were in good condition and getdark, looking on at the sale of small things ting warm, exclaimed, "Lemoine, there as if it bored them immensely. One was will be plenty of time for rest to-morrow. bald and tall, the other square and thick-It is well to beat while the iron is hot; set, with a frizzly head and full beard; let us go into the house." both had long hooked noses, glassy eyes, The clerk then took his register under and wide jaws tightly pressed together. They were equally pale, and did not seem to attend to what the Jews were telling them. I could see all this by looking over people's heads aud standing on the tips of my toes. My wife looked at nothing but the brass candlesticks and the sale of the remainder of the furniture. Suddenly she caught my arm; Lemoine was holding up the candlesticks.

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Lemoine looked our way. "Forty-five sous; going, going; fortyfive sous! no higher bidder? One - two - three gone!"

He handed the candlesticks to my wife, good-humouredly saying, "A splendid bargain, Madame Florent; they are worth four francs as true as two farthings."

Marie-Barbe did not stay the sale out, but, being fully satisfied with her candle sticks, left soon after; but I was much interested in the novel proceedings, and waited for the grand sale of immovables, when francs would be bid by hundreds and thousands. A spectator of such scencs as these fancies all the time that he feels his blood boiling, while the greed he notices in others, their frenzy, and shouts,

his arm, Lemoine carried the desk, and all entered the large, full room. The attorney took possession of the centre, and Monsieur Bajolet read out the terms of sale. They were very simple. Cash was to be forthcoming at the end of a year and a day, including interest at five per cent., or ready money could be paid down immediately, according to the wish of pur

chasers.

After this the sale began, a thick crowd of people pressing round the table. I was somewhat behind, and could only see the faces of those in front of me Samuel Levy, Jean and Jacques Rantzau, and tall Judas Mayer.

The first things sold were an orchard and a few corn and oat fields on the slope, the boundaries and everything connected with each being minutely described, but neither did hundreds nor thousands come down, the Jews having little to do with the proceedings.

Now and then the attorney would assist Lemoine by repeating the prices. He also stepped outside from time to time to say that such or such an orchard was going to be sold. A few men, until then kept back by their remonstrating wives, would slowly come in; for if women love movables, men love immovables, which gives rise to quarrelling between them, the husband wanting to buy what his wife will not let him, when they come to hands, the latter holding out to the end, and screaming at the top of her voice," No, no, no!"

These were the sort who came in aud collected round the table. Up to this time the people of the place and environs 'alone had invested.

I was going to leave, as it was nearly kept by his side. They were seen coming twelve, and I feared Marie Barbe was wait-along from a distance by Jacques and tall ing for dinner, when, just as I had turned Judas, both standing at the door looking away, the notary, raising his voice, said,

"We are going to sell, in one lot, the five acres of land that extend from the river-side to the large meadow of Jacques Rantzau, which it joins at the upper end, and which is better known as the meadow of Guisi. Let it be understood that it is all to be sold in one lot. Now, Lemoine, go on."

Upon which Lemoine climbed up on his chair, crying out,

"Five acres of meadow-land for fifteen hundred francs; fifteen hundred francs for five acres of land; three hundred francs per acre; five acres for fifteen hundred francs!"

Two thousand!" bid one of the Jews. "Two thousand two hundred!" struck up the other.

They went on in this way for some time, each bidding a hundred francs higher in turn until they reached three thousand, when Monsieur Botte whispered,

"Samuel is Jean Rantzau's man, and Judas stands there for Jacques; the fight is between the two brothers."

I turned and took a look at Jean and Jacques; they appeared cool enough, but gloomy. This lasted about half an hour, the rival bidders coming to four thousand francs by adding on fifty to each offer. At this point the Jews hesitated, not daring to bid higher without a sign from the broth

ers.

All at once Jean's face brightened. "Four thousand five hundred!" he thundered.

"Five thousand!" said Jacques with a smile.

"Five thousand five hundred!" retorted Jean.

"Six thousand!" shouted Jacques, without looking at his brother; but his eyes were sunken in and his teeth clenched. "Six thousand five hundred!" roared Jean.

When Jacques heard this he burst into a fit of laughter, and, clearing a passage through the crowd, left the house with his hands thrust in his pockets, saying, "It is too dear for me."

As Jean passed me a moment after, I heard him say, "It is rather heavy pay, but such a meadow as that in one piece would be too good a thing for a single person; I wanted my share, and now I have it."

As he walked down the street very slowly I followed him; Samuel, the Jew,

at them. All the good humour shown by Jacques at the sale had abandoned him; his mirth had turned into sadness when ho reflected that the fine Guisi meadow he had always hoped to have all to himself at the death of old Fortin was now, so to say, cut in two by the piece Jean had bought.

