drew her hand back burning from the tourists who landed was a young French contact. "You asked me a little time ago," said the young man gravely, as he put the flower safely away, “if we have violets in England. Sometimes we are fortunate enough to be permitted to transplant them from France, and then I think they strike down deeper roots, and blossom into richer lovelier color, than in their own native soil." girl, who seemed to be all alone, and who glanced with timid shrinking looks about her. She had pretty dark Norman features, and dark piquant eyes, fringed with curled lashes that rose and fell as she shot those frightened quick glances about. She tripped up the landing, her little high-heeled boots clicking musically as they flashed from beneath her slashed Then he took her hand and held it to black-and-crimson skirt. Her ravishhis lips in parting. "Good-by," he said. He kissed the trembling hand. "Good-by, Ninon my Ninon!" he added to himself. A moment later, and Mademoiselle d'Etoile was alone, listening to the echo of his steps as he passed beneath her balcony to the gate. "O!" she cried passionately, clasping her hands tightly together, "how I hate to hear the footsteps of those I love going from me, when I can not follow." Ninon sat a long time with her chin dropped into her palm, musing. Then she went to her library, and, selecting a certain big book, opened it at a certain page. It held a map of England, infinitesimal, but complete. Ninon, with her finger, traced a route from the coast inland to a certain shire. "It is not very far from the coast," she murmured. She pushed away the book, and sat lost in thought again. How different are the skies of France and England; they seem to be separate patches, curtaining separate countries. On a certain day, for instance (in our voyage), when a crowded excursionsteamer left the French harbor, it left blue skies, soft summer airs, and mellow warmth behind it. When it, across the channel, slid slowly up alongside the English pier, dark lowering clouds were discharging a mist so chill that everybody shivered and turned blue. Among the crowd of cheap British ing little vandyke boddice was bordered with a heavy, gold fringe, that clashed merrily when she moved, and the broad ribbon of a guitar was passed over her neck. She looked to be music personified, gliding with little light feet up that noisy, dingy, rainy pier. When she had separated herself a little from the thickest of the crowd, she paused. She looked around upon her late companions, then with a demure smile on her pretty lips she raised her guitar, touched the strings, and began to sing a tender pathetic old Norman lovesong, in a fresh sweet girlish voice. It was a sight sufficient to draw a crowd in any thoroughfare, this slim figure of a girl, half-timid, half-fearless, pretty, pathetic with her youth and helplessness, singing a quaint old love-song in a voice fresh and clear as the dew and buttercups of May. The crowd looked and grew denser. The music trickled on, limpid, sparkling, brook-like. The little white hands flashed over the strings; the gold fringe of her boddice sparkled; her short crimson skirts fluttered on the air, together with the long wavy tresses of yellow hair, that fell thickly from underneath her coquettish cap. There was nothing but the sweetness and freshness of her guileless unfearing youth about her; innocence smiled on her lips and sparkled in her eyes, but it could not protect her from the insolence of a rough, loud, jeering crowd. Silent at first through sheer amazement, the loungers about her grew by and by less respectful. One or two coarse jokes were ventured, which, being in English, fortunately conveyed no meaning to her pure ears. She had finished her song, and was touching the guitar-strings to a plaintive closing strain, when of a sudden the troubadour felt a coarse hand crawling round her waist; a rough bearded face was close to hers, the odors of stale beer and tobacco sickened and overcame her, and in a moment more, urged on by his companions, the ruffian was begging for a kiss. With a shudder she tried to spring away from the coarse grasp that held her. White and terrified, feeling herself lost, she held up her hands to shield her face, and cried out one or two gasping sentences in French. The crowd, hearing the foreign language, only jeered the more. "Don't understand any of that outlandish gibberish," persisted her chief tormentor-a big red-headed cockney. "You must speak plain English, my darling, if you want me to listen. Come, his cap and looked-an expression of puzzled baffled wonder dawning meanwhile in his handsome blue eyes—into her face. The pretty troubadour, so quickly it all had happened, hardly realized that she was saved. She stood pale and gasping, trembling from head to foot. But this new voice, the words spoken in French, the respectful and solicitous accent, acted like a charm on her quivering nerves. "O!" she gasped, "how much I thank you for coming! I felt myself lost, sinking down, down, in darkness. Ah Suddenly, as she was speaking, she looked into her deliverer's face. She started away from him, cried out a quick exclamation-frightened, wondering, amused, all together—and, cowering back, held up her hands as if she would shield her own features from the young man's sight. "You are faint. Shall I get you some water?" he asked, mistaking her gestures, and thinking she had not yet fully recovered from the shock of her late peril. "No-O, no! I am better. I shall be better