point: but not without some sense of self- for three weeks each spring. Just to walk degradation. It is by imperceptible de- about the streets, and behold one's ungrees that the tact and skill of an Arch- known fellow-creatures, and see how big bishop of Canterbury shade into the cun: the place is, is to many an over-driven ning trickery of the Artful Dodger. And and over-sensitive mortal the most prenear the line which parts the permissible cious of medicinal gum. from the mean, an honest man will begin to feel very unhappy.

I have been setting forth moral rather than material considerations. But one I do not linger on that which in a little cannot help thinking how in a little place place is sometimes felt as provocation: the one misses the material advantages (net tendency on the part of some of your without their moral consequences) which neighbours to investigate all your proceed- come in a large community of the clubbing ings, and make them the subject of much together of the limited means of a great conversation and discussion. Gossip, if number of comparatively poor people. In not false or ill-natured, is a needful and a large city, there is everywhere a solidity, justifiable part of real life: it merely an appearance of wealth. As in a club, a means that human beings are interested congeries of men of very moderate rein the persons and events which are near- sources are able to afford a palace, with est to them. Yet there come seasons in the arrangements, the books, and the pewhich you are more sensitive to the little- riodicals, which only a millionaire could ness of humanity than at other times: in provide for himself, so is it in a great which it makes you angry, while it ought town. The very pavement of the streets simply to amuse you, to find anxious en- is different. The water-supply is better quiries made as to who dined with you on and more abundant. The shops are insuch a day, and even what you had for comparably handsomer and better prodinner likewise why you did not invite vided. You have the great luxury of a A and B, each of whom is as good as you. first-rate bookseller, on whose tables you But if you have so much good sense as to can see all the new books: buying a few, decline to listen to such petty talk, you and seeing as much as you desire of many will not be annoyed by it: and it comes more. In the little place you may be to very little after all. Passing from this, thankful to have a railway at all: so let me sum up by saying generally, that thankful that you do not grumble at the if you live in a small community, it is ex- wretched rickety wooden shed which pedient that from time to time you should serves for a station, the rattling carriages, go for a little while away from it: if pos- the ill-laid rails which would make express sible, to a considerable distance from it. speed destruction. You cannot expect to Thus only you will keep your mind in a step into the luxurious and fluent carriage, healthy state. Thus you will see things which in nine hours and a half bears you in true perspective, and looking their true four hundred miles; conveying you from size. Thus only will you keep it present Athens to Babylon. Neither can you, to you, how modest your own dimensions when you feel dreary and stupid, wander are, and how small your weight. I have away and lose yourself in mazes of smoky known a really clever man, after living streets in some noisy and squalid quarter, for some months together in the unhealthy whence you return with a penitent sense moral atmosphere of a small place, burst that you have little right to be discontentout into exhibitions of arrogance and con- ed. Most middle-aged men remember to ceit so deplorable, as to be barely consist- have got good in that way. I remember ent with sanity. It is needful that you go talking with a very intelligent working where you may sit down and take in that man who abode in a little city, but had at the sphere wherein you live is not all one period in his life lived for some years the world; and that its affairs are in fact in London. "What I liked about London," not much thought or talked of by the ma- said he, was this: "that if a body was illjority of the human race. And discern-off, you had only to go out for a walk and ing this, you go home again quite resolved not to be drawn into small strifes, ambitions, and diplomacies, which are thoroughly bad for soul and mind. To educated and sensitive men, dwelling in little towns, London is a great and wholesome alterative. If I were a rich man, I would provide an endowment which tight send every country parson in Britain to London

you would see some other body worse-off." The idea was sound, though awkwardly expressed. It was as when the Highlander said, "The potatoes here are very bad; but, God be thanked, they are a great deal worse about Drumnadrochit."

