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CHAPTER XXXII.

“And I let him go," was her first thought, "without taking the umbrella, and he will have to sit in the train all the way to town, drenched to the skin! So delicate as his chest is too! Well might he call me selfish ;" and even in her distress Hilda could not help smiling at the turn her thoughts had taken. But soon there came back in all its bitterness the recollection of what had passed. She had parted for ever from her one true friend, her faithful, devoted, unselfish lover, who had sacrificed wealth, and habits and pursuits, and cherished aims, all for her. And she would give him nothing in return! And she went over and over again the particulars of the long meeting. Of course she had done right. But she could now measure the full extent of what it had cost her. Yet after all, what was the loss of happiness to her compared with his loss? She had won his heart and wrecked his fortunes. If she had not crossed his path, this blight would not have fallen on him. Then she thought what a noble nature her lover possessed, although he was unreasonable in this one respect-on the mixture of simplicity and shrewd ness in his character; his playful ways and his serious aims; his true politeness, and, better still, his generous, sympathetic heart. He had been the benefactor of her family, their saviour from want. He had lifted one brother out of the mire and set him on a clean way; the other he would preserve from going astray, and bring up to an honest and happy life. Of her he asked only one thing in return, and that she would not give him. She would shipwreck his happiness to save her own. No, not her own;

there could be no more happiness for her; she must in any case be miserable. And yet he wanted to continue his kindness to her and her brother. That, of course, was impossible. She could not accept any further favour from him, not even on Arthur's account. But will it be right to refuse it for the child? Is Arthur, too, to be sacrificed for me? Robert and Arthur

both to be sacrificed to my scruples! He says his life will have been shipwrecked by my-refusal; his fortunes have been already. In any case the greater sacrifice is on his side. Poor Robert! How can I prove my gratitude and devotion! He would not respect me any longer, of course, if I do what he asks, although he thinks otherwise now. I should be degraded in his eyes as well as in my own, and he would soon come to feel this himself. But then this would be all the greater sacrifice. And is it not the woman's part to sacrifice herself for those she loves? Have not I been doing this ever since I came home? Has not my self-respect been lowered already, through no fault of my own? It will be merely one step lower from what I used to be. How changed I must be already! Poor Robert! And this, he says, would make him happy. Am I truly as heartless and selfish as he says?

In self-communings and retrospections of this sort she passed the sleepless night, to get up haggard and weary in the morning. "If I go on changing at this rate," thought the poor girl, smiling sadly, as she looked at herself in the glass, "Robert would not care to press his suit for long. Poor Robert! he, too, looked changed. He was not like himself to speak

so harshly-and I am the cause. He has done everything for me and mine, and I do nothing for him. I must ruin him, or let myself be ruined."

That afternoon Hilda paid a visit to Miss Pasco's school. The boys were gone out with the governesses and the sergeant to play cricket in the park, the servant said-Miss Pasco was at home; but Hilda, shrinking from a meeting with her, left word that she would call again later, and went off in search of Arthur. The party was soon found, the noise made by the little fellows being a ready guide to the spot where they were assembled. All were in high spirits, and all talking together at the top of their shrill voices. A game of cricket was going on under the superintendence of the sergeant, but the fielders were not very steady, and the younger children were playing apart, near to where the two governesses were sitting at needlework on a bench. Hilda was close upon Arthur before he saw her. His delight at her coming was as great as on the occasion of her first visit to Slaye. But there was no shedding of tears now-no pent-up feelings now burst out at the sight of the dear sister. Arthur was full of talk about the school and his school-fellows, and Miss Pasco, and Miss Playfair, and Miss Palmer, and, his first shyness having worn off, was full of childish praise about everything connected with the place. And Hilda, with a keen recollection of the dismal appearance the little fellow had presented at his last school, watched his happy face with mingled feelings of pride and self-abasement.

The two had been taking a walk together, and were now approaching the house. "So, Arthur, dear," said his sister, stopping before the

gate, "you would not like to leave Miss Pasco, who is so kind to you, and to go back to school at Slaye?"

Arthur did not answer in words, but his face changed, and he gripped his sister's hand convulsively, by way of answer.

