M. d'Estérac gave up in despair all further effort to induce the poor girl to come -back, and returned with a heavy heart to the house of old André Gervaz, who, utterly overwhelmed by the intelligence, sank down in his chair, sobbing and exclaiming:

"What a wretched man I am! If I had orly known-"

"Yes," replied D'Estérac, severely, “if you had only known, you might then have consented to Susanne's union with the man she loved. But this is no time to be moaning and crying. Your business now is to find her, and cure the poor child if you can!"

As he spoke, a chill wind made the windows rattle. The two men shuddered together at the thought that Susanne was wandering about at such an hour in the mountaina poor, insane creature, without defense from danger and insult. Suddenly the church

clock struck ten.

"Where is she? What can I do?" stammered old Gervaz, who had completely lost his presence of mind.

"Go to Tacaret, the bailiff, next door, and tell him to get together three or four young fellows, with torches. I will go with them and guide them.”

This dialogue bad taken place in old André Gervaz's shop, opening on the street. All at once they thought they heard something like a murmur or a sigh. Then they distinguished on the pavement without a light step like the low sound made by a warm of bees, and an almost inaudible tap on the door. Both hastened to it; the old nan opened it. It was Susanne !

In a few hours her face had undergone a porrowful change. She was as beautiful as aver, but her beauty had assumed a new charcter, which a poet might have preferred. The energetic expression of her countenance ad given way to a sort of dreamy languor, Thich revealed permanent hallucination rathr than real insanity. At rare intervals a udden jet of flame was kindled in her large yes, wavered, and was then extinguished, as the soul had no longer any food with which o nourish itself. You would have said that he was a human being, wrenched out of real fe, and plunged into a condition of magnetic #bstraction, where a name, an image, a memty, a grief, absorbed the power of her mind, hile all the rest was night.

She was cold. Drops of water ran from er cloak down her face, resembling tears. er lips trembled, her teeth chattered, her eeks were pale and her hands burning. "My daughter! my child!" exclaimed d André, clasping her in his arms. For an instant she seemed to return the nbrace, but, suddenly repulsing her father, e said, in a short, broken voice: "He! he! You are not he!" "Susanne! Susanne!" cried M. d'Esté"do you not know me?"

She looked at them both, turning from e to the other as if she were attempting to call some idea which had escaped her. en she stretched out her arm toward the or, and said, with an effort:

"He is down there-at Toulon !"
"André," said M. d'Estérac, "" we must
prolong this sad scene. Try to make

|

This intelligence produced deep emotion in the hearts of all; but it was soon ascertained that her insanity was mild and inof fensive; that there was no necessity whatever to place her in confinement. It is not uncommon to meet with these poor creatures in Languedoc, where they are called fadettes, innocentes, and hantées, the popular superstition maintaining that they are in communication with the invisible world of spirits. They pass for voyantes, and are believed to be able | to cure diseases and foretell events. Susanne gained this reputation, and the tenderest sympathy was felt for her-a sympathy which even produced a reaction in favor of Jacques Boucard.

Spring came at last, and the fields were full of flowers. These became Susanne's passion, and she was often seen wandering in the ferns of Chadelbos, stooping and gathering them. Her face was sweet and sad; her eyes alone contradicted the smile upon her lips. Her insanity only displayed itself in the unmeaning replies she made when any question was asked her. She seemed to live in an invisible world, and to be unable to return from it without leaving behind her reaThe peasants rarely spoke to her, but they worked better, they said, when she was near them, gathering her flowers, and singing her melancholy songs. She brought them good luck, they declared. One sultry day a dozen young men and girls were busy turning over the hay in a field near Fontanes.

son.

"Look! there is Susanne," said one, as she made her appearance; and the laughter suddenly ceased.

"Poor Susanne!" said another; "she does not see 118. Her body is here, but her soul is with Jacques!"