On the whole, the little community is a school wherein, with certain disadvantages and certain advantages too, one may cul

Two or three hundred steps farther on The next thing to be seen will be a wo-stands the mill of Father Lazarus, with man holding a tubful of clothes on her the water falling off its mossy wheels like head. It is either Marie-Jeanne or Cath-crystal fringe, making a large pool shake arinette going to the wash-house. After and ripple below. this, the bullocks and goats file off, and old Minique, with his head stooping forward, and an axe over his shoulder, comes hurrying on to turn the water off on his meadow.

parent, for the two brothers who had been They came and they went without seemfond of each other so long as their fathering to know each other. lived who had always stood up for each other, and who had married two sisters, the daughters of old Lefèvre, justice of the peace - could henceforth not endure the sight one of the other.

Jean's wife gave birth to a little girl at about this time; Jacques' wife had a boy. Meanwhile the villagers and people in the valley were divided between these two men, siding with Jacques or Jean according to their private interests.

Jean, the elder, was a tall bold fellow, full of pride and of the things of this world. In this divided state did I find Chaumes By the will of his father, and because he towards the end of the reign of Louis was the first-born and had assisted the XVIII., when I was appointed schoolmasold man in his labour, he came into poster in the place of Maitre Labadie, who session of the family house bequeathed had to give up his situation on account of unto him over and above his share after his advanced age. I am indebted to him every thing else had been divided. This for many things, and especially for the was not, strictly speaking, just; for if Jean hand of his daughter, who became my had been a great help to his father in the wife, and unto whom I owe the happiness raw salt business, Jacques had proved of nearly fifty years' married life, and a himself to be quite as active in every thing family of excellent children. connected with the timber.

zau.

My father-in-law continued to live with Neither was there a finer house for miles us in the school-house, often assisting me and miles around than that of old Rant-in my labours and with useful advice. Appertaining unto it were outhouses, a garden that went down to the banks of the river, stabling for fifteen heads of cattle, barns for hay, straw, and provender of all sorts for a whole year, besides cellars, a wash-house, and a distillery. Altogether it was a magnificent house, newly whitewashed, and all the shutters were painted green.

Jean was satisfied. It seemed quite natural to him that he should inherit his father's house, but the clause of the will by which he became master was not satisfactory to Jacques.

He made up his mind to have a good house too, and had one built just facing his brother's with nothing but the street and the two yards in front of each between. There they both stood; barn opposite barn, shed opposite shed, the stables facing each other, door to door, window to window, the same sized space for dung-hill, fagots, and wood. It was a signal for open war between the two brothers.

Jean considered it in this light at all events, but what annoyed him more than any thing was, that just three months later Jacques bought the big meadow of Guisi, the finest in the valley, and paid down twelve thousand francs ready money for it a thing that never had been heard of before, and that probably never will be heard of again at Chaumes.

"Never meddle with the concerns of the village, Florent," he would say; take up no man's quarrel; try to be on pleasant terms with every body: do your duty at the school, church, and Mairie, and, finally, be respectful to those who are in authority. This need not deter you from entertaining an opinion of your own; but never express it. This is the way to do a little good, and to live in peace with every body." Then the kind old man told me the story of the Rantzau brothers and their great hatred, advising me, further, to be cautious, as well in my own interests as that of others, for the children of Jean and Jacques would necessarily come at at a later period to my school, and the slightest preference shown for one or the other would prove very prejudicial.

The first year or two which a young man has to spend away from his native place are the most trying of any he has to go through in after-life. Happy he who meets with good advice at the onset! How many irreparable mistakes it averts! I must say I look back to my beginnings at Chaumes with grateful satisfaction. But my way of living here was totally different from that I had been accustomed to at my native place, which is a flat, even country, and therefore nothing like life in the mountains.

My old master at Dieuze, in Lorraine, On hearing this, Jean turned deadly was a clever inan for his days, and, being pale; but he said not a word, the Rant-partial to me as a scholar, had taught ine zaus being of too haughty a race to raise to appreciate the simplest things observed a voice against one of their own family. in Nature. He also gave From that day the two brothers never exchanged so much as a syllable, though they met at least twenty times a day.

me a great liking for plants, insects, and taught me the little music I knew.

