Littell's Living Age

had been ruthlessly swept away between batteries beyond. To the left of the long the walls of Paris and the Fort of Auber- street of houses stands, in advance of the villiers. The site where these flourishing rest, what has been a handsome villa. villages have been so utterly razed, where Shells had showered on it impartially from every tangible fragment of the demolished both sides; one of them had fallen in the materials has been carted away, is even billiard-room, where three of the French more depressing than the mangled pleas- wounded had been carried, and had put ure-grounds of the west. Tangible frag- them out of their misery. When the proments I say advisedly, for the surface lies prietor returns, he will find before his buried inches deep in volatile particles of drawing-room windows a handsome pyrstone and lime, ready to be caught up by amid of white stones, surmounted by a the lightest breeze, and diabolically pen- cross, and erected by the Augusta regietrating and titillating in their nature. ment of the Saxon Guard. Already the Such a walk back as we had, when a bit- ivy has been carefully trained over it from ter west wind, charged with what had top to bottom, and in front of it is a triple once been Paris house property, met us tomb, where a little knot of Frenchmen full in the faces, I never care to experi- sleep between two gravefuls of the enemy. ence again.

The houses of Le Bourget, torn into The Fort of Aubervilliers is little dam- rags by shells and rifle-balls, would have aged, which is more than can be said for struck one more had you not visited all the glass works and perfume manufactories that remained of St. Cloud. But there one passes, among them that of the cel- was one scene here that, for dramatic horebrated M. Pivet, or for Le Bourget ror, far surpassed anything I had wititself. By the side of the road women nessed to the west or north of the capital and boys were chipping away at the pop- Behind the villa garden, with its mortuary lar-stumps. On the bare fields, where pyramid, is a wall, and you drop over the scarcely a tinge of green was visible, gangs wall into a field, so worked by shells that, of haggard scarecrows were straggling in in one corner, it looks as if novices had search of green-meat. Generally, it must been breaking down in a ploughing-match. be observed, the Parisians showed no signs A stream runs out of a little wood that of their late privations. It looked as if a shelters the village washing-place. pair of canaries would have found them- was by here I saved myself in a feu selves on short commons, with the free d'enfer," remarks, causally, our friend the range of an acre of it. One of my com- Mobile, as he shows the spot where he panions was an officer of Mobile, and had jumped the swol en brook, and started to been through all the fighting that has labour towards safety through the heavy made the place historical. "We mustered holding soil. Beyond the stream is the under the guns of the fort, and shook our- small triangular churchyard, one of its selves into motion in the profound dark- white walls running almost parallel with ness, by that pile of fascines you see the course. The wall is loopholed, as there." So he checked off the incidents usual, and you enter by the broken gate of the advance as we went along. "Our at the corner. The Germans had estaboutposts were in that factory a de- lished themselves within, and the dead tached building, with some of its gates had to make way for the necessities of the still heavily barricaded, and its court walls living. The village of the dead must have honeycombed with loopholes and bespat- been a populous one, and now, from onetered with bullet-marks. "That little half of it, monuments, rails, crosses, had lane down there by the railway-crossing been swept clean away, and flung back was the advanced post of the Germans, anyhow among the crowded tombs behind. or rather should have been, and from These were heaped high as your headthence came the first rifle-shot. But 'tis a gravestones, and zinc canopies, and crosses, justice to render them, you didn't catch and fallen trees, and fragments of coffins. those people sleeping. They had taken All the monuments that were above the up their quarters to the left, under that sheltering walls had been shivered by the earth and timber, and while we others pelting storm of balls, just as in bleak latrushed into the station-house, to find it itudes you see trees that have outgrown empty, there they were beating quietly in their protection cut down by biting searetreat on the village." breezes. Here and there a shell had come to help to confound confusion. The other half was beaten into a smooth earthen-floor by the perpetual trampling of feet. Round the walls that faced the direction of the ene

