I remember, I remember I used to think their slender spires To know, I'm farther off from heaven, THOMAS HOOD. UNCLE HARTLEBURY'S ROMANCE. A CHRISTMAS STORY TOLD BY THE SEA. [Joseph Hatton, born at Andover, 3d February, 1837. Novelist, journalist, and miscellaneous writer. At an early age he commenced his career as a journalist, and when only twenty-one was appointed editor of the Bristol Mirror. He subsequently conducted the Durham County Advertiser, and was for several years editor and proprietor of Berrow's Worcester Journal. Meanwhile he was a frequent contributor to the principal maga zines. In 1868 he became editor of the Gentleman's Magazine, which under his direction rose from a small circulation to one of importance and profit. He started the Illustrated Midland News, and is editor of the (LonSweets; The Tallants of Barton: Life and Adventures of Christopher Kenrick; The Valley of Poppies; and In the Lap of Fortune. Of his miscellaneous works the best are: Pippins and Cheese (from which the following tale is ex don) School Board Chronicle. His chief novels are: Bitter tracted); and With a Show in the North. He is also the joint translator and adapter of Dr. Fricke's remarkable work-Ethics for Undenominational Schools. One of his critics says he "writes like a scholar, and yet like a man who has watched life, and found out the highest and noblest teaching of sorrow." Another: "Mr. Hatton does not describe; he does not relate; he impersonates. We see Summerdale in-the-Water,' its peaceful valley, its mossy fountains, its quiet, simple people; we hear its three bells, now jubilant, now mournful, now chiming gentle, tender music to the soul."] Yes, sir, we have met before; and I am delighted to see you again. No, you have made no mistake. I am the Recorder of Miningtown, and the portly lady whom you see yonder in the midst of that assembly of romping children, about to bathe after the fashion of this Boulogne, are my wife and family. Yes, sir, that is Mrs. Hartlebury. Speak louder, mon ami, I am slightly deaf. Yes, I do bathe; but the exertion of dressing and undressing in this hot weather is too much for one who, like Falstaff, grows fat and hath gray hairs. Have a cigar? That's right. I know nothing more agreeable than to sit here and watch the sea come rolling in upon those bathers yonder, and especially when you can observe the gambols of your own children, and at the same time let your mind wander out to that wide reach of sea, with sails in the distance. You are a writer, an author. Yes, I saw your last book at the railway-station, and bought it. Ah, I knew you would like me all the more for that. Why don't you reply that you had read my lucid and learned judgment in that remarkable forgery case? Never mind, sir; I am past that sort of thing. I suppose you are on the look-out for some bits of fresh character and wayside incidents of travel? No; you are only here for change and rest? You have been up to the cathedral, stood once more on the doorstep of Le Sage's house, and refreshed your old memories of the place? Ah, oui! Old memories! You would hardly credit me, I suppose, with being afflicted by some strange old memories of personal adventure in this place, or any other, for that matter. You would not take an old gentleman with gray hairs, sitting on the beach at Boulogne whilst his wife and family are bathing, as a fitting subject for the hero of a romance. There are peculiar anomalies in life, you say? That is evasion, sir. I know what you are thinking well enough. I can only tell you this, my friend, that the story of my first appearance here twenty years ago is far more romantic than half the tales told in your magazines, and thought worthy of wonderful illustrations. I am too old to be vain, and I know something of the lights and shadows of life, something of its untold romances, something of its terrible tragedies. Ah, my friend, twenty years ago I was as slim and dapper and lady-killing as yourself. killer? Don't tell me, sir; all young fellows You do not aspire to the character of a ladylike to make a favourable impression on the other sex. Why are you so carefully shaved to-day? Why is that bit of showy neckerchief so daintily tied? Why those well-fitting gray trowsers, and that smart little cane? Simply because you are accustomed to dress well, and aspire to be regarded as a gentleman. Very good; and you are anxious to bid at the same time for those feminine glances which are so flattering to youth. There, don't think I imagine you are a fop; and for Heaven's sake don't be annoyed. My criticism is only the result of my own feelings, my own ambition, when I was a young fellow like you. Tell you my story? Yes, if you think it may interest you. It may do for a Christmas paper? Ah, ah! on the look-out for copy, eh?