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Nicholas called to her from his seat near seeing him? She looked up and read in the window

"Françoise, that will do for the present. Thou hast worked well, thou canst rest. I have to go to Monsieur Fourgon's; wilt come? a walk will do thee good."

The girl was fevered and flushed by the constant strain upon her.

"I would rather stay and finish," she said.

Across the street came the clatter of Madame Duclair's footsteps. They paused beneath the window.

"Bon soir, my neighbour," she said to Monsieur Fauve. "What has then be

come of Françoise?" The girl looked up wearily. "I am here; do you want me, Madame Duclair ?"

"But yescome here, little one. Why, thou art as pale and heavy-eyed as - dame, I believe what I said in jest is

true."

The mocking tone vexed Françoise. "What did you say in jest? I heard my uncle tell you two days ago what I was doing."

"Aha," Madame Duclair laughed knowingly; "'twas a kind thought of thy uncle, to excuse thy moping. Well, thou wilt get over it, my rose.'

Monsieur Fauve sat listening with a sneer. Françoise stood very erect beside the window. She was nervous and unstrung; ready to cry or be angry all at once. "What do you mean?" she said, blushing red, "'tis better to say it plainly."

Madame Duclair glanced at Nicholas, and the sneer on his face stung her out of all reticence.

"Very well," she said; "what I said was that if I were Françoise, I would not shut myself up and mope so that all Vire might say I was grieving for Louis Bertin. The young man has gone, we all know that, but he may come back again; and if he does not come back, there's as good fish in the sea as ever came out of it."

Françoise's thoughts were whirling in wild confusion; shame at being accused of a preference for Louis Bertin and this shame doubled because her uncle had heard the charge wounded pride that neither Louis nor his sisters should have told her of his departure; and rising every instant into stronger power over both these feelings an agony of sorrow. Should she never, never see Louis again? how could she live without the hope of

the eyes watching the changes flit over her face, that they had been read correctly; and in her terror at the revelation, she longed to flee away and hide herself.

But her vigilant uncle saw the need of stopping the garrulous tongue of his opposite neighbour. As Françoise looked up, he said, "For shame, Madame, that is true gossip; a surmise without a foundation. Do you suppose it matters to Francoise how many young men leave Vire, or come into it? She has been too busy to think, or she might have wondered that the young man's sisters should go away without coming to say good-bye."

"Are they gone, Nicole and Berthe?" Françoise spoke quietly; she was grateful to her uncle for saving her from her neighbour's tongue, but she longed to give way to the tears which were almost choking her.

"Yes, they went to-day. Come, Françoise, I cannot wait longer for thee. We will go and inquire when thy friends are coming back."

"In a moment, my uncle." Françoise was glad to slip away, and when she came back she had so recovered herself that even Madame Duclair, watching from the window opposite, could not say that the girl looked moping or downcast. In those few minutes up-stairs Françoise bad taken herself to task. What was she to Louis Bertin that he should think it necessary to say good-bye to her? She had done without him for two years, and since his return he rarely spoke to her; and yet her face must have betrayed the keen anguish that had laid such a strong grasp on her, for her uncle's eyes had told her so.

"No one else shall say it," she said; "it is a disgrace to pine for a friend who does not care for me."

But the conduct of his sisters cut her to the heart. She felt that she could not have left Vire without going to bid farewell to Nicole and Berthe.

Ever since the evening when he drank her health, her uncle had been strangely polite; and to-day as they walked side by side, he was even talkative; chiefly, it must be owned, in censuring Madame Duclair's extravagance and her husband's idle ways. He paused at last, as if he expected an answer.

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"Which way are you going?" the girl asked, and she stopped almost opposite the shop of Monsieur Grinçon.