More barricades on the road, which runs straight as an arrow-flight from the gates of Paris through Le Bourget, to the wooded heights where the Germans had their

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my's advance, ran the platforms of flat- And the visit to that churchyard was tened sheets of zinc, stretched upon black very much a symbol of the state of things grave-rails stands for the men to fire as I found them generally at Paris: confrom. Away in the salient angle was a trasts, realistic and sentimental, shocking huge excavation, where the Pioneer; must and sometimes sickening; sensibilities, have desecrated wholesale, and there the blunted by painful experiences; demeanors Guards kept their cheerless watch where demoralized by an excess of sensation: a the dead men they had turned out had light-natured people, relieved for the molain so long and so peacefully. The fur- ment of a sudden load, beginning to sing niture that had served them still remained and laugh in the ill-timed exuberance of the among the straw, the eternal grave-rails reaction: a population, who had put their converted ingeniously into settees, with women and their statues in deep mournboards nailed across them, that might ing, and having paid every dramatic tribhave been coffins or might not. And in ute to outward decorum, let such spirits the opposite corner, where we had entered, as they had flow as they would, and folwas an appropriate pendent to that pic-lowed freely whatever might be the vent ture, in the shape of a couple of open graves. They had spared the bodies but a shovelful of earth, and, during the weeks that had elapsed, no one, for bare decency, had thought of adding to it. You turned shuddering from the distinct outlines of human forms. In one of them you literally saw the boots and red trousers, and the corner of the blue buttoned frock-coat. That was the centre that had a ghastly fascination for the sightseers, although, to do them justice, most of them did look grave upon it.

of their humour. That there were many sad hearts is certain, whose owners doubtless shunned the public gaze. That they have all of them yet to bear and bend to the counter-blast of the national suffering they scarcely as yet seem to realize, is no less sure. But in the meantime I have given the superficial impressions of a flying visit, and very unfavourable they were. If the siege has really regenerated Paris, all I can say is, she was masquerading for the time in something more offensive than her old manners.

thirteenth century, and they still honour the inventor with a temple and acts of ceremonial worship. The French pearls, which excel all others in the beauty of their imitation, are manufactured, in the first instance, out of the scales of tiny white fish, which abound in the small tributaries of the Seine and Marne. It takes from seventeen to eighteen thousand fish to make one pound of the famous essence d'orient.

THE following is the substance of a communi- ABOUT PEARLS.-It is curious that the nearcation on the periodicity and heliographic dis-est cognate substance to the pearl is bezoar, a tribution of sun-spots, addressed by M. Zöllner concretion of deep olive-green colour found in the to the Astronomische Nachrichten of March stomachs of goats, dogs, cows, and especially of 2nd: The sun-spots are slaglike by the radia- camels. The bezoar used to be a valued talistion of heat on the glowing and liquid surface man. The Chinese have for centuries carried of the sun; the products of the cooling having on a well-organized system of manufacturing again dissolved, in consequence of the disturb- pearls. The invention was made early in the ance of equilibrium produced by themselves in the atmosphere. When these disturbances are not only local, but generally distributed, the formation of new spots is but little favoured at the times of such general motion of the atmosphere, because then the most essential conditions of the surface are wanting for a severe depression of temperature by radiation, namely, the rest and clearness of the atmosphere. But when the surface has again gradually become quiet after the dissolution of the spots, the process again recommences, and acquires in this manner a periodic character, in consequence of INDIAN papers in reporting an earthquake the mean relationships of the surface of the sun, shock in Assam on January 27th, give two nawhich may be considered as attaining an aver- tive theories of the causes and origin of earthage in long periods. The distribution of the quakes. The one is that when the world bespots in area must, according to this theory, be comes sinful, a kind of large serpent, on which determined by the zones of greatest atmospheric the world rests, turns on its side, and so causes clearness, which, as has been shown, generally them. The other is, that earthquakes are coincide with the zones of the greatest abund-caused by periodical leaps of the mountain gods ance of spots. Nature. from one mountain to another.