I found these elementary notions most

useful at Chaumes, and they often helped out for me at the door, and would exclaim me on to persevere patiently through dry good-humouredly, "Late again, Florent! teaching at school. Marie-Barbe has laid the cloth long ago, and the soup will be cold."

As soon as lesson-time was over I used to buckle on my herb-box, and climb the path up the hill.'

The furze in bloom, the pink heath, the innumerable wild plants growing to the rocks, the gaudy gold-coated and silvery flies, some covered with velvety down, others in silken sheen, their buzz as they swarmed in the rays of the setting sun all I saw and felt, the higher I went, filled my very soul with joyous emotion.

"I am sorry for it, and that is a fact, Monsieur Labadie," was my reply on one occasion; "your mountains are so full of beautiful things, it is a feast to be among them."

"Well, so it is; but come, let us go in to supper."

There was Marie-Barbe, my wife, always glad to see me back, and so busy as a bee. After supper we talked botany over, and Father Labadie said,

Forgetting time, I rambled on, picking samples here and there! and, not having "Well, yes, Florent; I enter into your much learning, I fancied I was always pursuits entirely. In my time it making new discoveries. When I reached was the study of the learned; and up in the summit, I stood under the ruins of the the Vosges it was quite by mere chance if old castle among brambles and sprays of ever one heard of Monsieur Buffon, Linné, ivy a hundred years old, having all the un- or Jussieu; yet how splendidly we could der-branches shrivelled up, and the top-have studied herbs in these mountains! layers of a new bright green. As I was thus sheltered, I would consider the calm valley below; the mirrored surface of the river; the low roofs, all on a row; the church-steeple; the curate's house, with its hives and arbour; the mill; the distant saw-yards, already in the shade; and, when I had run over each of these spots, I said within myself,

No one seemed to think of us; and the science of herbs, which should be spread in the remotest boroughs, is all bound up in folios within the libraries of cities."

As he talked he would get cheerful; but he always experienced a kind of grief when he thought of the many years lost by him in the midst of such treasures. His great hobby was music.

"You will spend all the rest of your We had a small piano, or clavecin rather, life in this corner of the world. Look! for there were only four octaves in it. It this is the field of your future exertions in stood in our dining-room, and when it got behalf of your fellow-creatures; you will late, after the shutters were bolted, Father here bring up the children God may send | Labadie liked to draw his easy leather yon, and, when your work is done, you chair in front of it, place his broad feet will here rest in the Lord. Study; toil. on the pedals, and run his thin fingers over For all you know, there may be a useful, the keys. He could play requiems, allebenevolent man, remarkable even for ex-luias, and excelsis Deos, and accompani traordinary intellect, sitting among your bare-footed, poor, ignorant, ragged scholars, as abandoned as wild berries in the wood! God looks not at any one's station in life; He sows good seed where He likes. You can follow His example by doing good wherever you go by every word you teach; Some of your lessons will fall among thorns; many on hard rock; but, providing a single seed strike in good soil, you will be content."

ments to the chanting he fancied he could hear a long way off, moving backwards and forwards, and lifting up his eyes in perfect rapture.

He possessed a trunkful of very old music by dead German masters. He thought all the world of the pieces in this trunk; and they must have been very good as he prized them, for Father Labadie was known to be the best Catholic organist far or near. The Lutherans have several good ones: they give themselves

Thinking thus, I would be surprised by evening-fall, and dusk would find me com-up to music, and take a pride in it. ing down to the village, full of the new plants I had gathered, wondering about the new insects I had pinned in my hat, trying to class them, not scientifically, for I had not the right books, and did not know enough without them, but according to the different families of the plants and names in use at Chaumes.

