had she met with a decent husband; gentleness of his insinuating gratitude, In one and maternal affection arms her with the courage to fiutter like the hen-partridge in defence of her little ones. But it is her husband, scamp as he is, who deservedly attracts our attention. The story opens in a way to which we have been accustomed in scores of familiar French novels by Paul de Kock and others. The life in single rooms in one of the great Parisian rookeries, brings next-door neighbors into close relations, sometimes to their satisfaction, but more often to their sorrow. of these lodging-houses a certain M. Passeron becomes an object of general gossip. There is a mystery about him, with a grand distinction of manners. His stock of linen is as scanty as his visible resources, but it is whispered that the linen is embroidered with a coronet. He holds himself civilly though almost superciliously aloof. Mademoiselle Angélique, who lives in the next room, has an opportunity of rendering him a service. It is nothing less than saving him from death, when he was on the point of expiring of starvation. That extremity, from which he was so opportunely rescued, marks the eminent inconsistencies of M. Passeron's nature. He is a probable enough Parisian type, although almost impossible in most other capitals. M. Passeron is the vainest and meanest of mankind. He is really the Count de Mussidan, chief of an ancient family, who has already "eaten" two great fortunes and is holding on in expectation of a third. Being reduced to humiliat ing straits of economy, he has suppressed his name and eclipsed his existence. He sleeps and starves in a bare garret, rented at a few francs the month; and promenades the Boulevards every afternoon, exchanging salutations with some of their most brilliant habitués. Rather Rather than beg of his humble neighbors, he had resigned himself to die of inanition. But when Mademoiselle Angélique, who would have been called a grisette a generation ago, helps him into her room and feeds and warms him, all the nobility of his lofty nature revives. Hardly is he able to steady himself on his legs than he imposes with his grand manner on his benefactress. Condescending gracefully, with the hereditary distinction of his race, and reassuring her with the he incites her to fresh acts of benevolence. While, she is feeding and warming him day after day, both of them feel that she is the obliged party. He shows himself capable of the most sublime selfsacrifice all the more sublime, that she is not in the secret of it. She spends her hard-earned savings in spreading a comfortable board for him. While he, en galant homme, sits down to "cookery that is more than primitive" without a grimace; and swallows her tough. cutlets without audibly breathing a sigh for the banquets of Bignon's and the Café Anglais. And there are some admirable little touches which illustrate his autocratic selfishness, as when he repels the familiarities of her favorite cat, and finally has that hitherto petted animal banished to a pension in the suburbs. A liaison that was innocent at first has almost necessarily its natural consequences. Angélique slips and falls; and it is difficult to blame her. Crushed under the disclosure of the personality of the Count of Mussidan, she persuades herself that their marriage is only a question of time, and that she is bound to consult her condescending lover's convenience. That the selfish Count should ever have "made an honest woman of her," may seem extravagant enough. But there the dramatic machinery is brought into play, which gives its main interest to M. Malot's novel. M. de Mussidan is moved entirely by self-interest, and a wealthy old spinstress aunt is the absolute mistress of his future. Should he succeed to her immense fortune, he will be himself again. Old Mademoiselle de Paylaurens is excessively tantalizing. A confirmed invalid, she will defer her death; while she persists in telling him that he is irrevocably disinherited. But it would appear that, according to the French law, such a threat must be accepted with modifications, so long as the disinherited heir has children. The Count has a right to the enjoyment of the revenues of any fortune that may be left to minors. And M. de Mussidan has a couple of scapegrace boys, besides their little sister" born to him by Angélique. Mademoiselle de Paylaurens, whom he perpetually abuses, is really a model of benev olence, and a most sensible woman to boot, though somewhat eccentric. She has kept her eye on the father of the grandchildren whose extravagance has disappointed her, and she has learned the truth as to his relations with Angélique. She appreciates the devotion of the confiding girl he has betrayed, and puts pecuniary pressure upon her nephew to marry her. And having brought the marriage about by working upon the Count's cupidity, she builds her last hope on the little sister. ent. as it is, he is once more reduced to such narrow circumstances that Mademoiselle de Paylaurens can constrain him for Genevieve's good. The rest of the story turns upon Genevieve's love affairs, and M. de Mussidan, although he has necessarily much to say upon the subject, withdraws to the background. The girl has fixed her affections on a rising young journalist and dramatist, who, except in birth and social position, is in every way worthy of her; but she has been driven at last to seek shelter under the roof of her grand-aunt. And Mademoiselle de Paylaurens. although she proves to be the best and most generous of women, prides herself on her family, is suspicious of modern journalism, and detests the stage. Nothing could secure the happiness of the anxious Genevieve but the antagonistic antipathies of her father and grand-aunt. Mademoiselle de Paylaurens is wrought upon through her strongest feelings-love for her niece and regard