The next morning Mother Le Gall coming in found him lying there:

"A'mighty God! The old man is dead!"

He was buried by the sailors; that had been his desire, like most old mariners. On account of his decoration he had a

military escort.

This was right and honorable.

For a long time afterwards there was to be seen in the front of an old-clothes shop, in the lower quarter of Brest, the nankeen paletot, the palm-leaf fan, and the picture of the little communicant in its shell frame.

DIED AT SEA.

BY FRANÇOIS COPPÉE.

(Translated by Marion Lamson.)

[FRANÇOIS ÉDOUARD JOACHIM COPPÉE, generally known as François Coppée, was born at Paris January 12, 1842, and first made his reputation as a poet, afterward writing for the stage. He was for a period on the staff of the Senate Library, in 1878 became archivist of the Comédie Française, and in 1884 was elected to the French Academy. He is the author of "The Reliquary," " "The Humble," "Olivier," and other poems, besides several volumes of prose sketches. Among his plays are: "Le Passant," in which Bernhardt appeared; "The Abandoned"; "Severo Torelli"; "The Jacobites," produced on the American stage under the title of "For Bonnie Prince Charlie"; "For the Crown," his latest and greatest success.]

SOME years ago I passed several weeks in a fishing village on the Breton coast. What a hole it was, but how picturesque! A beach for ten boats at the most; a single street, very steep, and resembling the bed of a torrent; and up above, on the first plateau of the cliff, the church, a Gothic gem, in the midst of a cemetery full of wild oats, and commanding a view of the ocean. Finding myself situated favorably for work, I had lingered in this corner till the end of the month of September, which, by a chance rare enough in rainy Finisterre, was exceptionally clear and mild.

I was staying at the only inn of the village, and occupied a large whitewashed room, meagerly but neatly furnished, with

the window facing the open ocean. Seated on a straw-bottomed chair, at a wooden table, I composed at that time a whole poem to the solemn and soothing noise of the great waves, which seemed to say to me incessantly that rhythm is a law of

nature.

But a man cannot always make verses or write, and long walks were my tonic and distraction. I used to go most often along the shore, having at my right the dry and monumental cliff, and at my left the tracts uncovered by the low tide, an immense desert of sand, spotted only by black groups of rocks. The solitude was complete. Hardly two or three times did I exchange a greeting with some patrol of the customs who was making his rounds with his gun slung over his shoulder. I was so quiet and peaceful a stroller that the sea swallows were not afraid of my red jersey, and hopped about a few steps from me, impressing their starry tracks on the damp sand. I used to walk in this manner four or five miles a day, and always returned with my pockets full of those delicate shells that one finds by excavating with the hand the little beach pebbles always wet by the tide.

This was my favorite walk. However, on the days when there was a high gale and violent surf, I used to leave the beach, and ascending the village street I would loiter about the moor. Or else I established myself with a book on an old bench in the cemetery, where I was sheltered from the west wind by the body of the church.

An ideal spot for melancholy and dreaming. Towards the autumn sky, where clouds were floating, rose the spire, devout and slender. The crows that nested there flew out and in, cawing, and the shadows of their great wings continually glided over the graves scattered in the tall grass. Between two half-ruined buttresses of the church, where the gray stone, eaten by the sea wind, supported here and there a waving cluster of little yellow flowers, there was picketed a black goat, which was almost terrifying, with his fiery eyes and satanic beard, as he bleated and pulled at his rope. In the evening above all, when, athwart the skeleton of an old dead apple tree, with rugged branches, one could see far away on the horizon the setting sun bleeding over the sea, this wild cemetery filled the soul with piercing melancholy.

It was on such an evening that, in wandering among the gravestones- many, below a sailor's name, bore the sinister

inscription, "Died at Sea"-I read, on a cross still new, these words that astonished and touched me:

HERE RESTS

NONA LE MAGUET,

Died at sea, October 26, 1878, aged nineteen years.

Died at sea! A young girl! Women, however, never embark on the fishing boats. How had this misfortune happened?

"Indeed, sir!" said suddenly behind me a rough voice, are you looking at the grave of our poor Nona?"

"are

I turned, and recognized an old sailor with a wooden leg, whose good graces I had gained by a few glasses of brandy, offered in the public room of the inn.

"Yes," I answered. "But I supposed that all you fishermen refused to admit a woman on board. I have even been told that it brings ill luck."

"And it is the truth," replied the good man.

"Likewise

Nona never went on board a boat. You would like to know how she died, our dear one? Well, I will tell you about it.

