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left the cottage with a friendly adieu to the smil- | particular night. She remembered the darkness ing girl, and without a suspicion that Alix had any private reasons for her dislike to leave the village, or that the daily greeting of François the stone-cutter was a matter of more moment to her than the prettiest compliments of the Bailiff of Beauregard.

and gloom of the old trees, the thickness of the brushwood, and shuddered as she thought of the possibility of meeting the Couleuvre-Fée-the Melusina of Provence-or the Chèvre d'Or, who confides the secret resting-place of hidden treasures to the wandering traveler, only to afflict him with incurable melancholy if he proved himself unworthy of riches. As the dread of these supernatural creatures increased upon her with the silence and darkness of night, she hid her head beneath the counterpane, and wisely resolved to dare all that human beings could do to vex her, rather than encounter the tricks and temptations of those unearthly ones-and then she slept.

Light to see, however, is nearly allied to courage to dare; and when Alix arose at early dawn, her perturbations and tremblings had vanished, and her midnight decision was overturned by the impulse of the morning. She dressed herself, quickly, but carefully, in her most becoming attire; and a very fine specimen of the women of the province she looked-noted though they are for the regal style of their beauty-when equipped in her plaited petticoat; her bright fichu, not pinned tightly down, but crossing the bosom in graceful folds, and fastened in a knot at the back; her thick glossy bands of black hair contrasting well with the rich glow of her cheek, and with the Madras silk handkerchief which covered, without concealing the luxuriance of her long hair. Holding in her hand her large market-basket, not unlike in shape to a coal-scuttle or a gipsey bonnet, with a majestic rather than a tripping step, Alix began her walk; looking more like one of the Roman matrons from whom tradition tells that her race was descended than a poor peasant girl.

The next day was market-day at Maillot, a town about two leagues distant from the village, whither, for four years, Alix had been accustomed to go once a week with poultry and eggs; her great resource for the rent of her grand-dame's hut. It was a matter of rivalry among the young women of the neighborhood to be first at market; and Alix, who greatly enjoyed supremacy in every thing, had endeavored in this, as in all else, to surpass her companions. This, however, was not very easy, for others could rise betimes as she did herself. A few months before, an accidental discovery of her brother Jean had at length secured for her the envied privilege. Jean, like other idle lads of his class, was necessarily a poacher, and, on one of his secret expeditions into the forest which lay between Beauregard and Maillot, had chanced to fall upon a path by which the distance between the two places was shortened by at least a third. This discovery he confided to Alix; and ever since, under his guidance and escort, she had availed herself of it to reach Maillot earlier and with less fatigue than her companions. She had found the walk very pleasant when Jean was with her to carry her basket, and with his boyish sallies to prevent her from dwelling on the superstitious terrors with which tradition had invested the forest; but now that she must tread its tangled paths alone, she hesitated, and was half tempted to relinquish the daring project. Still she felt unwilling to yield the As she reached the turn from the high-road to honor of being first without a struggle. Besides, the wood, she quickened her steps, and resoluteher companions had always given her a repu-ly took the forest path; while, as if determined tation for courage, and although she had a secret conviction that she owed it solely to her young brother's reflected bravery, it is a reputation which young girls prize so highly, that, rather than forfeit it, they will rush recklessly into real dangers, from which, if they escape, it is by their good for-earth and sky salute the new-born day. tune, and not by their boasted courage.

Alix could not endure to allow to others that she was afraid. No, no, she must not permit that to be said, nor must she expose herself to the jeers and laughter of those who would delight to hear that she was not first at market. She must go by the wood-path, and must go early. And so thinking, she laid her down to

rest.

to prove to herself that she was not afraid, she ever and anon gave forth a snatch of song, in a voice as clear and shrill as that of the birds twittering in the branches overhead, to join the common hymn of praise with which the denizens of

The morning was unusually sultry and oppressive, although the sun was but newly risen. Alix felt herself overcome with fatigue when scarcely half-way through the forest. She was so fatigued that she found it necessary to sit down; but just as she had selected a seat in a quiet shady nook, which promised to be a pleasant resting-place, she discovered that it abutted closely on the opening to one of the grottoes that tradition had marked out as the former habitation of hermits or saints whose spirits were still be