Nature.

LIVING AGE.

VOL. XXI. 961

CHAPTER IV.

good to. They shared one another's burthens, and gave one another help. Consequently the burthens lightened, and the help increased, every day that they resided together.

about the house all day, he was frequently absent till dinner-time. This was a great source of satisfaction to Miss Thelluson; at first let the honest truth be toldbecause she was heartily glad to get rid of him; by-and-by from sincere pleasure at the good it did him.

It is a mistake to take for granted, as in books and life we perpetually do, that people must always remain the same. On the contrary, most people are constantly Their life was very equable, quiet, and, changing growing, let us hope, but still at first, rather dull. Of course, the widchanging in character, feelings, opinions. ower did not visit, or receive visitors. If we took this into account we should often Occasional family dinners at the Moatbe less harsh to judge; less piteously mis- House, and a few morning calls, received judged ourselves. For instance, we re- and paid, were all that Hannah saw of solve always to love our friend and hate Easterham society. She had the large our enemy; but our friend may prove handsome house entirely to herself, often false, and our enemy kind and good. What from morning to night; for gradually Mr. are we then to do? To go on loving and Rivers went back to his parish duties, hating as before? I fear we cannot. We which he once used most creditably to must accept things as they stand, and act fulfil. Consequently, instead of hanging accordingly. Or — and this is a common case we may ourselves once have had certain faults, which we afterwards had sense to see and correct; yet those who knew us in our faulty days will never believe this, and go on condemning us for which is a little hard. And again, we may have started honestly on a certain course, and declared openly certain opinions or intentions, which we afterwards see cause to modify, or even to renounce entirely. Time and circumstance have so altered us that we are obliged to give our old selves the lie direct, or else to be untrue to our present selves. In short, we must just retract, in act or word, boldly or weakly, nobly or ignobly, as our natures allow. And though we have been perfectly sincere throughout, the chances are that no one will believe us; we shall be stamped as hypocrites, renegades, or deep designing schemers, to the end of our days. This, too, is hard; and it takes a strong heart and a clear conscience to bear it.

ever

"Work always comforts a man,” she said to herself, when she saw him come in, fresh from battling with rain and wind, or eager to secure her help and sympathy in some case of distress in the parish, his handsome face looking ten years younger, and his listless manner gaining energy and decision.

You were right, Aunt Hannah," he would often say, with an earnest thoughtfulness, that was yet not exactly sadness. "To preach to sufferers one needs to have suffered oneself. I shall be a better parson now than I used to be, I hope. On weekdays certainly, and perhaps even on Sundays, if you will continue to look over my sermons."

When Hannah Thelluson consented to Which, people began to say, were much come to her brother-in-law's house, and he better than they used to be, and Hannah thankfully opened to her its dreary doors, herself thought so too. She always read they were two most sorrowful people, who them, and, after a while, criticised them, yet meant to make the best of their sor- pretty sharply and fearlessly, every Saturrow, and of one another, so as to be a day night. On other nights she got her mutual comfort, if possible. At least this brother-in law into the habit of reading was her intent; he probably had no intent aloud; first, because it was much the easiat all beyond the mere relief of the mo-est way of passing the evening, and after ment. Men- and young men - seldom look ahead as women do.

Now, two people living under the same roof and greatly dependent upon one another, seldom remain long in a state of indifference; they take either to loving or hating; and these two, being both of them good people, though so very different in character, were not likely to do the latter. Besides, they stood in that relation which of all others most attracts regard, of reciprocally doing good and being done

being out all day he absolutely refused to go out again, lessening even his visits to the Moat-House whenever he could; secondly, because soon she came to like it very much. It was like falling into a dream of peace, to sit sewing at Rosie's little clothes (for Aunt Hannah did all she could for her darling with her own hands), silent- she always loved silence - yet listening to Mr. Rivers's pleasant voice, and thinking over, quietly to herself, what he was reading. In this way, during the

seemed more likely to thrive than Rosie Rivers; and everybody, even at the MoatHouse, now acknowledged this, to Miss Thelluson's great glory and delight. Grace's also unto whom much credit was owing.