"But suppose, Arthur dear, that I could not find the money to go on paying for you here, without being dishonest?"

"Do you pay for my schooling?" he asked, looking up inquiringly at her. "Miss Pasco said the gentleman who brought me here paid for me, and that it was evident he was very sweet on somebody. I heard Miss Pasco tell Miss Palmer so. Who is he sweet upon? Miss Pasco said she was a very lucky girl. What girl did she mean?" pursued Arthur, innocently.

"Yes, dear. It is quite true that the gentleman pays for your schooling now. He saw that you were unhappy at Mr. Brake's, and so, being very kind and noblehearted, he took you away and brought you here where you are so happy and well cared for. But supposing, Arthur dear, that your staying here required that I should do something very wrong-something that would make respectable persons like Miss Pasco think ill of me, and turn away from me; you would not wish to stay here if you had to be ashamed of your sister, would you, dear?"

Arthur looked at her with a frightened air, her manner was so serious. "Are you going to take me back to Mr. Brake's again?" he asked, and burst into tears.

Hilda had some ado in getting him to stop crying. The terror of what he had undergone at Slaye was still fresh on him, and it required repeated assurances from his sister that he should not be taken there again before he was comforted.

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"But I may not have a home to take you to. Papa has gone away, and his coming back is uncertain; and I don't think he will be able to have you with him when he does come back; and I may not be able to keep up the house by myself. But Miss Pasco will make you very happy if you should have to stay for the holidays, I am sure. She tells me she has three or four little boys from India, who spend all their holidays with her. It will be very nice having some other boys to play with, won't it? At home, you know, you have no companions."

Arthur did not dissent from these propositions, but his face testified to the higher appreciation he set on life at home, even without playmates of his own age.

"And now good-bye, dear," continued his sister, stooping down to embrace him. "And, Arthur darling, if, by-and-by, when you grow up to be a man, you should hear people say that your sister was not as good as you thought her to be, will you promise to remember that what she did wrong was done partly for your sake, that you might get

good schooling, and grow up wise, and good, and clever? You will promise to love her still, won't you, and not to look coldly on her or forsake her?"

The child made no answer in words. He could not understand his sister's mood, that she, to whom he was accustomed to look up as the embodiment of all that was good, and kind, and powerful, should be asking his pardon and deprecating his scorn. All he could understand was that she was going away now, and that perhaps he would be left at school for the holidays; and that she was unlike her usual self, and unhappy about something. His sister's tearful eyes, too, were contagious: he lifted up his voice and wept as Hilda, giving him one more embrace, rose from her knees, and bidding him tell Miss Pasco that she would not be able to return to call on her as she had promised, opened the garden-gate for him to enter and passed quickly away.

Next day, as Clifford was sitting disconsolate in his study after breakfast, among the letters brought in to him from one of the morning deliveries was a small one addressed in the well-known handwriting. It contained merely these words:

"Come back, and you shall no longer have cause to reproach me with being hard and selfish.

"H."

A FRENCH LADY AND HER FRIENDS.

A MELANCHOLY cry has been raised in France, "Les salons se meurent les salons sont morts;" and as with their decay "l'esprit s'en va," as with them many of the pleasant ways of the sociable French monde must disappear, regrets are loud and deep over their loss; and the few that are still left are spoken of tenderly, reverently almost, as we speak with bated breath of one expiring 'midst gracious and loving memories.

A little book,* published in the beginning of the year, gives the simple and unaffected description of the elements of one of those charming sanctuaries of the old "esprit gaulois" of the "art de causer," "one of the last retreats where literature, poetry, music, painting-where, in a word, talent of every kind flourished under the sympathetic reign and rule of a miniature queen, known to her subjects under various friendly appellations, such as "La Fée" to some, to Musset as "La Marraine," and to the general public as Madame Jaubert, the wife of a Conseiller à la Cour de Cassation.

The small very small-fair, and fragile hostess who gathered around her, in closest intimacy, such men as Heine, Musset, Delacroix, Berryer, Rossini, Bellini, and Mario, possessed those special and magnetic qualities of attractiveness and charm which, more than beauty and powerful intellect, are needed to wield the sceptre of government in a salon.