The part of France in which Alix was born and brought up is full of historical remains, and therefore abounds with traditions, the more mys-lieved to haunt their old dwelling-places. She tical and terrible from the dash of paganism with which they are mixed up. Not a forest, ruin, or grotto, is without some picturesque legend, which the young listen to from the lips of the aged with shuddering delight; and all that Alix had ever heard of the forest of Beauregard, or of any other haunted wood in the province, rose with disagreeable tenacity to her memory on this VOL. IX.-No. 50.-Q

no sooner became aware of the grotto's vicinity than she rose hastily, and, snatching up her basket, set off down one of the alleys of the forest, without taking time to consider where she was going; when forced to pause to recover her breath, she found herself in a spot she had never seen before, but one so lovely that she looked around with surprise and admiration.

It was a little glade, in form almost an amphi- | then, the twenty-third of June had been always theatre, carpeted with turf as soft and elastic as more or less fatal to the females of her house; velvet; its bright green enameled with flowers; and as Alix remembered this, she was content to and on each petal, each tiny blade of grass, dew- be only Alix Leroux, who, though possessed neidrops were sparkling like tears of happiness, in ther of chateaux nor forests, and forced to work welcome to the sun's returning rays. Around hard and attend weekly markets, had no ancesthis little circle, mighty old trees, gnarled and tral doom hanging over her, but could look forrugged, the fathers of the forest, were so regular-ward to a bright future, as the beloved mistress ly arranged as to seem the work of art rather of a certain stone-cutter's comfortable home; of than of nature, and this impression was strength- which stone-cutter's existence Monsieur Reboul ened by the avenue-like alley that spread from it was quite unconscious. toward the north. Immediately opposite to this Her thoughts of François, her young warmopening, on the southern side of the amphithe-hearted lover, and of the two strong arms ready atre, rose a rampart of gray rocks, marbled with at a word from her to do unheard-of miracles, golden veins, from whose hoary sides sprang dimpled her cheeks with smiles, and entirely forth the rock-rose or pink cystus, and under banished the uncomfortable cogitations which whose moist shade the blue aster, one of the fair- had preceded them; taking up her basket, she est of earth's stars, flourished luxuriantly. As arose, and, looking around her, began to considAlix's eye fell on the trees, and grass, and flow-er which path she ought to follow, to find the ers, she set her basket down carefully at the foot of a fine old oak, and, forgetting fatigue, heat, and superstitious terrors, busied herself in gathering the dew-gemmed flowers, until her apron was quite full.

Then, seating herself under the oak, she began with pretty fastidiousness to choose the most perfect of her treasures to arrange into a bouquet for her bosom, and one for her hair. While thus engaged she half-chanted, half-recited her Salve Regina :

Hail to the Queen who reigns above,
Mother of Clemency and Love'
We, from this wretched world of tears,
Send sighs and groans unto thine ears.
Oh, thou sweet advocate, bestow
One pitying look on us below!

The hymn and toilet were concluded together;
and then, but not till then, Alix remembered that
there was a market at Maillot, at which she must
be present, instead of spending the day in such
joyous idleness. She sighed and wished she
were a lady-the young lady of Beauregard, of
whose marriage Monsieur Reboul had told her
such fine things—and, as she thought thus, as-
sociation of ideas awoke the recollection that this
day was the twenty-third of June, the vigil of
St. John; a season said to be very fatal to the
females of the house of Beauregard. She shud-
dered as the terrors of that tradition recurred to
her memory, and wished she were not alone in
the haunted forest on so unlucky a day. Many
and strange were the superstitions she had heard
regarding St. John's Eve, and many the observ-
ances of which she had been the terrified wit-
ness; but that which had always affected her
imagination the most was the ancient belief that
any one who has courage to hold a lonely vigil in
a church on St. John's Eve, beholds passing in
procession all those who are fated to die within
the year.
It was with this superstition that the
legend of Beauregard was associated; for it was
said that in old times a certain lady of the family
had, for reasons of her own-bad reasons of
course-held such a vigil, had seen her own
spirit among the doomed, and had indeed died
that year. Tradition further averred, that since

most direct road to Maillot.

