ed; and again and again she would press to her her energies, and for a time changing the current poor pale lips the happy page, so full of warm of her emotions, perhaps saved her from a rapid and tender affection. Every evening she would decline. Dr. Gilibert was seized with a bad at write something to him, a little journal of her tack of influenza. At his age, such maladies are monotonous life, but from which she scrupulous- dangerous; the cold turned into intermittent fely excluded all expressions that seemed to her ver, of which, after lingering some weeks, he too sorrowful and triste. She wished that he finally died. The whole of the old man's little should think she fully shared the confident hopes fortune went, of course, to Ninette. And now which he himself so exultingly dwelt upon; but she sat in her black weeds of mourning, quite in her secret heart she felt an icy and unaccount- alone in the desolate old house. She was startable foreboding, which all in vain she endeavored led and vexed with herself to find how much less to stifle. Now, he detailed to her some daring the death of her adopted father affected her than conduct of his, which his comrades had frankly she could have expected When a goblet is applauded. He knew, he said, this would make nearly filled to the brim, you may add water his Ninette so happy. Now, he had spoken, he without the glass seeming much fuller. It is so told her, to General Bonaparte himself-had with sorrow. It was not from want of feeling been praised by him, and looked to speedy pro- that Ninette wept less over the grave of her sole motion. He spoke of the General with that en- guardian than she would have done had he died thusiasm which master-minds seldom fail to draw years ago. The degrees of pain seemed cancelfrom those they come in contact with, and which led; a comparatively trivial grief would now that singular man so eminently knew how to ex- cause her as much vexation as a greater sorrow. cite. He spoke often too of Montmar. "He is When the sense of touch is all sore and morbid, kindness itself," said he, “this bluff man that we the pressure of a feather is as painful as that of a disliked so. Indeed, Ninette, you must like him leaden weight. very much some day. I understand him now, I think, and only smile at his bitter way of talking. Although he still pertinaciously asserts that I shall find you married when I return, and that it won't break my heart at all. I know he doesn't believe this himself; and oh, Ninette, you can have no notion what a warm, strong heart beats under that rough and brusque hide of a manner which he chooses to wear."

Any other girl of her age would probably have shrunk from remaining thus unprotected, alone in that old house; and indeed she wandered from room to room now emptied of all joy, and felt very desolate and forsaken. But it seemed to Ninette that if she left that house the charm and spell of her existence would be broken-that she must wait there till Hubert came. Where could she go? How would he find her if she went How anxiously, and with what trembling hands away? It would be deserting her post. It seemdid Ninette tear open the papers from Paris, as ed as though there were infidelity in the very from time to time news came to the little village thought. Besides she knew nothing of her of the splendid progress of the French arms in mother's relations. She shrunk from new faces. Egypt! Rapidly her eye glanced over the de-" No," thought she, "he will come back some tails of battle; it ever sought, with a sickening at the heart within, the closing bulletin-that of the killed and wounded; and it was with a gasp of inexpressible relief that she finished reading that painful record without having found her lover's name in it. At last there came intelligence of a great engagement fought within sight of the Pyramids, and now matter of history.

day, and find me here in the little arbor, as he left me, and we will sit down together quite quietly, and it will not seem strange; but all this dreary time of wolding and waiting will be as a dream, and I shall think that he has always been here."

Poor girl! but he did not come, nor any letter from him; and never had that icy foreboding at her heart been stronger than it was now. Ninette was no longer a child, but a woman, and a sad woman, and she felt this.

vague and sickening despair, for they told no news of Hubert, and no letter came; and although the army had landed, and were now in France, still he did not come.