"First of all I must tell you that her father, Pierre Le Maguet, was an old topman like me, an old comrade of mine. At Bourget, when the admiral, La Roncière, put his gilttrimmed cap at the end of his saber, and hurled us, our axes in our hands, against the fortified houses, Pierre and I marched shoulder to shoulder, and it was he who caught me in his arms when those cursed Prussians sent a bullet into my leg. That evening also, at the ambulance of the fort, Pierre held my hand to encourage me while the major chopped me up. And he was still there, the good Pierre, the day that the admiral brought my medal to me in bed. But, at last, those beggarly Prussians came out ahead. The treaty of peace was signed, and we were sent home. I, with my wooden leg, had nothing to do but to idle away my time like a worn-out dog. But Pierre, who had all his limbs entire, engaged in the fisherman's trade. Soon after, his wife died of an ague, and left him alone with this little Nona, who was nearly ten years old.

"Naturally, while the widower was at sea, it was I, the sailor, I, the old bachelor, who took care of the little girl. A good and quiet child, sir, very brave and very gentle.

We

used very often to go together over the shelving rocks at low tide, to gather large crabs, shrimps, and now and then a lobster. Oh! we were a pair of good friends.

"Things went on like this for two years. Nona had had her first communion and was growing like a sand thistle. But one tempestuous day the 'Amélie,' the boat which carried Le Maguet, had great difficulty in getting back to the beach. The skipper did not haul down his jib and spanker in time, and was lost, life and goods, on that reef which you see from here—no, a little more to starboard. There were four men on board, the skipper, two sailors, of whom my poor Pierre was one, and the cabin boy. However, the sea did not wish to return but three of the bodies to the shore, and kept my comrade for its own. Now that Nona was an orphan, I of course did my best to take her father's place. But the child, even after the first shock of grief, would not be consoled. And can you guess why, above all? On account of an idea cherished by all the women of the place. They imagine, you see, that it is necessary to be buried in consecrated ground, lest the soul suffer in torment until the Great Judgment. We do not believe in all those stupid tales, we men, who know what takes place after there has been a death on board ship. I know the ceremony well: the body in a bag of tarred sacking, a cannon ball at the foot, on a plank near the rail, and the commander bareheaded, the book in his hand, reading aloud the service for the dead. But the women about here are very religious, as you know well, and Nona began to burn candles in all the Pardons of the neighborhood, that her father's soul might have

repose.

"Still, in spite of all, time is a famous dealer in forgetfulness, and Nona, after several years had passed, seemed to me to be somewhat consoled. Moreover, her grief had not kept her from growing tall and beautiful; and it is not because I loved her like a father that I say so, but on my word of honor; she was the freshest and prettiest young girl in the parish. We lived so happily together! We were not rich, most assuredly, but we got along just the same. I have my pension and my medal, and besides, Nona and I used to go lobster hunting among the rocks. The business is not a bad one, and there is only one danger, that of being caught by the rising tide. Alas! it is thus that she perished, poor little girl!

"One day that my rheumatism kept me chained in the

house, she went alone for the lobsters, a day like to-day, with a clear sky and a high wind. But the other gatherers of shellfish, coming back with full baskets, noticed that Nona was missing. There was no doubt possible, good God! She had delayed, she had been cut off by the tide, she had died at sea! Oh! what a night I passed! At my age, yes, old tough-asleather as I am, I sobbed like a woman. And the thought kept coming back to me, of the poor girl's belief, that to go to heaven one must be buried in the cemetery. Therefore, as soon as the sea began to ebb, I dragged myself down to the beach, and set out with the others to search for the body.

"And we found her, my Nona," went on the old sailor, whose voice was breaking. "We found her on a rock covered with seaweed, where, seeing herself lost, the brave darling, she had made herself ready to die. Yes, she had fastened her skirts below her knees with her neckerchief, for the sake of decency, and, still adhering to her old belief, she had tied her hair to the seaweed, her beautiful black hair, certain in this way that she would be found and buried in consecrated ground. And I can tell you, I, who know well what bravery is, there is hardly a man bold enough to do the like."

The old man ceased speaking. In the last gleam of twilight I saw two great tears roll down his tanned cheeks. We went down towards the village, side by side, without speaking a word. I was deeply moved by the courage of this simple girl, who, even in the agony of death, had preserved the modesty of her sex and the piety of her race. And before me, in the distant spaces, in the somber solitude of sky and sea, gleamed the lighthouses and the stars.

Oh! brave people of the sea! Oh! noble Brittany!

LOTUS FARM.1

BY FRÉDÉRIC MISTRAL.

(From "Mirèio": translated by Harriet W. Preston.)

[FRÉDÉRIC MISTRAL is one of a group of writers called "Les Félibriges," whose aim is the restoration of the Provençal literature. He was born near Maillane, in the department of Bouches-du-Rhône, September 8, 1830, and

1 Copyright, 1872, by Roberts Brothers. Published by permission of Little, Brown & Co.