She was still undecided, when a whole herd of deer dashed down the north alley toward her, and broke forcibly through the thick covert beyond, as if driven forward by intense fear. She was startled by the sudden apparition, for a moment's consideration convinced her that what had terrified them might terrify her also, and that the part of the forest from which they had been driven was that which she must cross to reach Maillot. Timid as a deer herself, at this thought she strained her eyes in the direction whence they had come, but could see nothing. She listened;

all was still again, not a leaf stirred-and yet, was it fancy, or was it her sense of hearing excited by fear to a painful degree of acuteness, that made her imagine that she heard, at an immense distance, a muffled sound of wheels and of the tramp of horses' feet? She wrung her hands in terror; for, satisfied that no earthly carriage could force its way through the tangled forest paths, she could only suppose that something supernatural and terrible was about to blast her sight; still, as if fascinated, she gazed in the direction of the gradually increasing sounds. Not a wink of her eyes distracted her sight as she peered through the intervening branches. Presently, a huge body, preceded by something which caught and reflected the straggling rays of sunshine that penetrated between the trees, was seen crushing through the brushwood. Nearer and nearer it came with a curiously undulating movement, and accompanied by the same strange, dull, inexplicable sound, until, as it paused at a few hundred paces from her place of concealment, she perceived, to her intense relief, that the object of her terror was nothing more than an earthly vehicle of wood and iron, in the form of one of the unwieldy coaches of the day, drawn by a team of strong Flanders horses; and that the strange muffled sound which had accompanied it, arose solely from the elasticity of the turf over which it rolled having deadened the noise of the wheels and the horses' hoofs. The relief from supernatural terrors, however, rendered Alix only the more exposed to earthly fears; and, when a second glance at the carriage

The sight of his familiar face dissipated her gloomy suspicions, and she speedily persuaded herself that instead of a grave to hide some dread

cealed treasures which every body knew were buried in the forest. Monsieur Reboul had often told her that he had heard of them from his grandmother, so it was natural enough he should be ready to seek them. How she would torment him with the secret thus strangely acquired!

showed her that the glistening objects which had caught her eye at a distance were the polished barrels of mousquetons, or heavy carbines, carried by two men who occupied the driving seat,ful deed, they were digging for some of the conshe slipped from her hiding-place behind the large oak tree, and carefully ensconced herself among the thick bushes that overshadowed the rocks. Scarcely had she done this, before one of the armed men got down from the box, and walked round the circular glade, scanning it with a curious and penetrating glance. For a moment, he paused before the old oak, as if attracted by some flowers Alix had dropped; but, another quicksearching look seeming to satisfy him, he returned to the carriage and stood by the door, as if in conference with some one inside.

"Thank Heaven!" thought Alix, "he sees that the carriage can not pass further in this direction; I shall not, therefore, be kept here long;" and her curiosity as to what was next to be done gaining predominance over her fears, she again peered eagerly between the branches. A gentleman got out of the carriage, and examined the little glade as carefully as his servant had done. "What a handsome man!" thought Alix. "What a grand dress he has; all silk and velvet!" She fixed an admiring glance on the tall, noble-looking figure that stood for a moment, silent and still, in the centre of the amphitheatre. "It will do, Pierre," he said at length, as he turned on his steps: "begin your work."

Pierre bowed, and, without speaking, pointed to a little plot of ground, of peculiarly bright green, with a dark ring round it-a fairy-ring, in short, so named in all countries-which lay almost directly opposite to Alix's hiding-place. "Yes," was the brief answer. "Call Joseph to help; we are at least an hour too late."

The strong rigidity of the speaker's countenance caused Alix to tremble, although she did not know why, unless it were in her dread of falling into his hands as a spy of his secret actions, whatever they might be; for he was evidently not a man to be trifled with.

Pierre went back to the carriage, from which the other man had already descended, and together they took, from the hind boot, a couple of pickaxes and spades, with which they speedily began to cut away the turf of the green-ring, for a space of some six or eight feet in length, and as many in breadth.