Susanne wandered on, looking straight before her, and only stopping to gather some bit of marjoram or gentian. When she was near them, they tried to attract her attention; but, without replying, she pointed with her finger to a minute black spot in the sky above the summit of the Margeride. The laborers understood that she meant to warn them of an approaching storm; and, although the day seemed perfectly clear, and the sweat streamed from their foreheads, they hastened to load the bay on the wagons and get it under shelter. As the wagons reached the barn, a hail-storm burst upon them with such fury that the old farmer exclaimed, "But for Susanne, half my hay would have been ruined, and my cattle would have starved!"

At another time a young fellow named Pierre Vialat made a deep gash in his leg

with his scythe. The blood gushed, and his friends uttered despairing cries, when Susanne suddenly appeared on the scene. She hastened to a little stream near by, gathered three or four different sorts of herbs and flowers, pressed the juice from them on a scrap of linen, which she moistened with cold water, and applied the linen to the cut of the scythe. While she was leaning over him the poor young fellow said:

'Susanne, say a little bit of a prayer for me, and I will be cured!"

She did not seem to understand, but her eyes were raised for an instant toward heaven. Pierre at once grew calm, and a few days afterward he was well.

From that moment Susanne's popularity passed all bounds. The peasants contended who should point out to her or bring her the finest flowers, and it was soon ascertained that she gathered them to sell. The popular explanation of this was that she still remembered Jacques, and aimed at earning thus a little money to send him at the galleys. But time passed, and she sent nothing—the gossiping old post-mistress said she had never written. Then they fell back on the theory that, like a child, she made a plaything of ber money-poor, insane creature!

It was even ascertained that her habits were perfectly regular; every Saturday she passed the whole day in the fields gathering her flowers; and a fleuriste by profession could not have selected them with greater skill. She knew where the finest myrtles and ivies grew, and was often seen leaping from rock to rock like a fawn to gather some spray of wall-flower or digitalis. As she ran thus along some narrow ledge over a deep ravine, she seemed suspended in air, and supported by some invisible power. It gave people below her the vertigo to look at her. "Ah! look!" one would ory; "if she was in her right mind she would be dashed to pieces!"

"Don't be afraid! the spirits watch over her!" would be the reply.

With the flowers thus collected, Susanne formed rustic bouquets, which on Sundays she took to the houses in the neighborhood in a little basket to sell. When she had gathered some rare and splendid specimens from the slopes of the Cevennes, she went as far as Mende to dispose of them. The most elegant ladies would purchase her bouquets, but never could induce her to speak. One day they determined to ascertain the extent of her malady, and discover whether she retained her old likes and dislikes. M. Favernay, the public prosecutor, who had been the main agent in procuring the condemnation of Jacques, was expected; he had grown very unpopular for some reason, was about to remove to the city of Rouen, and his visit was to present his adieus. M. Favernay entered the salon-Susanne was standing in the centre of the apartment with her basket of flowers in her hand. As the new-comer approached, she fixed her large black eyes on him, and did not seem to recognize him in the least. A decisive test was then applied. One of the ladies detached a spray of digitalis from her bouquet, and, pointing toward M. Favernay, said to Susanne :

"My child, go and place this flower, with your own pretty hands, in that gentleman's button-hole."

Susanne looked at the speaker with an innocent and inquiring expression, but at once took the spray of digitalis, and, going to M. Favernay, calmly attached it to bis black coat, without the least exhibition of emotion, though he himself was as pale as a ghost.

"There is no longer any doubt!" the ladies murmured; "her reason has left her, and she will never be cured!"

Susanne made a courtesy and left the room, singing as she went down the staircase one of her favorite songs-"O Magali! O Magali!"-and soon afterward it was known everywhere that she had given a final proof of entire alienation of mind. A vague impres sion had in some manner gotten abroad that Jacques Boucard was not the real murderer of Simon Vernon; and, even if he were guilty, his excellent conduct, it was said, at the galleys, recommended him to pardon. A petition was accordingly drawn up, and signed by persons of all classes; and this petition was brought one day for the signature of a gentleman in whose drawing-room Susanne chanced to be, disposing of her flowers. He read it aloud, and was about to affix his name to it, when Susanne, snatching it from his hand, tore it to pieces, exclaiming violently: "No! I will not have it!-I will not have it!"

