the cooling of your head, and your boots may be of some mystic species of leather with a classic name which would astonish a mere vulgar cobbler of the old school. You may be dyed-false toothed, pommaded into beauty, and bear's greased into hairy luxuriance. You may in case of illness, even amongst all these blessings, be cured by one box of pills, and made all but immortal by another. You may turn any one of your twenty pound notes into thousand pound flimsies by the help of persons in lucrative lines of business, who want a little capital to start with. You may attain the reputation of the greatest discoverer of the age, by purchasing inventions of philanthropic but reduced geniuses. You may attain the reputation of the greatest author of the age by a small tip to the gentleman who writes standard works on any subject for five pounds a volume and his keep. What you will hear to your advantage when you enclose five shillings to O. P. Q. is inscrutable; while finally, if in order to keep a due check upon your mental qualities, and to become aware of your actual, moral, and intellectual condition, you enclose to X. Y. Z., a specimen of your pot hooks and hangers you will forthwith receive, in answer to your application and your Queen's heads, an analysis of your character of the most curiously flattering description.

And all this through "our Advertising Columns." We would never know what a people we really are, were it not for these immortal structures-always being built-always being pulled to pieces-new every morning-changed every morning-every man almost in his turn contributing his brick or his stone, a humble chip or a flourishing capital-now wanting to buy, now wanting to sell, and ever struggling to obtain the foremost place, and attract the greatest number of eyes, of the busy bustling staring world-for whose delectation these strange fantastic, wise and foolish, grand and melancholy, pillars of printers' ink, are reared, with all the habits and the thoughts, and the doings of our people legible upon them.

BEAUTIFUL STREAMS.

BEAUTIFUL streams, that flow onward for ever,
Blessing the green earth wherever they flow,
Down the steep mountain-side gushing to sever
In the fair valleys and meadows below;
Singing amid the tall reeds as they wander,

Nursing the lily-bell on their calm breast,—
Well by their side may earth's weary one's ponder,
Seeking, alone, by their margin for rest.

Beautiful streams, that flow on to the ocean,
Life-giving founts as they wander along,
Who can behold them devoid of emotion,

Or love not the sound of their murmuring song?
Cooling the earth in the warm sunny hours,
Giving the poet his glorious themes,

Crowning the vales with the rich summer flowers;
Types of eternity-beautiful streams!

J. E. CARPENTER.

CATCHING THE OLD WHISPERER.

A STORY OF LE MORVAN.

BY FRANCES BROWN.

THE district of Le Morvan, though situated almost in the centre of France, is one of those unprogressing corners of Europe, which seem to have stood still and let the centuries, with all their changes, pass by. The aspect of things has altered but little there for the last five hundred years. A forest older than the days of Charlemagne covers the greater portion of the country, in the midst of which stands its only city, Vezelai, a town of the middle ages, built on the top of a steep hill. Its narrow streets and fortified houses are still shut in by gates and ramparts. Crafts and customs long out of date in Christendom yet exist within it; most of the shops have no windows, and the merchants bring their goods at intervals of two years or so, in wagons, from Dijon; yet to the dwellers in those solitary hamlets scattered throughout the forest, Vezelai is the great capital whose wealth and wonders can be told of only by the travelled few accustomed to attend its Martinmas market. A poor and primitive people are those forest villagers. The Jacquerie burned down the castles of their country ages ago, and luckily for them, they were never rebuilt; but in all other respects they retain the peasant life of ancient France. In their fields and homesteads many a generation has lived and died without even hearing the march of the outer world. The echoes of their land's numerous revolutions comes slowly and faintly to the woodland parishes. It is possible that some of their priests are still praying fervently for Louis the Sixteenth, at least such was the case at one period in the reign of Louis Philippe, in the small church and hamlet of Saint Marie.

The church had been built early in the fourteenth century, by a noble crusader, whose tomb is still within it; and the hamlet consisted of some half-dozen antique-looking timber cottages, with their fields and orchards lying round them in a broad open dell, girdled by the dense old forest, through which the rest of the parish dwellings were scattered for many a mile. Some stood alone in solitary and hidden nooks-some by two or three together on the wider clearings. Once a-year a pair of officials from Vezelai visited them to the most secluded hut, in order to collect a tribute of farm and forest produce for government, and there was a tradition that no conscripts had ever been levied from that commune, from the difficulties of finding its young men in the woods. As for the good priest who performed the above-mentioned service for more than forty years, he took particularly little pains with his out-of-the world flock. Father Joseph received their scanty tithes, confessed and admonished them when wanted, attended to his own vineyard, entertained himself with its produce, and died at a good old age, in time to be succeeded by the son of his greatest parishioner.