She could distinctly see Pierre's face, and perceived that it was not one she had ever seen before. That of Joseph was concealed from her, as he worked with his back toward her; but there was something about his dress and appearance which seemed familiar to her, and which was very different from that of Pierre. But what strange kind of hole was that they were digging? Holy Mother of mercy, it is a grave!"

46

As this idea occurred to her, her blood ran cold; but the sudden thought underwent as sudden a change, when, the second man turning his face toward her, she recognized, to her amazement, the countenance of her admirer, the old bailiff.

From her merry speculations she was roused at length by the reappearance of the tall man, carrying in his arms something wrapped in a horseman's cloak, and followed by another and younger figure, bearing, like himself, all the outward signs belonging to the highest class of the nobility, though on his features was stamped an expression of cruelty and harshness.

"Going to bury a treasure rather than seek one," thought Alix. "Very well, Monsieur Reboul, I have you still!"

The tall man, meanwhile, had placed his burden on the ground. Removing the cloak that covered it, he now displayed to Alix's astonished eyes a young and very lovely lady. For a moment, the fair creature stood motionless where she was placed, as if dazzled by the sudden light; but it was for a moment only, and then she flung herself on the ground at the feet of the elder man, beseeching him to have mercy upon her, to remember that she was young, and that life, any life, was dear to her!

The man moved not a muscle, uttered not a word save these "I have sworn it."

The girl-for she looked little more than sixteen-pressed her hands on her bosom, as if to still the suffocating beating of her heart, and was silent. Such silence! Such anguish! Alix trembled as if she herself were under the sentence of that cold, cruel man. But now the grave was finished; for grave it seemed to be, and one, too, destined to inclose that living, panting, beautiful creature. The old man laid his hand upon her arm and drew her forcibly to the edge of the gaping hole.

With sudden strength she wrenched herself from his grasp; and, with a wild and thrilling shriek, rushed to the young man, clung to him, kissed his hands, his feet, raised her wild, tearless eyes to his, and implored for mercy, with such an agony of terror in her hoarse, broken voice, that the young man's powerful frame shook as if struck by ague. Involuntarily, unconsciously he clasped her in his arms. What he might have said or done, God knows, had the old man allowed him time; but already he was upon them, and snatched the girl from his embrace. The young man turned away with a look so terrible that Alix never recalled it, never spoke of it afterward, without an invocation to Heaven.

"Kill me first!" shrieked the poor girl, as her executioner dragged her a second time to that living grave. "Not alive, not alive! Oh my father, not alive!"

236

"I have no child, you no father!" was the stern reply. The young man hid his face in his hands, and Alix saw them thrust their victim into the grave; but she saw no more, for, with a cry almost as startling as that which the murdered lady had uttered, she fled from her conceal ment back to the village. Panting, she rushed on without pause, without hesitation, through unknown paths; her short quick cries for "Help! help! help!" showing the one idea that possessed her; but she met no one until she stopped exhausted and breathless at the first house in the village, that of the curé.

"Come, come at once; they will have killed her!" she exclaimed.

"What is the matter, my poor girl?" he asked in amazement, as, pushing back his spectacles, he raised his head from his breviary.

"Oh come, sir! I will tell you as we go. Where is François! He would help me! Oh, what shall I do, what shall I do? Come, do

[graphic]

There was no mistaking the look of agitation in her face the curé yielded to her entreaties and followed her. As they quitted the house, they met some laborers with spades in their hands, going to their daily work.

"Make these men come with us," Alix said, " and bring their spades!"

The curé did so, and in an incredibly short space of time the little party reached the green ring. The spot was vacant now, as formerly carriage, horses, servants, executioners, and victim, all had disappeared as if by magic; and, in the quiet sylvan solitude, not a trace save the newly-turned soil was perceptible of the tragedy enacted there so lately. But Alix staid not to glance around her; going directly up to the fatal spot, she gasped out, "Dig, dig!"

No one knew why the order was given, nor what they were expected to find; but her eagerness had extended itself to the whole party, and they at once set to work, while she herself, prostrate on the ground, tried to aid them by tearing up the sods with her hands. At length the turf was removed, and a universal cry of horror was heard when the body of the unhappy girl was discovered.