After this the most skeptical ceased to doubt her condition; and she was permitted to resume her rambles in the fields without any further attempt to ascertain her state of mind.

One day she was wandering between the Priest's Inclosure and Jacques Boucard's house, when a violent storm burst forth, and she took shelter under a tree. As she did so, she saw Matteo Perondi, Costerousse's man, running toward the farm-house, and at the same moment he caught sight of Susanne. He stopped and came to her side. His lips, writhed into a smile, showed his sharp, white teeth, and his eyes were fixed intently on the girl, who remained cold and silent. The storm had now redoubled its fury, and Perondi proposed that she should take shelter in the farm-house, to which she consented. He gallantly took off a sort of overall which he wore, threw it on her shoulders, and they hastened in the direction of the farmhouse, which they soon reached. Perondi quickly made a fire of pine-knots in the great kitchen, brought a stool, which he placed near the blaze, and made a sign to Susanne to take her seat. His attentions did not cease even then. He went to a press in the corner of the kitchen, took out a bottle and a glass, and poured into it two fingers of wine for Susanne, which she drank without ceremony. All this time she was looking with her black eyes, whose expression was singular, at the mean apartment with its poor furniture, indicating the poverty of its occupants.

At this moment Costerousse entered the room. He too had been surprised in the fields by the storm, and, as he came in, the first thing he saw was the erect figure of Su

sanne for she had risen-brilliant in the tawny light of the fire. The effect was terrible. He had so little expected to see Susanne Gervaz in his house, beside his fire, that he could not conceal his agitation. Struck by stupor and fright, he remained motionless on the threshold of the room, looking from one to the other—from the girl | to Perondi. But he soon recovered himself. His violent and ferocious nature resumed its sway. Furious against both, and against himself as well for having betrayed such agitation, he approached the girl with his fist clinched, and said to her with a mixture of fear and menace: "What do you want? doing here?"

What are you

tion at sight of her, and soon conceived a violent passion for her. One day he saw her passing, in the absence of his master, and called her to come in as he had something to say to her. Looking him straight in the face, with a loud laugh she said:

"No! no! your wine is too sour, your house is too mean, and you are too dirty!" A flush of anger and shame came to the man's face.

"Is that it?" he exclaimed. "Well, in fifteen days I can have the house cleaned, and good clothes to wear, and good wine to drink!"

"I don't believe it!" she sneered. "Ah! you don't believe it!" he replied, in a savage tone. "Do you think I cannot She made no reply, continuing to look get all I want at the fair at Vigan, soon?" him firmly in the face. Suddenly he bit his lip till the blood

Perondi seemed to have expected this outburst of anger. He advanced quickly between Costerousse and the girl, and, folding his arms in an attitude of defiance, said in an insolent tone:

"Well-what if she is here? I met this young girl in the open field when the storm burst. Was I to leave her exposed to the rain? I brought her here-I built this fire to warm her. What have you to say about it?"

The words, voice, and gestures of the man produced an immediate effect on Costerousse. He suppressed his anger, and muttered in the hoarse tone of a growling dog, soothed or whipped by his master:

"Oh! that's a different matter!-I did not know-you were right."

Perondi leaned over toward Costerousse and whispered to him.

Besides," he said, "you know she is out of her head."

By this time the rain had ceased, and the storm had passed by. Susanne rose from her stool, made a movement with her hand in the direction of Matteo Perondi, as though to thank him, stammered a few unintelligible words to Costerousse, and turning again toward the two men, with a stupid smile on her lips, left the farm-house.

Thus began the relations between Susanne and the Piedmontese, Perondi. A few days afterward she made her reappearance in the vicinity of the mean farm-house, as if the spot had an inexplicable attraction for her. She scanned with the minute attention of a real-estate assessor, or a landscapepainter, all the surroundings of this wretched house, which no rational individual would have cared to see a second time. She looked carefully at the tumbling fences, the stile, and the clump of bushes growing close up to the miserable kitchen, and the two mean chambers occupied by Perondi and Costerousse. One day she might have been seen concealing herself, with the eccentric caprice of an insane person, in these bushes, during the absence of the two men in the fields.