There had been a great many promotions consequent upon this, and among the list she read, with kindling eyes, the name of Hubert Dessert promoted to the rank of Lieutenant. Soon fol- At last the army returned from Egypt. The lowed a letter from Hubert himself. Yes, he was land was loud with acclamations. Everybody now Lieutenant, he said; but several of the com- talked of the young hero of the Pyramids; but manding officers above him had been dangerous-she read and heard all their accounts with a ly wounded, and were not expected to live. Hubert said he had hope of soon obtaining his captaincy. Montmar, he said, had been wounded, and was in a very precarious state, but that there were still great hopes of his recovery. And again the time went by very wearily. Months had passed without bringing her any news of Hubert-not a line from him-and the poor girl's heart was very low. Indeed she was fast failing in health and strength, and all the neighbors observed it; but their sympathy, however anxiously expressed, only irritated her; she was reserved even with the old Doctor, and shrank daily more and more into herself. At this time an event occurred, which, while it gave her a terrible shock of the heart and much pain, yet by rousing all

"How unkind," she sometimes thought, and then rebuked herself. Is he changed?" she would say, "and has he forgotten me?" but she scorned to indulge the imputation. She would believe in anything rather than the worst possibility-death. "No," she said to herself, "he lingers a little in Paris; perhaps he cannot leave his regiment so soon; and he does not write, that he may surprise me when he does come." Yet she could not but feel how improbable this was.

While her father was alive, Ninette had less

time to indulge her own morbid apprehensions, continued the stranger, looking steadily at the and the desire to appear cheerful before him had fire. lent her energy and self-command. Now he was "Married! no. True she was engaged to a gone, and every day she felt her utter loneliness young man of this village; but he joined the more chilling. She had no longer another's feel- army in Egypt, and we have never heard any. ings to consult. She had nothing left to care for thing more of him. Perhaps be is dead," sugbut her sorrow; and this she cherished and hug-gested the waiter with a questioning tone, as ged to her desolate heart as some forsaken though he suspected that the stranger in the blue mother might her forlorn infant. Poor foolish spectacles knew more about the matter than he little Ninette! did himself.

When the stranger had finished his dinner, which he ate like a cormorant, and with the air of one who was accustomed to dine in a hurry, he flung himself into a chair before the fire, stretched his lame leg over the back of a second, and planted the other, heavily booted, against the mantelpiece. For some while he sat rather moodily looking at the blazing logs through his blue spectacles; and then, as if he had finished Ninette was sitting alone, in her black gown, his reflections, he rang the bell, and continued to in the same old parlor where the Doctor used to whistle a tune till the waiter made his appear-sit. The fire burnt badly, the room was cold, it

heart, and then tingled again to her finger-tips. | pended all thought and emotion, save that of a "It is he," she thought. "He is come at last. I wandering brain and burning pulse, and from said it would be a surprise." But the old serv- which she woke to consciousness with only a ant, who even in that dim light could read her numbed sense of past calamity. When she was countenance, shook her head mournfully. "Oh, able to sit up in her room a little, the spring was miss," she said, "it is not Master Hubert." Ni- already in the meadows outside. The grapes nette felt faint and sickening, with an overpower- were still green upon the vines; but the breeze ing sense of imminent calamity. She feared the that came through her casement was warm and worst had come. "Let him come up," she said, fragrant. She was too listless and indifferent to almost inaudibly; and soon a heavy and uneven all things to observe that there were fresh flowers tread sounded up the passage. It was not Hu- every morning in her little vase, or to inquire bert's, indeed. She would have recognized his whence they came; yet if she had once remarkfootfall she thought. ed them, she must have seen that they were far too exotic and curious to have ever bloomed in her own little garden.

"My eyes are very dim, indeed," said the stranger, entering; but I think that it must be Mademoiselle Pompon that I am addressing." As he spoke he shrunk back into the shadow of the wall, and kept his cloak closely folded about him. "I am Mademoiselle Pompon, sir," faltered Ninette, trying to speak calmly. "If you have anything to communicate to me, pray do so

at once.'

The stranger did not, however, reply immediately. "I think I recognized just now," she added suddenly," a voice not unfamiliar to me." She pressed her hand to her head, and advanced a step towards the stranger. "Can it be," she was about to continue

One day Colonel Montmar sent up his card, and requested permission to see her, to which she languidly accorded. He approached her with a deference very different from that old, offhand familiarity which had once so much displeased her. He sat down at a little distance from her, and regarded her somewhat sadly, through his blue spectacles, for many minutes, without speaking. At length he said, with some hesitation, "that he was shortly going to Paris, and wished to know if he could be of any use to her there." He spoke with a rather awkward hesitation, but kept the blue spectacles fixed steadily at her.