Her uncle had not had a settled plan; through his red hair; he pushed his he only meant to meet the woollen-draper large white hand through it now, and if possible, perhaps to call on him; but swept it off his forehead. He had a he wished that his niece and Monsieur somewhat handsome face, except that the Grinçon should be seen walking together forehead was low and narrow, and the by the gossips of the Grande Rue. mouth thick-lipped and sensual; his jaw A short, broad-shouldered man with also was too massive for his height; still, red hair almost hiding his eyes, came out if you could have made him six inches of the shop followed by the master. taller, he would have been a fine man. "Good-day to you, Monsieur Grinçon," said the curiosity-dealer.

Monsieur Grinçon saw Françoise, and his face lit up with eagerness.

"Ah, good day, my friend; "he sidled up to them. "Present me," he said, in a low voice, "and I will then present you to Monsieur there, whose acquaintance may be of special use to you."

Françoise," said Monsieur Fauve, "this is my good friend, Monsieur Grinçon. I know thou hast a secret admiration of his windows; behold, then, the owner of all this rich store."

Françoise smiled and blushed; she never passed the shop without a longing glance at some of the goods exhibited. She knew the owner too, by sight; and it was on some of these occasions that Monsieur Grinçon had been struck by her beauty.

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"If Mademoiselle Grinçon's voice was faltering, spite of his eagerness to please the young girl-"will will indicate any special fabric that pleases her," he flourished his hand towards the shop windows "a dress of the same shall be sent at once to the Rue Froide." Françoise stared for an instant, and then she laughed.

"Oh no, Monsieur; but I thank you all the same. You are very kind," and then she blushed deeply at his admiring glance.

Fauve watched the scene and sneered. "Young fool and old fool too. If she knew Grinçon as I know him, she would not refuse a gift. Ma foi, but he must be thoroughly besotted to make such an offer. Old idiot, he will frighten the girl with his hungry eyes. Who is yonder Monsieur," he asked, "to whom you wish to present me ? "

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Ah, mon Dieu, I had forgotten." Grinçon turned his gaze reluctantly from Françoise. "Monsieur Joseph Rozo my friend, Monsieur Fauve, wishes to make your acquaintance. You ought to be able to do some business together as you have the same tastes."

The short, broad-shouldered stranger had been looking at Monsieur Fauve

Monsieur Fauve bowed, and stood gazing at him as if he were fascinated by his appearance.

Monsieur Rozo smiled.

"Well, Monsieur, in what can I have the pleasure of being of use to you. Ma foi," he shrugged his shoulders, "I have a few things: a candlestick of veritable Henri-Deux ware, a few good stones and some Oriental bits which you may not possess."

Monsieur Fauve's eyes glittered, but he answered, coldly, "I shall be pleased to see whatever Monsieur has to show — there can be no doubt that such goods are rare; but then the imitations are so perfect that it requires much knowledge to detect the counterfeit. Is Monsieur of our trade, or does he collect for amusement only?"

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Simply for pleasure; I have not much knowledge, but I have travelled in the East, and elsewhere, and I have been able to get a few objects together at a less cost than can be done in France nowa-days."

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"Monsieur " Françoise's uncle made a low bow, and his tone had more respect in it-"I shall be delighted to see your curiosities and to show you mine, whenever it may best please you. In Paris, no doubt, these things fetch a fancy price; but we poor country dealers are different. Will Monsieur come back with us now to my humble dwelling in the Rue Froide?"

Monsieur Rozo bowed and was profuse in his thanks.

Monsieur Fauve turned to look after his niece; she had recovered from her annoyance, and was chatting easily with Monsieur Grinçon.

It was a relief to talk to some one after her week's seclusion, and the woollen-draper told her he had been to Bayeux, and knew the little bright-eyed subsacristan of the cathedral, who had been kind to Françoise in her youthful days; and when Grinçon said in his best man"A l'honneur de vous revoir, Mademoiselle," the girl nodded pleasantly. "Au revoir, Monsieur," she said; "I

ner,

must ask Monsieur about some more of wind whistled through the bare brick cormy friends at Bayeux next time we meet."