"Take her out; she is not dead! Monsieur le Curé, save her; tell us how to save her!"

The laborers gently raised the body, and placed it in Alix's arms, as she still sat on the ground. They chafed the cold hands, loosened the rich dress the poor girl's only shroud-but she gave no sign of life.

"Water, water!" cried Alix.

No fountain was near, but the rough men gathered the dead leaves strewed around, and sprinkled the pale face with the dew they still held. For a second they all hoped; the eyelids quivered slightly, and a faint pulsation of the heart was clearly perceptible.

But that was all They had come too late. The curé bent over the dead, and repeated the solemn "De profundis clamavi ad te, Domine," and then all joined in the hymn of death, "Dies

iræ, dies illa!" as they gently bore the corpse from the place of its savage sepulture, to holy ground. For several days the body was exposed in an open coffin in the little village church of Beauregard, and every effort was made to track the perpetrators of the dreadful deed. But in vain; no trace of them could be found. An innate dread of some personal misfortune sealed Alix's lips with respect to her recognition of the bailiff, and all inquiries as to the passing of a carriage such as she had described, between Maillot and Novelle, were made unsuccessfully.

amined, in hopes of the discovery of her name The dress of the young lady was carefully exthere were none. The satin robe, the jewels she by means of ciphers or initials on her linen; but had worn on her neck and arms, and the delicate had been carried away from some gay fête. From flowers twined in her hair, gave evidence that she the ring on her marriage finger they augured she was a wife; but there all conjecture ended. other ornaments were hung up in the church, in After her burial in holy ground her gold ring and the hope that some day a claimant might arise who could unravel the strange mystery; and close by them was suspended an ex-voto offering by Alix, in gratitude for her own escape.

The story was never cleared up. Monsieur lost her boasted courage that she never afterward Reboul was never seen again, and Alix had so dared to take a solitary walk, especially near the fatal green ring in the forest. Perhaps it was this dread of being alone, or perhaps the mysterious disappearance of Monsieur Reboul, which tempted her soon afterward to follow the advice of her neighbors, and become the wife of François, the stone-cutter. The marriage was a happy one, and a time came when the remembrance of strange legend to be told to her children and that fatal eve of St. John was recalled more as a grandchildren than as a fearful drama in which she had herself taken part.

the ornaments of the murdered girl were, with
In the revolutionary struggles which followed,
other relics, of the old régime, lost or removed
from the little village church.
lingers there still, and, like many another strange
Yet the story
story, it is a true one.

HE is a baggy damsel with a quaint, sly face,
PICTURE OF A GREEK GIRL.
of all work.
and her principal occupation is that of a maid

But she is dressed to-day; it is St. Somebody's
feast, and every body is idling away their time in
the day before yesterday, and it will be St.
consequence. It was St. Whatshisname's day
Whoist's day the day after to-morrow. Though
our balloon-clad young acquaintance is idling, it is
with a busy idleness; for she has been occupied
ever since eight o'clock this morning in carrying
about fruit, jellies, and sweetmeats, with strong
unstrained coffee. A very singular and amusing
raw spirits in gilded glasses, and little cups of
picture she makes, as she stands bolt upright,
tray in hand, before her father's guests. She is