"Yes! yes!" interrupted the other, hastily. "Yes, I am he. We have met before. Colonel Montmar, Major that was then, he said, advanc-out lifting her eyes, and said:ing and taking her hand. "No use at all."

She thanked him, without a smile, and with

"O, sir," she cried with vehemence, "you have brought me news of-of-Hubert Dessert. For God's sake speak it out. He-he is well? O yes, perhaps he is with you?"

The stranger turned away his head. Speak, sir," she cried, "if you have anything to say. O God, it cannot be-that, that

ני

"Calm yourself, mademoiselle," he said. "You guess rightly. I have brought you news of Hubert Dessert. I-I"-his voice trembled slight ly, "I have brought you something from him." A letter! Give it me," she cried, "quick, pray!"

After a pause, he observed that he had lingered in the village, not only because he could not with any cheerfulness leave the place while he knew that Madlle. Pompon's illness was dangerous and doubtful, but also in the hope that, having been for years the intimate companion and camp comrade of one who was very dear to both of them, when the time came that she could bear to hear and speak of that person without pain, it would be some relief to her to feel near her some one whose connection with the past, and whose deep affection for the dead, might entitle him to sympathize in an affliction, which, to a great exHe turned to the window, and drew from un- tent, he could not but share with her. She lookder his coat a little case. He put it silently into ed surprised, indeed, at this speech, so unlike all her hand without looking at her, but still stand- that she had hitherto known of Colonel Monting with his face to the window. She opened it mar, and, for the first time, she remarked his ter hurriedly, with trembling fingers, and with a sen-ribly altered appearance-the blue spectacles, the sation of icy chilliness. Within the case was the little turquoise ring which she had given to Hubert on that last evening in which they were together. "If this ring should ever come back to you," he had then said, "you will know what it means."

Colonel Montmar had expected to hear a shrick or groan, or some such sound. Hearing neither, he turned round in alarm. He was just in time to break her fall, as, white and senseless, the girl reeled back and fell into his arms.

CHAPTER III.

arm in the sling, and the recent scars upon his face. She thanked him now somewhat less languidly and indifferently, yet hardly without a shudder. She said

"That Hubert," and she faltered as she pronounced that name-" that Hubert had, indeed, often written to her about M. Montmar, with great affection. That she felt touched by the delicacy of feeling which he showed; that at present the past was too recent to speak of; but that she could not, indeed, refuse the sympathy of one who had been the friend of-of her husband," she said, "for she always thought of him as her husband."

FORTUNATELY for Ninette, this sudden and severe blow, falling upon nerves already weaken- Colonel Montmar did not return to Paris so ed and exhausted with prolonged suffering, soon as he had expressed his intention of doing; brought about a sharp attack of delirious fever, and Ninette did not refuse to admit him when he in which she lingered in a very dangerous con- called upon her. By degrees she grew to find a dition for months; but which, for the time, sus-melancholy pleasure in hearing from his lips all

the little anecdotes, which he was never wearied | he was watching her keenly, and he turned away of telling her, about her lost lover-their conver- with an expression of pain in his face. She sations by silent watch-fires in the desert; their somewhat timidly inquired how and where he deeds together in the field; their weary marches had received them, wishing to repair whatever through the burning sand. He spoke with hearty painful effect she might have involuntarily proenthusiasm and affectionate warmth of the brave- duced, by manifesting an interest in his misforry and hardihood of the young man, and dwelt tune. He hesitated in answering her. The fact with pride upon his rapid promotion. She made was, the sabre which had disfigured him for life him describe to her the engagement in which had been aimed at the head of his young comthey last fought together, and repeat the dying rade. The Colonel had endeavored to parry the words of Hubert Dessert, and the last sad mes-thrust, but his guard was beaten down. Hubert sage with which, drawing it from a bleeding indeed escaped unhurt, and the blow fell upon breast, he confided to Montmar the little tur- Montmar. quoise ring, that pledge of their early love, and now the token of death.