for the fortune, which she knows her grand-nephews would lavish in prodigalities. By a heroic act of justifiable deception, when stretched upon. her deathbed, she imposes on the spendthrift, who has been counting her days; and she makes his covetousness the instrument of its own disappointment. So that M. Malot has worked out his clever plot with an interest which is ingeniously increased to the last moment; and perhaps he has never succeeded better in a study of character than in the egotistical hypocrisy of the Comte de Mussidan. Mademoiselle Genevieve's story continues chiefly to interest us as it develops the peculiarities of her disreputable parThe little girl inherits the sweet dispositions of her mother; and yet the self-seeking of her father might possibly warp them. Here again we are brought face to face with a struggle between the contending influences of good and evil. The hands of the submissive mother are in a manner tied; and the arbitrary father would have it all his own way, had not his rich aunt come to the rescue. Spending the allowance that is made to him on his personal amusements, he leaves his wife to work herself to death to meet the household expenses, and would willingly let his daughter do the same. Happily, however, for the child, his interests are bound up in her longevity. And there is delightful irony in the care the father bestows upon the health which is literally so very precious to him. He sacrifices himself to promenading her on the Boulevards, having previously seen that she is suitably dressed. And subsequently, when she has made a sensation with her enchanting M. Ludovic Halévy is a writer who, voice, he stoops his pride to letting her like M. Claretie, might have made a sing in public, and condescends to flatter greater name had he turned his attenthe journalists he despises, that she may tion exclusively to fiction. He has writbe duly puffed in the press. Yet even ten charily, but he has written well and then he displays his irrepressible habits by far the cleverest of his books is the of self-indulgence, by airing his pride at most discreditable. His 'Madame et the expense of his pocket. Self-exalta- Monsieur Cardinal" may be classed tion is one of the luxuries he cannot with the infamously graceful masterpiece deny himself, cost what it may. He of Theophile Gautier. Its style is adwill chaperon his daughter to the enter- mirable; it is as delicately and we had tainments where she is professionally en- almost said as diabolically suggestive. gaged; and there he will offend her Not that there is any very great harm in most liberal patrons by insisting on the it, according to the standard of the precedence due to his rank. Had he French novel-reader; but that it makes been less short-sighted, and carried him- vice most coquettishly and gracefully self more modestly, he might have lived suggestive. Therefore, in the almost in comfort on the genius of Genevieve: general declension of tone in fiction which we have been lamenting, we are the better pleased to give a welcome to a work of repentance. It is a case of surprise over a Saul among the prophets when M. Halévy offers us compensation for his égarements de plume by writing a novelette so innocently charming as L'Abbé Constantin ;" all the more so, that he shows that humor and gayety need not necessarily be wedded to provocations to vice. The little book is nearly perfect in its unpretending style. Its scenes are laid in a remote rural parish; and although a reflection of the lights of Paris falls almost necessarily across the pages, yet it is flashed from a distance, and comes in by way of contrast. M. Halévy sets himself to glorify the virtues in all classes, while he gives free play to the passions in almost primitive simplicity. The story opens in the brooding of a storm over the quiet little parish of Longueval. Its great domain with the ancestral château is going to change hands, and the purchaser is to be decided by the hazards of an auction-room. The Curé, L'Abbé Constantin, is in great trouble. He is sorry for himself, since he was the old friend of the family that goes away; but he is still more anxious for his unfortunate poor. They have lost a liberal and tender benefactress, and whom are they to find in her place? What man can do has been done to avert the calamity he dreads. A combination has been formed to keep the property in the county; but that combination has been defeated. The chtâeau has gone to a stranger-to a foreigner-to an American-to a heretic. The poor will starve the Curé will be thrust aside and the end of all things is evidently approaching. But it always seems darkest the hour before day, and the good Curé's lack of faith is rebuked. On a day inmediately following the sale he entertains a visitor to dinner in his little "presbytery. The presbytery is not a palace, as M. Halévy explains, but its occupant loves to practise the pleasures of hospitality and this time his guest is his godson and favorite, Jean Reynaud, captain in a regiment of artillery which is quartered in the neighboring town. Jean is the only son of a freethinking country doctor, who had been adored by the pious priest for his large-minded liberality; and who, after giving his life for his country in the Franco-German war, had bequeathed a handsome sum of money to his heir. Jean had carried disinterestedness to the point of dividing his inheritance with the widow and the orphan. Consequently he has always found a second father in the worthy Curé; and that sublime disinterestedness of his strikes the key-note to the story, which is a signal example of virtue bringing its reward. The priest is pouring out his griefs upon Captain Jean's sympathetic bosom, when a modest knock comes to the presbytery door. M. Constantin receives a most unexpected visit, and entertains a pair of angels unawares. For