-gathering honey all the day from every opening flower. Well, I feel something of the Ancient Mariner's sensations this morning; it will be a relief to tell the story of that extraordinary creature whose face has haunted me ever since I came here two days ago. You will readily consent to play the wedding-guest to my mariner? Very well, sir; light another cigar and listen: if I bore you stop me, and we will in to the Établissement and read the papers. It is all bound up in this bit of faded ribbon, my story: this little scrap, you see, which is set in that petit rim of gold appended to my watch-seals. I have never worn the trifle since my marriage until this week. My wife has some pardonable womanly notion that I ought not to wear it, and I have humoured her; for, though I say it, she is one of the best women in the world. Above all others, you think, it is I who should say so? You say well, you say well, my young friend. When we were leaving London last week, it seemed to me that I could not come even here without this little souvenir of that romance twenty years ago. Twenty years ago! How the time flies! This is the story. I was engaged to Mrs. Hartlebury; she was a Miss Longford. We had been in the habit of seeing each other from the earliest days of our childhood. I ought to have appreciated her kindly loving disposition all the more on this account; but I did not. It had always been understood that we should be married, and in due course this family understanding bore fruit. We were engaged, Julia Longford and I, but on this understanding, that if either one or the other saw any other person whom he or she, the said contracting parties, preferred to the before-mentioned parties to this agreement, then either he or she, the said Thomas Hartlebury and Julia Longford, might terminate the previously recited engagement at one day's notice given by post or orally in the presence of witnesses. Yes, I am getting a little involved, I fear, in this semi-legal phraseology? But you understand the character of that agreement? Yes, and you think it a very convenient engagement? And I thought so too, sir, in a very short time after it was made. That very summer twenty years ago, with the consent and indeed by the advice of my dear old father, I started on a continental tour, which was to be inaugurated by a visit to Paris via Boulogne, and which terminated somewhat suddenly in the French capital. I was quite as much a buck in those days as you are now, not quite so slim as Falstaff boasted himself to be. I was something more than an eagle's talon in the waist, and I could not creep through an alderman's thumb-ring, for I was a strong, well-built young fellow, and not ill-looking-no, sir, not ill-looking. You can readily understand that? Even though I might play the fat knight with as little padding as Mark Lemon! It is true, sir, quite true. I can see myself now, airing my swell clothes and London manners on the beach here; but there is a sad face rises up beside me, and a figure floating out with the tide yonder which sobers the picture, and makes a shadow upon that sunny water. Bathing en famille was tickled me in those days. nothing improper in it? a notion that rather You think there is Neither do I, sir, or Mrs. Hartlebury and her daughters would not be enjoying themselves as you see them yonder. The "girl of the period" at ball and opera is much more undressed than the ladies in their pretty bathing costumes? I quite agree with you; but my very proper English notions were a little excited at the prospect of a company of lovely mermaidens in a sea-bath. I little thought when I went into the water that I was destined to come out with a pretty girl in my arms. Ah, now I see you are interested. What a subject for a modern magazine picture! That is what you are thinking, I know. Don't keep you in suspense? Is that what you said? I told you I was slightly deaf. Did I come out of the water with a young lady in my arms really? Yes, it was in this way. I was swimming about, and watching the movements of a most graceful person, floating half-sideways, half on her back, with her arms extended, and her head resting on the water; she was drifting out in the sunshine, the water quite placid but swelling like her own bosom beneath a thin blue robe; she was drifting, I say, in the sunshine, like a blessed martyr going out to some better land. I see her now, poor pretty tender-hearted thing, with the sea rocking her in its great arms, and yet trying all the while to steal away her life. I watched her at a respectful distance and swam quietly after her; for somehow it occurred to me that she was not quite conscious of the power of that insidious but certain current, which I could feel setting in towards the pier. I had judged aright; by-and-by she turned over, evidently with the intention of swimming home, but she could not accomplish her purpose. She struggled on for a little time, and then to all appearance lost her presence of mind, or was attacked with cramp. She disappeared at all events, and I rapidly quickened my pace towards her, putting my head well to the water and dashing on with that sharp side-stroke, which is so effective in the