"Tell her," he said, "that I had thought to live to look once more into those dear eyes of hers; but bid her not to sadden them with tears. Tell her that I thought to bear proudly back to her no ignoble result of years of danger and toil, ever fortified by the hope, and gladdened by the memory, of our love; but God willed otherwise, you see. When she sees this ring, which has been the talisman of all my dreams, she will know the worst. Tell her she is free, but, alas! alone. The heart that would have soothed her, the arm that would have guarded her through all life's perils, will soon be dust. But tell her, Montmar, that I died with her name upon my lips, and her image in my heart."

These conversations, mournful as they were, were the events of her sad and solitary life in that old house. And though it was not often that she saw Montmar (for, perhaps from delicacy, perhaps business or other causes, he came but rarely), his visits certainly soothed her, although he always left her sadder and more lonely than before.

"You are, indeed, changed, sir," she said to him one day.

He made light of this circumstance; but when at length she grew to understand it, she pressed his hand

"You are a far better man," she said, "than I ever thought you."

He smiled at the naivete of the remark, and said that any soldier would have done the same; which was probably true enough.

One day Montmar was sitting with Ninette. He had been unusually silent; at last he said abruptly

"Mademoiselle, I am going to Paris to-mor row. Can I serve you there in any way?"

"Why are you going so suddenly?" she said, with some surprise; "has anything happened?" "Something. Yes, I think so," he answered. "Nothing bad, I hope ?" she said, looking at him inquiringly; for there was something strange in the tone with which he had answered her question.

"No," he said, "not altogether bad, I think." He would say no more, and soon rose to leave

her.

"We may probably never meet again," he said " most probably so. God bless you, mademoiselle."

"Colonel Montmar," she said, her pale face He thought she alluded to his altered appear-slightly flushed, "I wronged you when I did ance, and a slightly redder tinge deepened in his sallow cheek.

"I did not mean that," she said, and she laid her hand gently on his arm.

He did not seem to notice these words. "The sand and glare," he continued speaking rather hurriedly, "have almost deprived me of my eyesight. One eye is already darkened for ever, and the other grows dimmer every day. I fear I shall, too, soon lose the sight of it altogether. I have a musket ball in my shoulder, and one in my leg; and these sabre cuts," he added, laughing, 66 are no ornaments, I know."

not know you. Hubert told me I should judge you differently if we ever met again. I do judge you differently now. Forgive me."

She held out her hand to him, and smiled. "I think, indeed," she added, "that you are greatly changed."

"I am changed, mademoiselle," he said, rather gravely. "Good-bye." And the door closed behind him. The next morning he returned to Paris.

CHAPTER IV.

I CAN Scarcely fancy a more desolate picture than poor Ninette, in her dark weeds of widowhood (for she chose to dedicate to the memory of Huburt Dessert the outward symbols of a wife's sorrow-and by the most sacred of all symbols were they already wed, these two young hearts), sitting alone, and now tearless, under the desolate roof of her lost youth. So long as through those still rooms, or in the little garden and its quiet arbor, she had wandered, with Hope for her companion, she had indeed found in their very sadness and silence a sort of forlorn pleasure; but now they only impressed her with a crushing sense of unutterable desertion. The poor little girl grew wearier and weaker every day, and her chest now caused her constant pain.

"Gott hat sein plann fur jeden man."

She wondered why she had not died in her ill-mont, and wondering what sort of a person M. ness, and seemed to have survived herself. "To Dumont might be like. what use," she would often exclaim, "do I still At the neighboring seaport, where she stopped live on?" I dare say poor Ninette had never for three or four days to arrange her plans someheard that old German proverb, which I greatly what more carefully, chereceived a letter from the hold toold servant whom she had left in charge of the house, informing her, that her advertisement had been answered by a lawyer in Paris, on behalf of a client of his, who had agreed to pay the full rent which was demanded, but who, being in a very delicate state of health, requiring the immediate benefit of country air, was anxious to enter the The motives which had made her shrink house without loss of time. She wrote back in"from deserting her post," as she called it, exist-structions to conclude the arrangement at once, ed no longer. She had clung to the old house and continued her journey, in which it is not ne while she yet thought that Hubert would still re-cessary that the reader should follow her verp turn there. That dream was shattered for ever; closely.