These visits to the vicinity led to a result which might have been foreseen. She frequently met Perondi, and although she would have nothing to say to Costerousse, she did not shun the Piedmontese. He presented her with flowers, betrayed unmistakable emo

started.

"That is I mean-I said the fair at Vi gan, as I would have said the fair at Mende or Alais-"

He looked keenly at Susanne, but her face was a perfect blank. As far as he could ascertain, her thoughts were a hundred miles off. He had walked on by her side during this conversation-his presence seemed nei ther agreeable nor disagreeable to her. His face indicated that his love had become the sole idea of his life. As to Susanne, she went along humming a song and arranging a bouquet.

As they reached a turn in the road a shepherd was heard calling to his sheep, and Perondi stopped. Susanne threw a daisy toward him, which he picked up and hurried off with; and the young girl continued her

way.

Strange caprice of a disordered brain! Of all this interview which might have ex cited her fears or her disgust, Susanne Ger vaz recalled only these insignificant words: "The fair at Vigan!"

The little city of Vigan is situated on the river Héranet, in a lovely valley of the Ce vennes, and resembles a bird half buried in t nest of verdure. A long street traverses it from east to west, and on the square at one end of this street you might see, during the annual fairs, the booths of the jugglers, and hear the deafening music of their bands.

Without the city, on the slope of the mountain, was a large green field, the scene of the cattle-market. If you raised your eyes here you might see descending, like the figures of an opera, the mountaineers of the neighboring parishes, with their wide brimmed hats, their brown coats on their shoulders, their velvet pantaloons clinging close to the hip, their heavy shoes shod with iron, and their legs protected by lang gaiters of yellow leather. They led horses that came along bounding under the halter, oxen with boughs of trees on their horns and sheep decked with ribbons and cock ades. The spectacle was worthy of the brush of Rosa Bonheur, and it was impos sible not to be delighted with these loca colors and rustic details.

The fairs of Vigan were famous for the fine horses exposed for sale at them, and the horse-dealers came thither from every qu

ter-from the Alps to the Pyrenees, from the Rhone to the Garonne, from Spain even-to buy or sell.

Monsieur and Madame de Ribière determined to attend the fair this year, and learning that Susanne, who was a great favorite with them, had the fancy to see the sights, they took the girl with them, and all became the guests of an old relative universally known in the city as "Aunt Sophy."

Soon after their arrival, it was proposed that they should visit the horse-fair on the green field without the city, and they accordingly repaired thither-Susanne offering her arm as a support to Aunt Sophy. They reached the busy scene as the sun was setting, and Susanne and her companion soon became separated from the rest. All at once the young girl stopped, fixing her eyes upon two men who were standing in front of a horse and examining it. One of these men, the eldest of the two, wore the costume of the Spanish Catalans, the other the ordinary dress of the country.

As if yielding to a sudden caprice, Susanne asked Aunt Sophy if she was acquainted with these men; for the old lady had the | reputation of knowing everybody.

"I do not know the younger of the two, my dear-the one wearing the dress of our peasants of the Cevennes; but I know the other one-everybody does. His name is Marianno Bedares, and he has attended our fairs regularly for the last fifteen years."

"And what is his business?"

"You may see, my dear-he is a horsetrader. Besides this he is a sort of peddler, he sells images of the saints, amber bracelets, and other articles, and takes back to Spain where he lives our silks, and so on. It is even said that he lends money, or exchanges one sort for another-"

"And where is he lodging?

"On Main Street, at the White-Horse Tavern," said the old lady, a little surprised at the question.

They then walked on beneath the great chestnut-trees, passing near the two men, who were evidently bargaining for the horse.

"Well, agreed," said the younger, in the peasant's dress; "but you are asking a horible price!

"A horrible price? My very best horse!" exclaimed the Spaniard. "Meet me here lext year, my friend, and just tell me what you think then."