The Perriers took rank in Saint Marie in right of the wind-mill which they owned, of their uncle, who was an old priest in Dijon, and of their brother, whom the said uncle had early adopted and educated for the church. He was appointed priest of the parish, and they called him Father Jean; but the rest of the family lived on in their old cottage. It stood the outermost of the hamlet on a solitary rising ground, sheltered by the thick forest. A great vine was trained up its wooden

walls, and round the rude porch at the door; there were cornfields in front, and an orchard in the rear, the wind-mill on one side of it, and a rough farm-yard on the other; while the rest of the Perriers' land was mostly mere pasture lying in the shadow of the tall trees. At this time the cottage was occupied by two sisters, Basilene and Ninette, and their brother Claude; but between the elder and younger sister there was an interval of no less than ten years, in which Claude and Jean reckoned their birth-days, the priest's higher destinies had long separated him from his family-(he lived in another cottage hard by the church, known as the cure's house to his grandfather, with an extremely old housekeeper)-and Claude was the only man in the household: a tall, strong-armed, fair-faced peasant was the forest miller, but far liker a German than a Frenchman. Claude had little of the life and fire of his people. He would work steadily from morning till night in either mill or farm, cared nothing for dance or merry-making. His only relaxations were a smoke in the porch on summer evenings, a doze by the fire on winter nights, and a stolen visit to Florette, the daughter of his nearest neighbour; for all other matters, he did precisely as his elder sister bade him, and Basilene owned there was sense in her brother, if it could be got out. Few supposed that its getting out was a likely occurrence, but the whole commune knew that Claude had a courage never found to fail against the wolves in winter time, a jealous pride on the subject of his family's honour, and a temper which, though slow to rise, was terrible in its violence. Not even his sister could control that, though he had grown up under her government, for Basilene was emphatically the head of the house ever since their father and mother's decease, when she was just eighteen; robust, active, and managing, from those early years she had taken the oversight of the mill and farm, never shrinking from man's work, and keeping a sharp eye on domestic affairs also. Now, Claude laboured out of doors, with the help of Guillemme and Ambrose, two poor relations, who had been with them for years. Ninette was old enough to assist within, but Basilene was still the superintendent of the whole. It could not be that her notable industry and prudence, not to speak of bright black eyes, a richly brown complexion, and a largely increased portion of cattle, sheep, and all manner of household requisites, would not attract suitors among the forest homes, and year after year some claimant to her hand had come forward in the fashion of his people; but to all and sundry Basilene averred that she could not be wanted at home. "Claude, poor boy, had quite enough to do with the mill; and who was to look after their youngest sister?" upon which she concluded with a strong recommendation of some neighbour's daughter, and Basilene reckoned it the chief of her good works, that she had helped in getting at least six girls settled in the parish. The weightiest portion of her own apology, however, seemed likely to be done away. Even before Father Jean succeeded to the curé's house, there had been strivings for Ninette's hand at harvest-home and vintage dance, as the prettiest girl in the commune, and now a suitor eligible enough for the cure's younger sister appeared in Honore, the son of old Monod, and brother of Florette.

Old Monod was the Perriers' next neighbour, a widower, and far advanced in age, but blest, as he said, with two good children, the one a handsome, high-spirited young man, who kept his farm in a model

state for Saint Marie; and Florette, a gentle, prudent girl, who found many excuses for Claude Perrier's frequent coming to their cottage. So far, things went well. The pretty Ninette, like most unengaged girls of eighteen, had no objections to the best match in the hamlet, old Monod was delighted with the prospect of the cure's sister for a daughter, aye, and the cure's brother for a son; for though Claude was rather regarded as the fag-end of the family, it was an understood matter between the houses that they should make a fair exchange, and both the pairs be betrothed on one day, which was fixed for Martinmaseve, and it was now midsummer. Claude rose early that season to fell firewood, before the harvest came on; and one morning, having awoke Ambrose and Guilleme, he set off as usual, with his axe on his shoulder, far into the forest, where he was wont to hew, expecting them to follow. They did not come; and Claude had bestowed a few hearty strokes on a tall beech, with as many curses on their laziness, when he was astonished to see scrambling through the underwood in the dell below, a delicate but most weary-looking youth. His clothes, which seemed never made for forest wear, were rent in all directions, fragments of boughs and leaves were tangled in his long hair, and Claude suspecting that he had lost his way, hailed him with, "Whither do you go so early, friend?"