God hath his plan for every man.
Yes; and woman too. Courage, little Ninette!
There is something still to be done. You must
live, and do it as bravely as you can.

and everything about her now only reminded her About a fortnight after this arrangement had of lost happiness and dreams never to be real-been concluded, a solitary horseman entered the ized. She resolved to let the house, and leave little village towards nightfall. The long riding her native village. She would make the experi- boots which he wore were splashed with mud, ment, at least for a short time; for she began to and betokened that he had ridden far that day; feel a hungry yearning for change of air and a brace of heavy horse-pistols were thrust into scene. This was a very wise resolution certain-the holsters of his saddle, and his horse looked ly. When the heart is very low, there is noth- jaded and weary. He rode slowly down the ing which does people so much good as to go and street, till he reached the door of Ninette's desee how big the world is, and assure themselves serted home. Here he halted, and as he leaped that the shadow of their own sorrow only cov- to the ground, the early moon falling upon his ers a very little spot on this planet. So Ninette face revealed a countenance too evidently wasted advertised the lease of the old house both in the and emaciated by sickness and physical pain.provincial and Paris journals; and as soon as He rang the bell, slashing his boots impatiently she had packed up her few boxes, left the Doc- with his whip, till a strange servant opened the tor's old servant in charge of her little home-door, and demanded what he wanted. The waystead, and set out on her wanderings, neither faring stranger slightly started. knowing nor caring much where she was going. "I understand," he said, "that Dr. Gilibert, As the carriage drove down the familiar high-who formerly resided in this house, is no longer way, she saw old faces through the dusty wind- living; but I suppose that his daughter, Madeows gazing after her. Kind hands waved their moiselle Pompon, is still here, and I wish to see sad farewells; the old servant stood in the porch-her." He spoke these words with an authoritaway with her apron to her eyes; the old Curé tive air, and, quietly pushing aside the servant, was hobbling out of his house with a parting blessing. Then she felt that she was leaving all she knew that the home of her childhood was rapidly receding from her sight, and that the world was wide and friendless; and Ninette burst into a flood of tears, the first she had shed for months, and which left her heart lighter than it had been for many days.

was walking into the house, when the domestic, with evident indignation caught his arm

"Mademoiselle Pompon," said he, "no longer lives here; she left this village about a fortnight ago."

"Left the village! No longer lives here!" cried the stranger. "Pooh-nonsense;" and he again pushed by the servant into the house.Hold my horse for a moment," he cried, looking back, as he caught the bewildered stare on the man's face.

"I tell you," cried the servant angrily, "that Mademoiselle Pompon has been gone away this two weeks. The house is let; and if you want to come in, you must say what your business is, for my master never sees visitors."

"Gone!" repeated the other; "and where the devil, sir, has she gone to?"

This little heroine certainly appears to be act-" ing in a very independent way; but I believe that, in those topsy-turvy times, women did many stranger things than live or travel alone. Indeed, after the grand semi-satanic impersonation of the Goddess of Reason by a Parisian Aphroditë, who could have had any wonder left for minor marvels? Still Ninette could not but feel that, thus unaccompanied, so young, and an unmarried girl, she was running great risk by her solitary hegira; and, after some reflection, she "How the devil, sir, should I know?" andetermined to travel as a married woman, and swered the man, with rising wrath, and shrugadopt some name accordingly. Her first idea ging his shoulders. The stranger not heeding was to call herself Madame Dessert; but she the anger he had excited, remained fixed in could not bear that a name so sacred to her thought for some moments, stroking his beard should be bandied about on the lips of porters slowly. "I beg you ten thousand pardons," he and innkeepers; and she finally fixed upon that said at length, slightly lifting his hat as he spoke. of Dumont, as one little likely to attract notice: "I have been mistaken;" and without another so she put off her widow's cap, although she word, he turned to his horse and sprang into the would not resign her dark dress, and amused her saddle. He rode on to the house of the Curé.fancy in trying to believe herself Madame Du-There he alighted again, but was told that the