"Well, all right; to-morrow morning I'll ay you and take the horse away; I must get back to the farm."

Susanne hurried Aunt Sophy away, and hey soon left the ground. On the next day he young girl made some excuse for going ut, and, leaving the house about noon, went traight to the White-Horse Tavern. Mariano Bedares, the horse-trader, was standing at he door, smoking. He was apparently about ixty, but carried his age well, like all men Tho lead a life in the open air. Seeing that usanne wished to speak to him, he came forward and said, gallantly, with his strong atalan accent:

"Well, my beautiful child, you wish to Eee me, I think. What can I do to serve rou ? "

"You can buy my ebony-work," said Susanne, exhibiting some little trinkets which Jacques had carved for her in former times, and presented to her as keepsakes.

The old dealer examined the articles with the wary air of one called on to make a purchase.

to your father? Tell him that the debtor whose note he would not consent to renew is ready to pay every thing. Can you remember these words? Do you understand what I say?"

Susanne did not seem to comprehend. She was in one of her fits of absence. Her fine eyes, wandering in space, betrayed her

He looked at her in astonishment. "Ah! and why such a singular fancy?" "It is not mine. I am acting for a little girl whose father gives her her Christmasgifts every year in money of different countries.

She saw you yesterday, and said: There is Marianno Bedares- if I can get from him a quadruple and some piasters, they will complete my collection of coins.''

"Well, you come just in time," said the old Catalan. "I have sold a horse this morning to one of your mountain - people who served in Spain. He told me some story or other, and paid me in Spanish gold, taking his change in silver of France. You see, my pretty child, I am able to oblige you."

He went and opened a drawer in his room and took out a wooden bowl full of quadru ples, doubloons, pistoles, and piasters, which fairly glittered. For her two hundred francs he gave Susanne four piasters, two doubloons, and a quadruple; and, as he gallantly refused to charge her any exchange, she bought a scarf and two chaplets of him.

On her return, she presented the scarf to Madame de Ribière and the chaplets to Aunt Sophy.

"Poor Susanne!" said the former; "this is what she lays up money for by selling her flowers."

On their return from Vigan, Madame de Ribière said to Susanne:

'My dear child, you are never in a better place than at home or in my house. When you wish to leave your father, come here."

Susanne seemed to recognize the good sense of this advice, and rarely left home. When she did so, it was to pay a visit to old Master Berard, the notary of the town, who lived next to her father. Madame Berard was exceedingly fond of flowers, and Susanne, who brought her beautiful bouquets, went in and out without being noticed. The old notary himself was extremely pleased with her. He loved to see, beneath his spectacles, as he folded up his dusty documents, this young girl whose birth he had been present at, and whom he loved with all his heart.

"Well, well, I forgot that a verbal message was too much for you, and would never be delivered," said the old notary. "Wait a moment."

He tore a sheet from his note-book, drew out a pencil, and wrote:

"A. C., the debtor, whose note we would not renew, says he is ready to pay both principal and interest when his note falls due, on the 4th of October."

Susanne took the paper; and, when she gained the street, read the few lines written upon it with capricious interest. The initials "A. C." evidently struck her; but she folded the paper again, and delivered it to her father, who was plainly both surprised and gratified at reading its contents.

"Heaven be praised!" he muttered, rubbing his hands. "This unlucky three hundred francs will not give me any more trouble. I intended to sue on the note, but the money is better."

André Gervaz went to the old wardrobe where he kept his ledgers, under his linen and Sunday clothes. He drew out a dirty little note-book, undid the cord around it, and sat down at his table, Susanne leaning on his shoulder as he did so. She saw him make a cross mark opposite an entry in the following words:

"Anselme Costerousse- three hundred francs borrowed October 4, 1821-interest from 1824.-Bad debt-don't renew."

The day after this scene was the 4th of October, 1826. Susanne rose with the sun; and, gathering some late flowers in a field near by, made a bouquet, and took it, about eight, to Madame Berard—the old notary did not begin business until nine. Having entered the house, she stopped in the passageway leading from the kitchen to the staircase-Master Berard's office was on her left, and the reception-room was next to it, separated from it by glass doors, with a green curtain. Just as nine o'clock was sounding, Susanne saw Anselme Costerousse come in and enter the notary's office, and she immediately glided into the darkened saloon, where she could see and hear through the glass door all that was said.