Monsieur Grinçon stood looking after her, balancing himself on his heels and toes, with what was doubtless, to him a feeling of seraphic content; but which to the beholder was only idiotic in its facial expression.

And the beholder was Madame Duclair, who, from sheer curiosity, had followed the uncle and niece and seen the meeting. She now stood with arms a-kimbo, and finding that the woollendraper remained standing in oblivious ecstasy, she advanced and said,

"What is it, Master Grinçon ? and why have you sent that mauvais sujet along with those good people."

Monsieur Grinçon was startled from a blissful vision, in which already he saw himself the husband of Françoise; and it irritated him to be thus disturbed by such a magpie as Madame Duclair.

"Pardon, Madame. I do not understand, I do not know that Monsieur Rozo is a mauvais sujet. On the contrary, I think him quite as respectable as as myself."

There was no cleverness in Monsieur Grinçon which could awe Madame Duclair. She shook her head.

"You see, my friend, that a woman's wits never deceive her that man has a bad face. I saw him, too, looking at the niece while talking to the uncle."

Monsieur Grinçon's scanty hairs bristled till they were nearly erect.

"What do you say? Ah, that is diffrrent," he spluttered; "but you see, Madame, there is excuse for that; most men look at a pretty girl when they get the chance; and there is no girl in Vire like the niece of Monsieur Fauve."

Then he went abruptly into his shop, muttering, "Morbleu! this must be seen to. If I am to marry that girl, no one else must visit in the Rue Froide. I have made a little mistake."

Madame Duclair smiled. "Poor old fool," she said.

From The Argosy.

A FREAK OF FORTUNE.

AN INCIDENT IN THE LIFE OF PIO NONO.

BY MARGARET HOWITT.

It was an afternoon in last October. The rain came down in torrents, and the

ridors of the great monastic-like building of the Villa Grünwald, in the wild hilltown of Monte del Caccia, which, perched aloft on one of the peaks of the Sabine Hills, within sight of Rome, was yet a good half-day's distance from that city. I sat and shivered in the large barely furnished saloon with my hostess the Signora Giulia, who, there being neither fireplace nor stove in this her country residence, sat huddled up in a fur cloak and felt slippers. She looked very disconsolate, and busied herself in reckoning up the time in her pocket Diario Romano till All Saints' Day, the festival when, according to old-established custom, she returned to Rome. Earlier than that date she could not or would not go. Then servants, beds, bedding and half the furniture accompanied their mistress to her town residence; and the ample, but at that season somewhat cheerless and comfortless villa: the pride and ornament of lofty Monte del Caccia, where it stood looking out over the broad Campagna, with its pillared and pedimented front, like a white marble temple: remained deserted, save for the somewhat lax supervision of a neighbouring vine-dresser.

All, however, was safe from plunder or spoliation, for the Signora Giulia was adored by the wild population as half a saint. She would have been a whole saint, but for one little circumstance — she was not of Italian, but of German origin. Still, although she was the daughter of a celebrated northern painter, and the widow of a German sculptor, Herr Grünwald, yet she had lived more than half her life in Italy, and was a devout Catholic. The hot papalini race of Monte del Caccia did not believe more blindly than she did in the infallibility of the Holy Father. They were quite agreed that the insurgents from Florence were not Romani but Pagani: and they had faith in the restoration of the temporal power, because the good signora prayed for it day and night. So she was in very good odour there; together with her only son, the young padrone, the Signor Frederigo. He had been brought up amongst them, was quite an Italian, and worthy to be the syndic of Monte del Caccia. For all this, however, the house was best known as the Casa Tedesca.