When I came to consider how deeply the two brothers hated each other, I felt a kind of apprehension on my own account, fancying I had given Jacques some annoyance by punishing his son for rude behaviour to Louise. This fear was all the more grounded as there was a rumour afloat that Jacques would succeed Monsieur Fortin as mayor of Chaumes, in which office he would have it if his power to injure me considerably. I felt uneasy the whole evening through lesson's, perplexed as I was by my difficulties with the two children of such men as these Rantzaus. I was as much in fear of one as of the other, never having had an example of such dangerous dispositions. I was

On the same day, towards seven, talking of them to my wife over supper, and she was advising me to be always on my guard, when we heard some one come up-stairs, then knock at our door.

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Come in," said Marie-Barbe.

It was George, with a basket on his arm. "Good evening, Monsieur and Madame Florent; I have brought you something with my parents' compliments."

My wife lifted up the lid of the basket. It contained splendid pork chops and lovely black puddings, tastefully laid out on a large dish. We both expressed our admiration.

cried my wife, "how

"I declare!" shall we ever thank you

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"We killed a pig yesterday," said George, "and my father gave particular orders that the best part should be kept for you."

We were quite astonished.

I made George fill his pockets with nuts, telling him he was to convey our thanks to his parents for their kind attention.

He said he would, and left us in high spirits. Thus, instead of our being on a bad footing with Jacques Rantzau, as we had feared was the case, he looked on us as friends, such presents as the above being made to none who are not on pleasant terms with each other.

I need not add that those chops and black puddings, coming as they did from the hands of Madame Charlotte Rantzau,

were the very best we had ever eaten. Seasoning is not spared in such a larder as hers; besides, with the exception of Madame Guerito Simon, the brewer's wife, no other cook in the place could come up to her. What delighted us most, however. was the certainty that we lived in peace with every one. Without quiet all else is bitterness. I perceived that, though the two Rantzaus hated each other, they were sensible enough to leave their neighbours alone, and that they considered education as a great good.

Monsieur Jean bowed whenever I had the honour to meet him in the village or else where; his brother pulled his hat off to me likewise; consequently I enjoyed perfect calm in the performance of my duties.

No one had a better right than Curé Jannequin to inculcate Christian feelings in the hearts of the notables at Chaumes, and that by reason of his great age and holy profession. I shall never forget how nicely he one day told Jean some big truths, without seeming to be talking at him at all.

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the narrow sandy path which runs along among broom and heath, the heat was so intense we had to slacken our pace; no one spoke, yet thoughts of death suggested the following:

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What is man, O God? These millions of swarming insects around; these ants, which manifest Thy greatness and love; even the soil under our feet teems with life, whereas one of our poor fellowmen lie; yonder without hope, and helpless. What would man be more than an insect if eternal life had not been promised him?"

Our faces were covered with perspiration, and the curé, somewhat bent with age, was compelled to stop every now and then to take breath. The austere aspect of the heights, the barren soil on which grew nothing but brambles and heath, the perpendicular rocks on a line, the mid-day calm, which was so complete that the slightest rustle or cry of the grasshopper could be heard, are to be put down among those things one can fancy, but not describe.

I had never come so far, and it seemed It was on a Thursday morning, during quite extraordinary that human beings the heated term, and about three months should live so much out of the way. Evafter the death of Monsieur Fortin. The ery other minute I wondered how they curé had sent me word to say an accident gained a livelihood, what they ate. I had happened up in the heights, and that looked about and saw nothing. I wonwe were to carry the holy Viaticum to the dered what sort of homes they had, and it hamlet of Bruyères. Thursday is a kind was a full hour's walk farther on before I of holiday, and all the school-children are perceived a few old hovels roofed with sent out to pick up sticks in the forest; wood. Instead of windows there were therefore it was not easy to find a boy to loopholes, some of which were stuffed with carry the bell. Fortunately, George Rant-straw to keep the air out, and others filled zau came our way. George," said I," run and tell your father there is some one dying at Bruyères, and I want you to carry the bell. There is no time to lose." Boys are always pleased to run for any thing, and are particularly fond of taking part in all ceremonies, even mournfui ones; so off he went. I returned to the vestry, where I dressed, and had just finished when he came back. I then clothed him in a surplice, and gave him a hand-bell. The curé was waiting for us at the presbytery, whither we hurried, and thence set out, carrying the holy Viaticum.