Master Berard was seated at his table, with his back turned to Costerousse, who faced the glass door.

return you your note."

Although the money had been furnished

by old André Gervaz, he had chosen to conceal the fact, and the affair had been arranged in the ordinary form: "On the 4th of October, 1822, pay to the order of the sum

of three hundred and fifteen francs-value received." Thus, Costerousse had always supposed that Master Berard was his creditor. When Master Berard now returned his note, and said, "Neighbor André Gervaz will be glad enough to get this money," Costerousse cried :

"André Gervaz!—was André Gervaz my creditor?"

Susanne saw the start which accompanied the words, the sudden pallor of the man's visage, and the livid flash of his eye. The notary, even, observed these evidences of agitation, and said:

"What does it matter? There is your note. Ah! you are glad to get out of old André's claws?"

"Yes," said Costerousse, hoarsely. "You see," said the old notary, "6 a note like this the interest, the cost of renewing, all that is death to a farmer. When I was clerk to old Monsieur Rancureau. -as far ⚫ back as 1797-I remember his telling me a case in point. There was a farmer in the neighborhood whose crop failed, and he borrowed two hundred francs. It was not much, but when his note fell due he was unable to pay. It ran on, and a few years afterward amounted to eight hundred, then to a thousand francs. He fell into the hands of moneylenders, his debt was trebled, he was worried to death by his creditors, and so what does he do? He joins a band of highwaymen, is arrested, tried, found guilty, and executed as a murderer."

Costerousse turned as pale as death, and his lips trembled convulsively, but his punishment was not over.

"But I only speak of what happens to farmers in bad years," said the notary; "still, this is one of them.-By-the-by, my friend, how do you get hold of any money? My tenant cannot pay his rent, and your landlord told me, the other day, you were largely in arrears."

"I had on hand my grain of the three last years," stammered Costerousse. "I could not make up my mind to sell at the low price. The market went up lately, and I sold that's why I can pay my note."

"So much the better, my good man," said Master Berard, tired of the interview; "it's not my business."

A moment afterward Costerousse left the room, and the notary made this entry in his ledger: "Anselme Costerousse paid his note this 4th of October, 1826."

While he was making this entry, Susanne regained the kitchen, passed through a sidedoor opening on the street, and returned home.

After these scenes, Susanne's wanderings became more regular than before, and no day passed without a shepherd, a wood-cutter, or a hunter, meeting her in the fields. There seemed to be some mysterious attraction for her in the farm-house of Anselme Costerousse. She kept circling round it, but al ways came back to it, as the needle, after all its oscillations, ends by pointing to the pole.

The result of this proceeding on the young girl's part was an immense amount of scandal. How!-she could ramble around the "Priest's Inclosure," while they shuddered to approach it; she could walk calmly past the house of Jacques Boucard without turning her head; she even did not repulse the evident addresses of Matteo Perondi, the Piedmontese. The dissatisfaction was universal, and one day her admirer, Pierre Vialat, whom she had cured when he cut himself with the scythe, said to her:

"Take care, Susanne. If this beggar of an Italian worries you, there'll be a misfortune in the commune."

"I forbid you to touch him!" said Susanne, imperiously.

This increased Pierre's indignation, and what excited new comment was the change in Perondi's appearance. During the absence of Susanne at the fair of Vigan he had replaced his clodhopper shoes with yellow boots, donned a blue coat and red cravat, bought a chain and two rings, and was a new person altogether. His thin face and feverish glance were alone unaltered. He strutted before her, played the beau, and paid her compliments; it was a savage clad in the dress of a man of Europe. He was plainly desperately enamored of her, and often begged for a private opportunity to press his suit.

No, no!" she said; "Costerousse frightens me; he would beat me, perhaps."