The wind blew and the rain still poured down, but the Signora Giulia, being a lively lady, and having satisfactorily ter minated her calculations, suddenly sprang up, saying:

Now let

"Let us visit the mummies!" and then, I gatherum," she said, "something racy! without further explanation, having pro- We've done very well for once. duced a key from her capacious pocket, us put all these letters and papers as they led the way to her lumber-room. This are into the drawer of this cabinet. It is rumpel-kammer, as she termed it, in her growing dusk, and, instead of ruining our cosmopolitan language, was a place where eyes, I will tell you the amusing story indeed many things were in a rumple. which this letter has brought back to my What a confusion it was! Medicine-bot- mind. It is from the father of the prestles, books of devotion, crucifixes, rosa- ent Zuccone, of the villa yonder, who ries, portmanteaus, dressing-cases, a became so great by what one may call a German zither, top-boots, saddles, extra freak of fortune. No, you shall not look bedding, and no end of crockery, old at it, though it is worth reading, for he and new. She made her way with diffi- did not know how to spell; and yet he culty through all this confused lumber to was the cavaliere! It will do me good to an antique Moorish coffer, lifted the lid, laugh, for then I shall get warm; and, and said, "Here are the mummies." when I have ended, Camillo will have announced dinner: then, over our soup, roast pigeons, and hot wine, we shall forget the weather."

It was full of packets of letters, tied up separately, but all tossed together in the greatest confusion - old yellow letters, mostly written in faded ink, some in the delicate German character, some were French, and others Italian.

"The correspondence chiefly of my poor papa," she said, with a sad smile "I've been making up my mind to sort them for years; they are worth the trouble. You are methodical and patient; you'll help me, won't you?”

And now, dear reader, after this little prelude I will myself step aside, and, having introduced the worthy Signora Giulia to you, leave her to tell her own story; merely premising that I can vouch for its entire truth. She spoke as follows:

I.

Without waiting for my assent, the It was in the year 1852 that we first signora made a sort of vigorous dive ventured to remain through the whole down into the box, and brought up a huge summer in Italy, and the reason for our sheaf of letters; then, bidding me do the so doing was this: Lord Bevis, the wellsame, "as there was no time like the known English Catholic nobleman, who present," led the way back to the saloon. was spending the summer at Albano, had My diving into that chaos of corre- given my husband a commission for a spondence had not been unsuccessful, monument or tomb for his own daughter and I was soon deep in a task which I and heiress, the young Veronica, who found anything but wearisome, so curious had died, the preceding spring, at their and interesting were the very first letters English seat in Kent. As Lord Bevis and memorandums upon which I alighted. wished to see the work in progress, and They had evidently been already ar- was impatient for its completion, my ranged, most probably by the old painter husband, as I have said, was determined himself, and dated back from the com- to do what we had not hitherto ventured mencement of this century. One memo- upon - to remain during even the hot randum amongst others, marked 1805, in months in Rome, working daily in his the painter's handwriting, described the studio there, and coming out on the Satfriendly reception given him by that good- urday to Monte del Caccia. This was natured old lady, Angelica Kauffmann, at always a favourite place of ours; where her pleasant rooms in the Via Sistina. also we came for the whole summer, it The next was a note, also written in being so cool and healthy, as well as withRome, by the German poet Tieck, beg-in such easy reach of Albano. We took, ging for the loan of a few scudi as he and his brother the sculptor were in grievous want of money, and did not know where else to turn. Next came a letter of introduction presented by Madame de Staël. I was holding an invitation card to the painter from Madame Buonaparte, of a still earlier date in my hand, when a merry ringing laugh from my companion made me look up.

Now I have found in this omnium

therefore, a large suite of rooms in the villa at the end of the town, near the great Convent of the Redentori, which had been built, a few years before, by the vine-dresser Zuccone, who, from a very poor, ignorant man, had managed, by one means or another, to get money. Here I and my son Fritz, then a boy of twelve, were very pleasantly located.