matter of speed. She "You could not love me," I said, hands. "There was a time, monsieur, when what you have just said would have awakened a passion of pleasure and gratitude in my heart; but oh, sir, that time is past; adieu, mon très cher ami; you will always live in my dearest memory." rose for the second time as I reached the spot. | sadly. In a moment I had seized her by the shoulder, sitting down and covering my face with my and supporting her with my left arm, I commenced to swim slowly in the direction of the shore. The young lady's difficulty had been noticed from the beach, and a boat had put off when I dashed after her. It came up by the time I was within easy distance of the shore with my beautiful, half-drowned burden, and I helped to place her in the boat amidst a loud cheer. I got in after her, and was delighted to see signs of rapid recovery in the dear creature. Satisfied with this, and not caring to present myself in my Blondin-like costume to a fashionable and excited throng, I dashed into the water and swam to my machine. If Mrs. Hartlebury and those girls would do the same it would be just as well. They have been in the water too long already. You don't think so? Mrs. Hartlebury is the best judge of that? I had better proceed with my story; you are getting interested? You want to know what the young lady was like? Like, sir, like no young lady in Boulogne at the present day, or anywhere else that I have seen, for beauty. She was like a poet's dream, sir, or an artist's fancy. Was she a blonde? Not exactly, no; she had brown wavy hair, and such eyes, such a figure! Arms as round and fair as the arms of those women by Rubens in the Louvre-a neck and shoulders in which all the lines of beauty were described. I saw her on that next day after her narrow escape; she found me out, and came to the Hôtel des Bains to thank me. "I must excuse her," she said, "for calling unattended, she had no friends in Boulogne." "One at least," I said, taking her hand, and faltering in my speech. She looked up inquiringly at me for a moment with her big dark eyes, and I felt myself gradually becoming powerless in her presence, anxious to say all sorts of gracious things, but unable to do so. "Good-bye, and believe me I shall never forget your brave action." She spoke with a pretty musical French accent. She left me, and this only made me more fiercely in love with her. I did not seem to be master of my actions, and I was selfish enough to think that I had a special claim upon her. I rescued her from death, and that ought to make her mine. If she would have had me, I would have married her, sir, right off, and should have felt myself blessed. How long would that sentiment have lasted? Heaven knows. I followed her, found out her hotel, returned her call, and made her promise to see me in Paris. My next action was to discover by what train she travelled, and on the following day I was on the platform, and constituted myself the lady's compagnon de voyage. At first she seemed a little disconcerted at this, but as we journeyed onwards she brightened up, and became chatty and sparkling and lively. Every now and then all this was darkened, like a summer landscape with passing thunder-clouds. Once when the other stupid passengers were asleep I pressed her hand. She returned me a gentle pressure, and with the tears in her eyes she whispered in heartfelt accents that almost brought the tears to mine, "Oh, my dear, dear friend!" It seemed like a cry of despair from a breaking heart, and I felt as if a terrible grief was seizing upon me. You really would not have given me credit for so much romance? Of course not, it seems ridiculous to you now, looking at the portly recorder and his romping responsibilities yonder. Ah, I am glad the girls are coming out of the water. It does not matter so much about Frank, and Tom, and Harry, they are strong fellows, and will have café noir and cigars afterwards to keep up the circulation. May I not see you again?" I asked, and You object to these interruptions? These then bolder grown I answered my own question: changes from romance to reality, eh?—from "I must, indeed I must.' "I am going to the sublime to the ridiculous. On our arrival Paris in the morning. I have been to London, at the Northern Station at Paris, Louise and and am on my way to Paris. I fear I must I you know, her name was Louise, I think I say good-bye now, monsieur." "Oh no," I said before; on our arrival, a placid, mysterious, said, feeling as if I were about to lose every-light-moustached old German came up to us. thing dear to me in the world. "I love you, mademoiselle; I love you; I will make you my wife." "Oh, monsieur, that can never be,' she replied. "Why not?" I exclaimed, becoming desperate. 