"I want to get out of this confounded forest," said the stranger, in a fine Parisian accent. "I have been here all night walking to no purpose could you tell me where that way leads?" and he pointed to a path among the trees.

Straight to the gates of Dijon, but they are twenty leagues off," said Claude, who, dull as he was, knew every path in the forest.

"Twenty leagues," said the youth, his spirits seeming to fail utterly at that announcement. "Then I can go no farther," and he flung himself down at the foot of an old oak, adding, "is there no town, no village nearer? My uncle lives in the Chateaux de Maron; he is a rich man, and would reward any who shewed kindness to me."

"There is no reward wanted," said Claude, as throwing down his axe he took up the exhausted boy, like a log of the wood he was felling, on his back, and trudged away with him to the cottage. There he placed him on the oaken seat in the porch, brought forth a wooden flagon of his best forest wine, and roused the household with shouts that he had brought home a stranger. They were soon astir, and if the youth's uncle had been rewarder-general, he must have found it difficult to acknowledge the hospitalities showed on their unexpected guest. It is needless to be particular on the good Samaritanship of the Perriers, how all the simple specifics known to the peasantry of Le Morvan, where every family is its own physician, were produced for the stranger's benefit; how his blistered feet were bathed by the kindly hands of Basilene, and how the entire household united in preparing him a savoury breakfast. With what interest did they listen to his story, news being particularly scarce at Saint Marie-it was in short that his name was Alphonse de Cassite, that he came from the great city of Paris, concerning which Basilene remembered she had heard her brother the curé say, that the King and an Archbishop lived there-that his father was a merchant, and himself a student of law, that having come on a visit to his uncle at the Chateau de Maron, he had gone out with his fowling piece on the previous morning in hopes of some sport, that

he shot nothing, and lost his way; that he wandered about and got nothing to eat, but mild half-ripened berries; that in searching for them, he had leant his gun against a tree, and never found it again; that he lost his hat in a bramble brake, and his shoes in a quagmire; that he remained in the woods all night terribly frightened, lest the wolves should come upon him, and reached Claude's hewing place at the break of day.

The tale was substantially true, but Master Alphonse forgot to mention, that having got involved with Red Republican politics, and in love with the daughter of an artizan at Paris, his present visit was a species of exile, intended at once to indicate paternal displeasure, and give him time to change his mind on both subjects.

Strangers don't come often to Saint Marie, and the Perriers' guest created a proportionable sensation; Father Jean hastened to the cottage to pay his share of attention. The Monods evinced their intended relationship in like manner, and all the neighbours gathered in with hospitable offers and boundless curiosity. Alphonse de Cassite seemed like a fragment fallen from the great world to them, and as rest and refreshment restored the young Parisian's spirits, he found means to make himself not only at home, but agreeable. Alphonse was a handsome graceful youth, about twenty, feeble and effeminate indeed in the eyes of the forest men, but he told even Father Jean news, which lasted him for years after; and the women were unanimous in considering him an angel, for never had such fine things been said to them, young and old. There were two dances on the green in his honour, the foresters searched for his gun, hat, and shoes. The fowling piece was found, but not the other missing articles, which however Claude supplied from his own stock, and equipped with loose sabots, and a peasant's hat, De Cassite was on the third morning escorted in triumph by all the men of the hamlet to his uncle's residence.

The Chateau de Maron would have been called a large old-fashioned farm-house any where else; but being the greatest mansion in the forest, it took the superior title. A well kept, though antiquated place it was, its farm-yard, garden, and great granary, enclosed by a massive and grass-grown wall, with an iron gate for general entrance, situated among fields and vineyards on a broad pastoral plain, through which the Nievre, bridgeless for many a league and passable only by a shallow ford, swept away to the ancient woods of Le Morvan. There resided Philip Maron, the brother of Cassite's mama, and in his own opinion, as well as that of most of his neighbours the greatest gentleman in the province. Philip's ancestors had reaped the corn, and gathered the grapes on that same land for how many generations he alone could tell. There had been priests, nuns, and government officers in the family, and Philip had scarcely yet forgiven his long deceased parents, for marrying his only sister to the merchant in Paris. Philip was esteemed rich in the forest, sometime turned of forty, and supposed to be a confirmed old bachelor, but years before he had gone to see his plebeian relations in the capital. The journey was long, and the merchant had a niece, who had no portion, and said she liked rural retirement. Between her and Philip there grew up the best understanding, and it might have ended in a wedding, if she had not quarrelled with him at a ball, for advising her to go home at two in the morning. From that small beginning, things waxed so warm, that the lady called him a