Being, as I said within easy distance of Albano, scarcely were we settled at

Warm summer weeks glided by, and the conversation of this afternoon almost passed from my mind.

the villa when, one hot afternoon in July, | chestnut woods, just in time to reach Althe whole atmosphere laden with the bano before sunset. luscious tropical odour of the large magnolia, which grows so abundantly at the Villa Zuccone, Lord Bevis unexpectedly made his appearance to call on me, accompanied by his cousin Monsignor Oliver.

II.

Ir was September; the hot sun had scorched many of the flowers in the garden; the broad Campagna, stretching below for miles, had become a brown, arid plain; my Fritz studied his Latin grammar in a cool nook of the woods, whilst I led a torpid life in-doors. My husband, then absent, having gone to Carrara to select a block of marble for the Honourable Veronica's tomb, had taken the opportunity of a little run to the Bagno di Lucca; the errand for the marble being his excuse with Lord Bevis, who otherwise would have begrudged a week of his time out of Rome.

It was an unusually hot summer, and

It was so hot in-doors; where, to tell you the truth, I was taking my afternoon siesta; yet, at the same time, such a refreshing breeze from the Mediterranean was playing amongst the vine-leaves of the pergola, that I ordered coffee to be immediately served there. It always still remains in my mind as a pleasant picture: the aristocratic, well-nurtured form of Monsignor Oliver, as he sat, in his rich violet soutan, with a background of flame-coloured pomegranate blossom. Lord Bevis, who, on the contrary, was a meagre, spare-looking little man sat with his countenance irradiated with surprise and delight as he gazed upon the wonder-the cool breezes from the sea came now ful landscape which spread out before him, the same that we have from our own windows the glittering Mediterranean; the broad, outspread, undulating Campagna; Rome in the distance, and the far-off blue mountains, each one with a name which in itself is poetry. It is a marvellous view. I never saw any one more affected by it than this English lord, who now wished that he had come hither, instead of settling himself at Albano, which had been his ideal of an earthly paradise, until shorn of its glory by comparison with this peculiarly grand, historic landscape.

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On this I remarked that it had often astonished me who always regarded this scenery with the same admiration as his lordship that His Holiness, when at Castel Gondolfo, within only an easy ride of Monte del Caccia, had never visited it; and thus blessed by his presence his dirty but most devoted subjects. More especially as, just above, was Sopra Monte, whence was a still grander panoramic view, and where stood the Convent of the pious Passionist Brothers.

In reply, Monsignor Oliver expressed the same surprise, adding: “This shall be mentioned to Holy Father, rely upon me. I have no doubt but that the suggestion of so faithful a daughter of the Church will not pass without regard."

The gentlemen, after their coffee, wiled away an hour in conversation, chiefly on the historic sites of the vast landscape, and then rode back through the pleasant

but as angel-visits, few and far between. Mid-day was a time of slumberous repose, and thus seven o'clock in the morning saw me on my way to early matins.

It was on the 13th of September. I can never forget the day. As I was ascending the long, steep street_honoured by the name of the Corso, I saw, to my surprise, Betta, the wife of dirty Checco, the man who is employed to clean the streets on festas, sweeping before her house, as if for dear life.

"What is it all about, Betta?" said I. "Why are you cleaning up thus on a Tuesday?

"Ah, signora mia," she replied, "do you not know that angels will tread this road to-day?"

"Angels, Betta!" I exclaimed. "Yes, Holy Father himself is coming, and the angels in his train.”

"Nonsense!" said I, a little angry, suddenly recalling the conversation with Monsignor Oliver. I felt that, if it were so, I should have been notified, but at the same time remembered that Holy Father dearly loved to take his children by surprise. The next moment, looking in at the open door of the bakehouse, I saw Nanna, the baker's wife, operating with a pair of curling-irons on the head of her little Susetta.

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At sight of me, out she rushed with the curling-irons in her hand, exclaiming: Ah, Signora Giulia, I was just going to run down to ask you - -can you give me some blue ribbon for Susetta's hair?"

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