The Chevalier d'Aydié compared Madame du Deffand's esprit to the nature of a well-trained dog

who is always sure to raise plenty of game; and this, a friend of ours has said or written, ever seems the most appropriate definition of a good maîtresse de maison. For the hostess should not herself shine so brilliantly as to put out any lesser lights surrounding her, her task and pleasure being to show them off according to their respective powers and merits; moreover, she should be endowed with a gift of foresight and prophetic judgment, enabling her early to discern the qualities, and to cultivate the friendship, of such celebrities as those who illumined Madame Jaubert's circle, and who gave her, till their life's close, the homage "d'un culte passionnément amical."

Years have now passed since the palmy days of Madame Jaubert's salon; and most of those who met there, and whose delicate réparties and intimate communings have been discriminatingly confided to us in the "Souvenirs," have successively dropped off-called by death to meet the judgment of posterity; whilst she-born almost on the threshold of this century— remains to tell us what manner of men these were who warmed it with the fire of their eloquence, charmed it with the power of their melodies, or ravished it with the magic of their verse,—she remains! and we who have the privilege of knowing her, fully endorse the descriptive terms in which Paul de Musset wrote of her some few years ago only, "Toujours pétillante d'entraîn d'esprit et d'originalitéles années ne l'ont pas éteinte."

Age and infirmities have respect

*Souvenirs de Mme. C. Jaubert. Paris, 1881: Hetzel.' Went through three editions in as many days.

ed the little "Marraine :" the "bel ange aux yeux noirs" of De Musset's verses "A Ninon," those black eyes that contrasted so piquantly with her fair hair, are still bright and sparkling; her face is still fresh and smiling. Years have in no wise dulled her brightness or her cheeriness; she has even kept her whole delightful freshness of interest in the lives and doings of others-doubtless ever one of the most winning qualities of this sprightly little hostess.

Most of all, her charm of accueil and the vivacity of her conversation, are unchanged; and these attract to her still all who are favoured by being permitted to enjoy her well-told reminiscences: so that early and late her salon is full of men and women of note, who gather round her to listen, and store up interesting and valuable memories.

*

These "Souvenirs" open by placing Berryer before us in the frame of his country-seat, and in the laisser aller of the intimacies that he there gathered round him. Our author scarcely condescends to paint the portrait of the great orator, as being too well known to the general public-the man with the powerful frame, fine head, the sonorous and vibrating tones that lent so much force to the political speaker. She prefers delineating the winning host, known but to a chosen few, with his special gift for obtaining confidences without ever betraying his own, who was secretive by nature, though in no way mysterious, and who gave who gave ample compensation for what he abstained from telling, by the rich stores he so generously drew from his marvellously stocked memory.

The influence of woman played no inconsiderable part in Berryer's life. Madame Jaubert says: "Ber

ryer cared solely for women's companionship-his very manner of listening to them inspired them with all necessary esprit; and he was, in this respect, the living proof that an expert speaker can elicit from his partner in conversation, as much as a great artist from the poorest instrument. Open to the seduction of the most opposite charms, he was singularly liable to those amours fractionnés which made him so pleasant when stimulated and drawn out by the presence of the loved one." She also relates an amusing opinion on the host and his mil e tre expressed by one of the Augerville intimes, who, being rather put out at the number of beauties worshipping at the great man's shrine, maintained Berryer's inferiority as a lover as compared with the perfection of his sentiments de mezzo caractère. He went on to show the superiority of Mirabeau in similar circumstances, and upheld this opinion notwithstanding the indignant protest of the whole feminine assembled element-"for love," said this critic, "is a devouring fire, concentrated and exclusive. Believe me, if Berryer had not muddled away his gold in small change, few amongst the best of women might boast having resisted the entraînement of such penetrating and passionate eloquence." Madame Jaubert's comment on this is, "that there was much apparent justice in this remark; but," she shrewdly adds, "how large is the unknown share in the heart and life even of those with whom we are supposed to be most thoroughly acquainted!" Another trait of Berryer's character that she dwells on was his genial adaptation to the rôle of country gentleman and host at his wellbeloved Augerville, where Madame

* Augerville, near Paris.

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