'Do not ask," she said, He kissed the young lady on the cheek, and then looked scowlingly at me. Louise began therefore to talk German to him with many gesticulations, explaining the small service I had rendered her. He smiled, I thought, a I got to my hotel in a dreamy sort of fashion, ordered private rooms, and said I expected a lady to call in the evening; I should not go out until she came, and they must show her up. It seemed ages that I waited for her; I waited until they relieved guard at the Napoleon Column and marched by the Rue St. Honoré with their drums and trumpets. I waited until my heart was sick with fears and doubts; and at last I received a short note, in which the writer said I might see her on the next night at the Arc de l'Etoile, at ten o'clock; but if I really loved her, and wished to cherish the memory of her as something sweet and dear, I ought to see her no more. She offered no apology for keeping me waiting. I kissed her note, and yet smote the table with passion, and stamped about the room with rage. That silent, disgusting German was the cause of all this! Who was he? What was he? I asked myself, but I was never enabled to answer the question. He was a strange unfathomable mystery. little sarcastically, and looked incredulously of a hundred happy things that only lovers' at me; but mademoiselle stamped her foot lips can say. At last she confessed that she angrily at Mein Herr Diable, and he conde- loved me with all her heart. "I have never scended to look civilly upon me. "We must known what love is until now," she said, part here," she said hurriedly to me. "What my dear, dear friend; and I understand its is your hotel?" "The Imperial," I said. sweetness, its purity, when it is too late, too Place Vendome." "You must not call on late, my dear monsieur." "Why too late, me. I will call upon you to-night. For Louise?" I asked; and then, prepared to learn Heaven's sake be satisfied with this. the worst, I said, "You are not married already?" "Oh, no," she said. "Nor betrothed?" I asked, hurrying question upon question. "Cease, cease, I pray you," she exclaimed, in a passion of despair. "Seek to know no more: I can never be yours: I love you too much." "You are mine, Louise; I snatched you from the grave. It was Fate that brought me to your side: Death came between us, and I struck him down. You are mine by all laws human and divine." She sobbed at this, laid her head on my shoulder, and in a wail of despair said, "Oh, would I were! Would it might be possible! Oh, sir, do not tempt me: do not; pray, do not. Your love would end in hate. "My dear Louise, I am prepared to brave all things." "I am not prepared to brave your scorn," she said. "Death were bliss to that. Let me go, sir. Farewell!" 'No, no," I said, detaining her. "I will raise an alarm," she cried. "Cruel, cruel," I replied. "O, mon Dieu, monsieur!" she exclaimed, and then kissing me on the forehead she said, "You see yon distant lights on the right, and that great cluster in the Champs Elysée?" "Yes." "It is Monsieur Victor's Café Chantant. I will see you once again. Let it be there, to-morrow night, at ten." "You will not deceive me?" I said, letting her hand go very reluctantly. "That is what I will not do for all the world," she replied solemnly, and raising her eyes to heaven. "I will not deceive you.' "My dear Louise!" I said. On the following night I was at the Arch of Triumph an hour before the trysting-time, with a longing heart and a brain half-dazed with the glare and glitter of the long rows of gas-lamps and the wandering carriage-lights. The scene was to me then one of such unaccustomed splendour, that it seemed as if I had been dropped here by Fate to play a part in some Arabian Night's story. She came at last, my charmer, muffled up half in disguise, running, I thought, from one who claims her love to one who prays for it as the greatest blessing Heaven or earth can give. We walked to the shadow of an adjacent tree, and sat down; she suffered me to clasp her in my arms. Again I offered her my hand; talked to her of arrangements for the future; indicated the sort of letter I would write to my father by the very next post. A mad thing to do? I must have been off my head? Ah, so would you have been in presence of that matchless beauty. I never saw so much loveliness in mortal being; and even after all these years have elapsed, I cannot condemn my judgment in that respect. We wandered about those walks in the Bois de Boulogne, and sat beneath the trees, and talked She looked so beautiful in the starlight. "Better say adieu, now and for ever!" was her response. "But if it must be, au revoir! Be it so!" "Au revoir!" broke from my lips. She slipped away from me, and disappeared. The long rows of lights, the distant sounds of music, mocked my despair. I look back now, and know what a mad fellow I was; but I do not blame myself, and I learned how heroic woman can be, the most abandoned, when the divine chord of love is really touched by the master hand. Poor lost Louise, she was a martyr for my sake! I can see now, out yonder where the sun is making a long track over the waters, I can see a half-clad figure drifting, drifting, floating away into the darker shade, -drifting