his visitors are no other than Madame Scott, the wife of the American millionnaire, who has purchased Longueval, with Mademoiselle Bettina" Percival, her sister. The sisters are enormously rich co-heiresses; they are genuine Parisiennes, though of Canadian extraction; and they have dazzled the fortune-hunters and the high society of the French capital with their beauty, their style of living, and their exquisite taste. They are all the more piquante that they use the privileges of their wealth without abusing them, by a certain transatlantic freedom of speech, which expresses precisely what they think. The pair of provincials are taken aback by the radi ant apparitions; but the unaffected simplicity of these ethereal beings soon places them at their ease. The Curé learns to his delight that they are dutiful daughters. of mother Church; and they leave him substantial proofs of their respect for her in the shape of sundry rouleaux of napoleons. They promise, besides, a monthly revenue, which surpasses all his most magnificent dreams; and we may remark parenthetically, that M. Halévy's ideas of beneficence are altogether opposed to the principles of the Charity Organization Society. As for Captain John Reynaud, he is fascinated, blinded, and dazzled. His safety so far is, that in this vague and preliminary stage of an overpowering passion, he is equally taken by the two sisters, and is more puzzled as to awarding the prize than Paris among the goddesses on Mount Ida. But as he is too honest a man to make love to a married 'woman, we know beforehand how the balance must incline. Of course we see that the barrier which looms between him and the bewitching Bettina, consists in the enormity of that young woman's wealth and expectations. But inviting opportunities offer irresistible seductions. Their first friend in the country is urged by the ladies to make himself at home in their château, along with his spiritual father and sponsor. Wherever Bettina goes or turns she hears the Captain's praises sounded in her ears by the peasantry; and while the handsome young officer escorts her in her forestrides, she is getting glimpses at the beauties of his noble nature. The result is clearly foreseen from the first, but the successive stages through which it is reached are made none the less interesting. Bettina's bright and instinctive frankness explains what would otherwise be unmaidenly forwardness. Persecut ed by men who had marked her down for her money, she had despaired of the disinterested love of which she had dreamned. Here she has the very object she has been hoping for a man who, as the French say, has made his proofs of disinterestedness; who has sacrificed himself to be the Providence of his less fortunate neighbors; who is vouched for by the saintly old clergyman who has known him and loved him from boyhood. And yet she sees her hopes of happiness slipping through her fingers. Jean loves her far beyond all earthly things, but then he will never sell himself for money. So she determines to take her courage in both hands," and do as her sister had done before her. As the mountain will not come to her, she resolves to go all the way to the mountain. She drops down upon her lover at the presbytery, when he is on the eve of a despairing flight, and insists upon confessing herself to the Curé be fore him. She states her case exactly as we have told it, in an extremely pretty and touching scene. The presence of the good father sanctifies the explanation, and Jean, who regards her as an angel, never questions her purity or sincerity. The marriage is arranged, with all regard to his scruples; and the wealthy American heiress, having found more than she had hoped, bestows her hand on the hard-working soldier, who means still to make his way in his profession. But our slight sketch of a very spirituelle story can give but a faint idea of its beauties and graces. It is lively from the beginning to the end; there is quiet humor in abundance; but the chief claim is in the refinement and elevation of the tone. M. Halévy, does his countrypeople the infinite service of showing that morality and innocence may be made as attractive as fashionable vice. Bettina Percival is literally a child of nature, who is scared instead of being attracted by sin, and who flutters naturally like a frightened dove to the bosom of the strong man who she feels can protect her. The old Curé is as natural as she-a venerable recluse, or rather secluse, who has realized the happiness of living for other people, and who yet has some slight taint of humanity. He "makes his follies" in the way of being absurdly charitable; and moreover, though a recluse, he is no ascetic. He has no dislike to his creature-comforts; he is a good deal of an epicure in a quiet way; and it is a real pleasure to him to drop to sleep in a comfortable salon, lulled by the strains of cultivated music, after a long day of hard duty in his parish lanes. Altogether we may cordially congratulate M. Halévy on a book which, as we may hope, will be a new point of departure.-Blackwood's Magazine. THE SEA CALLS. (THOUGHTS OF VENICE IN THE HIGH ALPS.) BY J. A. SYMONDS. I. BROAD shadowy mountains and the boundless plain Heights hitherto unsought, which lightnings rend, II. Away, away! The ruffling breezes call; The slack waves rippling at the smooth flat keel Cry of the statue-poised lithe gondolier; The solitary gun San Giorgio peals; The murmurous pigeons, pensioners of St. Mark; The song that fitful floats across the dark; All sounds, all sights, all scents born of the sea, III. To-night with noise of multitudinous rills, Snow-swollen in full midsummer by the breeze Waving their plumes, which the wild south wind fills I through this clamor of hoarse streams, this wail Hear only one deep message borne to me, From dark lagoon, from glimmering isle, from warm |