soon. O! how can I thank you enough for what you have done? You are very brave and kind, Monsieur, and the poor singing-girl thanks you." The little troubadour's head drooped as she said this; but with her soft tearwet dark eyes she tremulously surveyed her companion's large and strong figure. That figure looked very brave and handsome in its dress of an officer of the guards, but her eyes never once were lifted above the gay scarlet coat-never once! They seemed to shrink from resting on his face, perhaps from maiden modesty. Her guitar, meanwhile, forgotten in her fright, hung suspended by its broad crimson ribbon from her neck. She had not noticed that two of its strings were snapped. "There will, literally, be a broken chord in your music now," said the young officer, smiling. He pointed to the broken strings. "Ah!" cried the little troubadour, pityingly. She caught up her precious guitar, looking ready to cry again, and ejaculating, fondled it with caressing touches of her slender hands. "Ah! Monsieur, was it not wicked of them to do this? My poor little guitar!" She pulled at the strings. "O! but it was wicked!"—and she all but stamped her foot. "How can I make them whole again? It is such a bad omen, too!" "A bad omen of what?" The young man smiled at her quaint way of saying, "A bad omen," and the next moment he was touched by the merry little troubadour's grief. He looked on compassionately, as with flushed cheeks and little trembling fluttering touches of her hands she caressed the injured guitar and sought to make whole the broken strings. "What shall I do?" At the tender plaint of those grieved lips the young fellow wondered that the severed obstinate fragments did not immediately unite themselves together. "Ah! Monsieur, is it not too bad? Now I can not sing any more!" "If you will come with me, Mademoiselle, I know an old musician in the village-it is but a few steps up this street-who will set the broken chords all right in half an hour." She turned about at once to go with him. "Ah! you make me so happy with your kindness. Merci, bien merci, Monsieur l'officeur," she continued, with such an indescribably gracious soft society accent that he turned and looked at her more puzzled than ever. An hour later, with her precious guitar-its broken chords by the healing fingers of the old musician made whole again—in her arms, the pretty troubadour stood ready to resume her wander ings. She held out a grateful hand for her benefactor to take in his. "Many-O! many-thanks for your kindness," she murmured. “I shall remember it always. I pray that all others in your cold England may be as gentle to the poor homeless singing-girl as you have been." Some faint quiver of emotion, some tender tremulousness, in the low voice speaking these parting words, struck a familiar chord in the young man's memory. "Stop!" he cried bluntly, for she shrunk involuntarily away from his eager look. "Will you not tell me your name before you leave me?" "My name? Ah! but Normandy is not- -" She caught her breath, blushing. "Ha! you came from Normandy, then?" interrupted he. "My name, Monsieur, is La Fleurette," was the dignified answer. The little troubadour turned and fled away from him. She pressed her cheek down on her guitar. "My name is La Fleurette, is it not?" she said to it— "La Fleurette, La Fleurette!" And she laughed out sweet trickling laughter. Winning her way with sweet looks and graceful rustic manners into all hearts, the little Bohemienne, softly singing, traveled inland from the Cornish coast. Her guitar always on her arm, its crimson ribbon gleaming on her shoulder, she went her careless course without further molestation. Her lovely eyes sparkled joyously at times; and sometimes, when a bit of silver had been tossed her in return for a song, she would laugh aloud, touched by some secret sense of oddness in her positionlaugh out gleefully, looking up with softened eyes into that strange blue sky bending above her: a sky not so very different, after all, she thought, from Normandy's. The little French song-bird came to be well known. She and her guitar and the sweet Provençal airs she sung were long remembered, when she had gone her way, and the "little troubadour" grew to be a household word in the market villages. She sung her tenderest ballads at the door of the peasant's cottage, sitting on a wooden bench or on a mossy stone step, with groups of apple-cheeked barefooted children staring at her. Many a time, too, her eyes were blurred with tears, when she saw how, though they did not understand the language she sung to them, these listeners of hers were always moved by that subtile sympathy of nature breathing in the well-beloved airs of her own land. The golden chord of love that runs round the world thrills always to the electric touch of song. One day, sitting on the steps of a stile, she sung one of Beranger's loveliest chansons to a company of hay-makers in the field. They shared their luncheon with her, and then for the first time in her life she drank English beer. When she left them they shook hands with her. "Thou art a brave-hearted harmless lass," said one brown-fisted leather-faced old farmer. "Here's a half-crown to buy thee another ribbon to pass round thy neck. I've heard no better musicno, never! I speak of thy voice, for the words pass me, bein' forrun. Bein' thou sung them, I take them to be worthy." She blushed and looked humble. She never forgot him or his words. stars there were," she said, naively; "and, O! how many-how