My father-in-law was ever on the look

I had no hopes of becoming such a performer as my father-in-law; but, thanks to his excellent teaching, I soon knew as much as Litcher at Difo; that was enough to enable me to hold the organ at church even on solemn occasions, such as Confirmation Day, and in the presence of Monseigneur de Forbin-Janson, the bishop of our diocese.

CHAPTER II.

AMIDST study and labour did the first years of my profession as schoolmaster pass over at Chaumes.

him take the comb from his hives every autumn, at which season he always sent uз some of his honey. He had returned to France after the emigration, and was full of experience, having seen a great deal of Marie-Barbe had just made me the father the world. As a preacher he was remarkof a little boy, who had been christened ably gifted; for he spoke slowly, and dePaul. Father Labadie seemed to spend livered short sermons that abounded in the rest of his life, from that time forward, plain common sense. The fervour of over nothing but that child. Though a young priests who, like Father Tarin and fine old man, he was getting infirm, and the missionaries, travel over France, conwhen he began to decline he fell off rap-verting heretics, did not meet with his symidly. At first he would grieve us by weep-pathy, and any mention of them used to ing; then he became hard of hearing make him shrug his shoulders with pity. gave up going to church; and yet he was I have sometimes been alone with him in not unfortunate enough to turn _childish. the garden behind the presbytery, just He had a wonderful memory. When he after the postman has brought in the Gawas asked in a loud, intelligible voice for zette, and on these occasions I have noticed any particular information concerning doc- him run down the columns and change uments at the Mairie, certificates of birth colour. or decease, or about forest laws, or the result of the deliberations of the Municipal Council assembled as far back as twenty years previous to the time spoken of, he would, after listening attentively, reply without hesitation, "You will find what you want in such or such a drawer; such or such a shelf; or, at the back of the pigeon-hole of such or such a bureau."

"Monsieur Florent," he would say, raising his hand prophetically, "these zealous young men will ruin every one of us. God above! Is the experience of the aged never to benefit those who come after them? Have the errors of the past, which we have so cruelly atoned for, not enlightened any one? What a misfortune!"

Then he would stop all at once, and say

I think he knew his end was approach-"Let us think of something else!" ing, yet he felt inwardly happy to find a robust little fellow take up much of our attention, and likely to fill his place when he was gone.

Putting aside his increasing weakness, we had every reason to be contented and thankful.

Although Monsieur le Curé did not hold with too much zeal, he was very strict in the performance of his duties, and deservedly enjoyed the veneration of all the country around.

Father Labadie breathed his last in calm and peace, five years after my arrival at Chaumes. His death was the first real sorrow I had experienced in my new fam

I had succeeded Father Labadie at the school, the Mairie, and the church; also as land-measurer and wood-felling overseer.ily. The Commune paid me four hundred francs yearly, and what with chaunting, what with the christenings, deaths, weddings, Christmas presents, the fifty sous per month for each scholar in winter, and other odd trifles, our income came up to nearly one thousand francs.*

I and my wife managed the school-house garden ourselves, and we made it supply us with vegetables all the year round. We also kept a pig, which Balshazar, the herd man, drove out acorning in return for his son's teaching. In short, every thing prospered, and I had occasion more than once to prize Father Labadie's advice | concerning the wisdom of keeping out of other men's quarrels.

Our curé, Monsieur Jannequin, took great interest in us. His favourite subject of conversation was his bees. I helped

Forty pounds sterling.

Every inhabitant of the mountainous district attended the funeral, and it was one of my painful duties to have to play the mournful dirge sung at our church. I got through it as well as I could, with tears in my eyes, and stifled sobs choking me all the time. The worst was, I had, as chantre, to lead the procession to the village cemetery when mass for the dead was

over.

Nothing but firm reliance in God can comfort us in such trials as these; reliance in Him who rewards the just man for a well-spent life here on earth, and who takes him to Himself when toil, grief, and care have been borne with fortitude.

Our home was a dreary one for a considerable time; grandfather's place was empty, and we could not look at it without thinking he had gone for ever; that he could never come back again; and that we should not hear his voice any more.