pretty. Yes, there is no doubt of that; but she | but she has a little ally (a chit of a girl about has done almost every thing possible to disfigure seven years old, and looking forty, that you meet herself. Though certainly not seventeen, with in the houses of all the islanders), who is on the the rich, clear complexion of the Greeks, she is look-out all day. No one ever enters a Greek rouged up to the very eyes. Where she is not house but the neighborhood knows it. All down rouged, she is whitened. Her eyebrows are the street, and in the next, and every where, painted, and she has even found means to intro- those little girls are watching and flitting about duce some black abomination under her eyelids to on cunning errands as stealthily and swift as make the eyes look larger. Her hair would be cats. Her father and mother will tell you that almost a marvel if left to itself; but she has her own cousins never saw her alone or spoke a twisted it, and plaited it, woven gold coins into dozen consecutive words to her; but I rather fanit, and tied it up with dirty handkerchiefs, and cy she has some acquaintance of her own; and gummed and honeyed it, till every tress has grown she is generally on terms of rather startling distorted and angry. Her ears are in themselves friendship with the young man servant, who as sly and coquettish a pair of ears as need be; forms almost part of the family in all Greek and they peep out beneath her tortured locks as if houses. On summer nights too, when good they would rather like to have a game at bo-peep people should be asleep, you will see closelythan otherwise but they are literally torn half hooded figures flitting about noiselessly, like an inch longer than they should be by an enorm- black ghosts. They are Greek girls. What ous pair of Mosaic ear-rings bought of a peddler. they are about nobody knows. Perhaps, looking Her hands might have been nice once, for they for the moon, which will not rise for some hours. are still small; but they are as tough as horn and At every dark corner of a wall, also, you will as red as chaps can make them, with sheer hard see young gentlemen sitting in the deep shadow work, scrubbing and washing about the house. All with wonderful perseverance. If you go very Greek women, I think, have been mere housewives near and they do not see you, you may hear them since the time of Andromache. Her figure is, if singing songs, but low as the humming of a bee: possible, more generally baggy than her trowsers. so low, that they do not disturb even the timid It bulges out in the most extraordinary bumps owl who sits cooing amid the ruins of the last and fullness. A short jacket—as much too small fire over the way. The Greek girl knows an for her as the brigand attire of the stage-does amazing quantity of songs, and all of the same not make this general plumpness less remarkable; kind. They are about equal in point of compoand she has a superfluity of clothes, which re-sition to the worst of our street ballads: full of minds one of the late King Christophe's idea of full dress. Numerous, however, as are the articles of wearing apparel she has put on, they all terminate with the trowsers, which are looped up just below the knee. The rest of the leg and feet are bare, and hard, and plump, and purple, and chapped almost beyond belief, even in the fine piercing cold of a Greek February.

Her mind is a mere blank. Her idea of life is love-making, cleaning the house, serving coffee, and rouging herself on festival days. She can not read or write, or play the piano; but she can sing and dance. She can talk too, though never before company, No diplomatist can touch her in intrigue or invention. Not even Captain Absolute's groom could tell a falsehood with more composure. She does not know what it is to speak the truth; and, to use a Greek saying, she is literally kneaded up with tricks. The Greek girl has no heart, no affections. She is a mere lump of flesh and calculation. Her marriage is quite an affair of buying and selling. It is arranged by her friends. They offer to give a house (that is indispensable), and so much to whoever will take her off their hands. By-and-by, somebody comes to do so; the priests are called, there is a quaint strange ceremony, and he is bound, by fine, to perform his promise. This fine is usually ten per cent. on the fortune which was offered him with the lady.

I have said she can talk, but she can only talk of and to her neighbors; and she spends her evenings chiefly in sitting singing in the doorway, and watching them. This she does herself;

the same coarse wit and low trickery. They are sung to dreary, monotonous airs; and always through the nose. Never had the national songs of a people so little charm or distinctive character. You seek the strong, sweet language of the heart in vain among them. They have neither grace nor fancy.

With all this, the Greek girl is pious. She would not break any of the severe fasts of her church, even for money, though they condemn her to dry bread and olives for six weeks at a time: nor would she neglect going to church on certain days upon any account. She has a faith in ceremonies, and in charms, relics, and saints, almost touching; but there her belief ends. She would not trust the word of her own father or the archbishop. She can not suppose it possible that any one would speak the truth, unless he was obliged; and she judges correctly, according to her own experience. She herself would promise, and take an unmixed delight in deceiving her own mother on a question about a pin's head; but she would scrupulously avoid doing any thing she had promised; and the only way even to prevent her accepting a husband, would be to make her say she would have him beforehand. From that moment her fertile wits would toil night and day to find means of escape. And find them she would, to change her mind the day after she was free.

She has one hope dearer than all the rest. It is that she may one day wear Frank clothes, and see the Greeks at Constantinople. This is no exaggeration; the wrongs of the rayah have

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