out into the mist where sea and sky unite and are lost in each other. What creatures of circumstances we are! Ah, there's my wife yonder beckoning to Frank and Harry. The girls are nearly dressed by this time, and yonder are the boys plunging about as if they had only just gone in. There they are, sir, within fifty yards of the spot where I rescued Louise from drowning twenty years ago! All right, my friend; don't be unhappy. My romance will soon be at an end. You think I tell the story well? I am quite eloquent, you say? Ah, it is the eloquence that earnestness gives, I suppose. It does me good to tell you this romance of mine: it has been in my mind at odd times, as if it demanded utterance, for years. You may be sure I went to that café the next night. There was a clear sky and a full moon. The effect of the contending lights of the café and the moon among the foliage of the Champs Elysée was weird and magical. | It seemed to carry my mind back to a wonderful representation I had seen at a London theatre of Faust and Marguerite. Then the woodland scene of A Midsummer Night's Dream broke into that memory. I was not myself, I often think, all through this piece. I know that it shocked me a little when I found myself among a crowd of men and women who were drinking and smoking in this beautiful spot, and applauding an indecent dance; and it shocked me all the more to think that it was here that Louise had selected to meet me, her lover. Then I thought what a prude I was, and remembered how different were French ideas of these things to ours in Eng land. I would soon coax Louise out of all this semi-barbarous indifference to the proprieties when I had her in England and made her my wife. While I was thinking in this wise, a terrific burst of applause brought my wandering eyes back to the stage. A lady was smil ing and bowing her acknowledgments. My heart beat wildly at sight of her. The applause rose again higher and higher. "Who is this?" I said excitedly to a gentleman who was crowded close up against me. "Do you not know?" he said in French. Mademoiselle Victor, it is her first appearance this season; she has just returned from England." Oh, my friend, I thought I should have lost my breath altogether. There was nothing improper in her bathing dress: she might have walked down Bond Street in it; but the costume in which she now appeared was the wildest kind of ballet dress I had ever seen. She sung with intense vigour in a rich ringing voice, and to the chorus she danced in a voluptuous siren-like fashion that seemed to belong rather to a figure out of one of Etty's pictures than to anything earthly. From this movement she changed her gambols into a mad sort of Mabille dance, in the midst of which she uttered a piercing scream and threw herself upon the floor in the glare and glitter of the footlights. I thought I should go mad. I pushed my way with des peration to the stage to assure myself that I was not the victim of some horrible delusion. They had lifted her up and carried her into the retiring-room. I forced my way in; but I should have been violently ejected, had not that old German caught sight of me and snatched me out of the grasp of several yelling rascals who had nearly overpowered me. This mysterious person was evidently in great authority there. Louise opened her eyes, and seeing me said, "Oh my God," and covered her face with her hands. That sneaking German frowned at me, but happily allowed me to remain. In a few minutes mademoiselle had recovered sufficiently for the manager to go out and tell the audience she would reappear shortly. In the midst of the shout of applause which greeted this declaration Louise rose to her feet and called for champagne. She drank the wine greedily, and then turning to me said, "There, monsieur, I told you it could not be: I said I would not deceive you. Adieu! God guard you!" She took the manager's arm, and he led her once more upon the stage. The old German stood there looking at me like Mephistopheles in the play. 1 staggered to the door, slipped like a drunkard out into the night, threw myself upon the grass just beyond the inclosure of that painted hell, and wept like a child. Bravo Frank! That was a splendid dive: but I'm glad it is the last; you have certainly had enough of the water for this morning That's right, my dear boy. Better finish my story before they all come and interrupt us? Is that what you said? Très bien, but one requires a little interval now and then to keep down the full rush of the old feeling; mind you, I am enacting all this story over again while I am narrating it to you. And storytelling is warm work in the hottest days of August. You mean to tell it when the weather is cold? Eh? in a Christmas annual? Well, I have no objection, only keep my name out of the story, and don't let me be pointed at as the hero. You believe Mrs. Hartlebury is coming? Well, light another cigar, and we will come to the Finis." I passed a miserable night. I lay there on |