first three months, they got through a quantity of books, both of prose and poetry, and had grown familiar enough now and then to lay the books down, and take to arguments; quarrelling fiercely at times, until either became accustomed to the other's way of thinking, and avoided war- Hannah had taken her rather rashly, like topics, or fought so honourably and perhaps - wise people sometimes do, upon well, that the battles ended in mutual re-instinct, rather rash things. She thought spect, and very often in a fit of mutual so herself when one day, accidentally asklaughter. ing Grace some apparently trivial question,

It may be a dreadful thing to confess, the girl burst into tears, confessed that she but they did laugh sometimes. Ay, even was a married woman, and her husband with the moonlight sleeping, or the white had run away from her. "But I was marsnow falling, on Rosa's grave a mile off-ried, indeed I was, and his sisters know Rosa who was with the angels smiling in it!" Which the sisters, who were in fact the eternal smile of God. These others, sisters-in-law, resolutely confirmed; but left behind to do their mortal work, were not always miserable. Rosie began the change, by growing every day more charming, more interesting, more curious, in her funny little ways, every one of which aunt retailed to papa when he came home, as if there had never been such a wonderful baby in any house before.

no more facts could be gained. Nor did Hannah like to inquire, having a feeling that poor women's miseries were as sacred as rich ones. It was an unwelcome discovery -a nurse with a living and, probably, scapegrace husband might prove very inconvenient; still, she had grown fond of the girl, who was passionately devoted to Rosie.

"For Rosie's sake I must keep her, if possible; and for her own sake, poor thing, I cannot bear to send her away. What must I do?"

Hannah did not. Fond as she was of children, add well accustomed to them, they were all other people's children. Rosie's father, to whom she thus apThis one was her own. On her alone pealed - for, despite what he had said, she depended the little human soul and human persistently consulted him in everything. body for everything in life everything answered decisively, "Let her stay." So that could make it grow up to itself and Grace stayed. But Miss Thelluson inthe world, a blessing or a curse. A sol-sisted that she should no longer pass under emn way of viewing things, perhaps; but false colours, but be called Mrs. Dixon; Hannah was a solemn-minded woman. and, finding she had no wedding-ringShe erred, anyhow, on the right side. her husband, she declared, had torn it This was the "duty" half of her new ex- from her finger the day he left her istence; the other half was joy-wholly nah took the trouble to buy her a new one, joy. and insisted upon her wearing it, saying, "She hated all deceits of every kind.' Upon which Grace looked up to her with such grateful, innocent eyes, that, Quixotic as her conduct might appear to some people it did at the Moat-house, where the girls laughed at her immoderately - she felt sure the story was true, and that she should never repent having thus acted.

cares.

Han

A child in the house. Say rather an angel; for, I think, heaven leaves a touch of the angel in all little children, to reward those about them for their inevitable Rosie was, to other people besides her aunt, a very remarkable child- -wonderfully sweet, and yet brave even as a baby. She never cried for pain or fretfulness, though she sometimes did for passion; and for sorrow a strange, contrite, grown-up kind of sorrow - whenever she did anything the least wrong, which was very seldom. She was usually a perfect sunbeam of brightness, wholesomeness, and content. Her delicacy and fragility, which were only that of a flower reared up in darkness, and recovering its healthy colours as soon as ever it is brought into the sun, soon became among the things that that she had alhad been. Not a child in all Easterhamways been-actually happy. True, she

This was the only incident of the winter, and as week after week passed by, and nothing ill came of it, no runaway_husband ever appeared, and poor Grace brightened into the tenderest nurse, the most faithful servant, hardly thinking she could do enough for her mistress and the child, Hannah ceased to think of it, or of anything unpleasant, so busy and contented was she.

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