very many— there seemed to be that night. And then, frightened as I was at my situation, I could not help laughing, thinking they had all come out, big and little, to peep at the little weeping figure curled up on the hay in that great solitary English meadow." Thus the time sped by, and La Fleurette went singing with it. She grew stronger and lither. Her step became brisk; her slender limbs were rounded out to firmer outlines; her dark cheeks took a rosier healthier tinge of color; and her splendid sunshine - sifted hair shone, tossed on her shoulders. She asked herself sometimes if one might not be always happy, traveling thus, en troubadour, from hamlet to hamlet. She was sauntering dreamily one morning, when, aimlessly looking up, she saw coming along the highway toward her a drove of large white oxen. They were being driven by their owner to a neighboring estate. Doubtless they were harmless enough, but they looked terribly ferocious and threatening to the slight timid girl. She clasped her hands together and cried out, while every drop of blood in her body seemed to be turning to ice. Wildly she glanced about her. There was no refuge. On one side was a thick-set prickly hedge; on the other a high park fence, with a glimpse of water in the distance. On came the oxen, their massive hoofs making the earth quake, tossing their heads up and down, and clashing their great curled horns. La Fleurette turned and ran back a few steps; then, fascinated by terror, she stopped and fixed her great dilated eyes on the dreaded animals. Once, too, this wandering warbler lost her way. She had quite heedlessly wandered from the highway, and, far from any human dwelling, night fell upon the poor frightened strayling. However, she said her prayers, and then curled It was just at the moment when her herself up on a mound of hay in the strength seemed failing that the huge open field. There she cowered the long creatures, startled perhaps by the watchnight through, alone under the scented dog behind them, broke into a run and summer sky. came dashing on. Surely, surely de"I never knew till then how many struction was certain now. The little troubadour clasped her hands in helpless petition; her limbs grew weaker; her eyes closed like the petals of a lily, and she sunk down. Yet as she sunk, dimly through her swimming senses she felt that deliverance was approaching. She heard the thunder of hoofs as a horseman galloped up the highway behind her. Nearer he came. The kneeling girl did not stir; she dared not. The horseman braced himself for action. Leaning forward and stretching out his arm, he swooped the little helpless figure up as he passed, and, swinging her to the saddle in front, flew like lightning on his way. As he drew rein under the elms by the river-side, he saw that the girl was in a dead faint. answered, "but was not quite certain. There were times when I was sure 'twas you, and then the next moment I said to myself I was a fool for thinking of such a thing. But what does it all mean-this masquerade and disguise? Why are you here alone?” Lieutenant Bertram, as he asked these questions, looked at the little troubadour gravely. He remembered the beautiful marquise whom he had left in Normandy. He recalled her wealth, her position. He thought of her luxuriant surroundings-her tiny satin-lined nest of aboudoir, pictured and perfumed-where she had toyed with her guitar and sung to him like a bird in its bower. "Why are you here thus, alone?" he asked again. "Why?" The little song-bird's pale face flushed guiltily as she thought to herself truly, "Why?" Simply for love of him! "I thought to earn my bread thus,” she stammered. "I had my voicemy one poor gift of music. Why should I not make it serve me?" When the little troubadour opened her eyes, she felt herself lying along the turf, with her head supported on somebody's arm. Water from a wet handkerchief on her forehead was trickling down her face. Ah! what had happened? She tried to rise. She put up her hand. The wig of glossy golden curls was displaced and flung disdainfully to one side, and her own luxuriant abundance of soft bronze-brown wavy tresses was streaming in unbound beauty on her neck and bosom. She started up confusedly, gave one look into her deliverer's grave face, then she sunk down again. "Henri! Monsieur Bertram!" she world now; everybody—everythingstammered. was so stupid. And he would not un "But, Mademoiselle d'Etoile!" interrupted the lover, astounded. "No, Henri; not Mademoiselle d'Etoile any more," she cried impatiently. She was vexed, tired, mortified. She had hard work to keep back her tears. She was ready to renounce the whole "Ah! Ninon, I have found you again. derstand. O! why was he so blind?— You are better now?" why could he not see? He helped her to a sitting posture. Why was his face so grave? She struggled up from his arms. "You know me, then? I am discovered!" she said, humbly; and her thoughts flew back to that other day when she first stepped on English soil -to the broken guitar-strings, and the peril from which he had then rescued her. "I am only a poor little singing-girl now," she cried, starting up, proudly determined. "I shall never be Madame la Marquise again." Henri's face brightened. Her words innocently deceived him. This was no vulgar freak, then-no bold caprice. He recalled what she told him that day in Normandy, of the cousin who might return one day and reclaim his heredita "I suspected you that other day," he ry wealth. And so he had come — so |