It was a very serious case: John Peter Abba, one of Jean Rantzau's woodcutters, had fallen off a great fir-tree he was in the act of lopping, and his thighs having struck against a great protruding root, all the lower part of his body was deadened by the blow, and inert. As we strided along, all the old people came runhing to their windows, saying a short prayer. When we were once on the slope, and had got in

most

with cracked panes of glass to let the light in. The doors were unhung and stood awry; the steps outside were worn and disjoined; altogether they were wretched hovels, more like dens for wild beasts than habitations for human beings. I thought I knew all about misery before I came here, but I soon changed my mind. From the front of one of these abominable homes a group of men, women, and children stood looking at us. The men were in linen trousers, worn out at the knees; the women's gowns were in the same condition, while their hair hung down their backs like skeins of flax. What more can I say? Nothing, but that this place is Las Bruyères.

On a little elevation in the background stretched a few patches of field that looked as if they had been turned over, but on which, for want of water, nothing grew. It was hard to find out that these were potato-fields.

When we came to John Peter Abba's

door, George rang his bell, and the wretched people fell on their knees. We first entered a kind of kitchen, having a hearth in one corner, which was covered with ashes; the beams of the ceiling were so low we had to take our hats off. An old grey-haired woman was seated on a stool, She was half doubled in two, and had thrown her yellow, skinny arms over her head; she did not move, but now and then a sudden sob would make her shake all over. Monsieur Jean Rantzau and Louise were standing by her, for they had hurried to Bruyères, and Monsieur Jean was say-line drawn not only ignored the claims of ing,

The English charters had given to several of the colonies the coast of the Atlantic as their eastern boundary, and had defined, though very locsely, their northern and southern limits; westward, however, their territorial rights stretched across the whole breadth of the continent to the shores of the Pacific - a trifling distance of some two thousand miles.

never

Come, Zâlie, pick up courage. I shall not forsake you never. John Peter was a good labourer; an old companion-one of my father's men. Fear nothing trust to me."

But the afflicted woman did not answer. She had her head on her knees, and was barefoot. I had never seen anything so harrowing, and turned quite pale; so did the curé. Monsieur Jean went on,

"You must bear in mind, Zâlie, that you have still your good son Cyriaque; he will never be out of work. I shall always employ him."

We heard all this from the entrance, where we stood wiping our faces after the hot walk. George again rang his bell, and we entered. Jean Rantzau made a low bow; his eyes were full of tears. Louise was crying also. We remained thus a moment, in silence, to compose ourselves. Monsieur Jean pointed to the back door, and whispered,"He is in there." Monsieur le Curé uncovered the holy Viaticum: then I and George followed him. The others fell in behind, all excepting the stricken old woman.

From Fraser's Magazine. THE PUBLIC LANDS OF THE UNITED STATES.

The French possessions, on the other hand, extended from the St. Lawrence to the Gulf of Mexico; their eastern boundary was not very clearly defined, but the

the English colonists to the western territory, but even infringed upon the limits of some of the colonies themselves.

In support of their pretensions, the French erected forts and block-houses, at intervals, from the Great Lakes, through the western part of Pennsylvania, to the Ohio; then along the banks of that stream to its junction with the Mississippi; whence their chain of military posts followed the course of the latter river to its mouth. France, indeed, displayed an amount of energy and perseverance in her efforts to establish her colonial empire in America upon a secure and permanent basis, which contrasts rather curiously with the supineness and indifference manifested at one time by Great Britain with regard to the security and defence of her American possessions; she having left the people of the colonies for a considerable period to protect themselves as they best might against the encroachments of their formidable rivals. At a later day, however, it must be admitted that England showed no un willingness to draw the sword on behalf of her American subjects.

To return. The English colonists found themselves, by these proceedings of the French, hemmed in, and, in defiance of what they considered to be their rights, prevented all expansion westward. A conflict between the two races was, under these circumstances, sooner or later inevitable. A collision, in fact, took place, so WHEN, in 1783, the treaty was signed early as 1753, on the banks of the Ohio, by which Great Britain recognized the in-between some English settlers and the dependence of her revolted American garrison of one of the forts already recolonies, and the United States were ad- ferred to. Both parties to the quarrel mitted into the family of nations, the hastened to lay the story of their injuries Confederacy owned no public lands what-at the feet of their respective sovereigns. ever. It is true that lying within its The consequence was a long and sanguinborders was a large tract of unoccupied ary war between England and France, in territory, amounting, in the aggregate, to about two hundred and twenty-six millions of acres; but this land belonged to the individual States, not to the Federal Government.

which half Europe became involved, and which extended to even the most distant parts of the globe: so that, to quote Macaulay's words, "In the quarrel of potentates, of whose very existence they

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