"Costerousse!" exclaimed Perondi, with a harsh laugh; "I would like to see him! Let him say a single word! let him raise his finger! I-I can-but I did not mean that. What I mean is, that I wish to talk with you without being spied by these peasants, who all hate me. Ah, if you would only understand me! I have so many things on my heart, they suffocate me! In my country it is not cold and sad as it is here, and love is the main thing-the whole of life! I will die if you do not have pity on me! This Costerousse hates me and I hate him. I am going to leave him—”

Susanne started, and for the first time seemed affected by the speaker's words.

"Yes, my time is out in a few days—on the 11th of November. I have worked for him for four years, and am going to have a settlement. Then I leave him."

"You will leave him?

"Yes, this country is hateful to me. My country is a hundred times finer, and I'll have money to enjoy it. I will settle down and live quietly, honestly, Susanne." "Well ? "

You are not twen

"I have had a dream. ty yet; you are beautiful. Do you mean to wander about in this way forever, thinking of past times? It is this that troubles your reason; you can't take a step or look at a bush without seeing! I see it myself sometimes."

His eyes wandered and his voice died away.

"What?" said Susanne, in a low voice. "Nothing," was the guarded reply. He added: "Only follow me, Susanne-go with me. Near Servenola, where I was born, there is a pretty little home I wanted to buy before I came to France; it is at the end of the vale

of Costa; you do not know how blue the sky is there, how warm the sun is, and how the branches of the trees wave there-not like these vile mountains. Say you will come with me, Susanne, and be my wife. I will buy the pretty house, a cow, and two acres of ground."

"With your wages?" said Susanne.

He could not suppress a start, and looked at the girl as though to assure himself what her meaning had been in uttering these words. But her expression was perfectly careless.

"Yes, with my wages for the four years. Then I have something at home-an old uncle of mine has just left me some money; and you can live there on next to nothing. The house, and cow, and land, will not cost more than twelve hundred francs-come, Susanne; I will marry you, and you will begin a new life."

They had come to a turn in the path. Be fore them stood Costerousse with a rake ou his shoulder. A single glance evidently showed him Perondi's passion, and he became furious. Scowling brutally at Susanne, he exclaimed, violently:

"You again, miserable creature-again in my way! If Perondi is bewitched by you, I am not!"

And, grasping his rake in both hands, he rushed upon Susanne. She did not move an inch. Her haughty face remained calm, and she looked him in the eyes with perfect con tempt; but Perondi, drawing a knife, leaped on Costerousse and struck at him, just graz ing his arm. The farmer dropped his rake and grew pale. Perondi put up his knife.

"I'm a fool," he said; "it takes less than that to frighten you! You know well that I ordered you not to insult this girl or touch a hair of her head, or I would come here, I want to speak to you."

They went off together, exchanging angry words, and Susaune continued her way home ward.

CONVULSIVE RELIGION.

SOME

II.

OME physicians have affirmed that no cholera or yellow-fever epidemic has produced so much injury as the convulsive religion called "Millerism," which went over the country some time ago. The delusion was accompanied and followed by insanity, suicide, and many species of folly. After the excitement had passed away, many who had been in the midst of it found to their cost that they had contracted nervous maladies, from which death only could free them, and many of them of a character that were transmitted to offspring. Yet the promoters of the doctrine of " Millerism" were well-meaning people for the most part, who in the con duct of their secular lives were not unrea sonable. When attacked by this moral epidemic, they apparently could not talk about it as they did upon any other subject. They were, in a word, monomaniacs. If the notions and predictions of Miller had been published, and not preached to throngs of excited peo ple stimulating each other, they would probe

bly have fallen upon unheeding ears. As it was, they sowed the seed of madness, disease, and death.

Some preachers, particularly those who have studied medicine before taking holy orders, recognize the connection between morbid physical and religious phenomena. Bishop Berridge says that "atheistic thoughts spring

up in the fountain of the soul only when muddied with fleshly pleasures," and Dr. Barrow remarks that "credulity may spring from an airy complexion; suspiciousness hath its birth from an earthly temper of the body." The soul and the body are so intimately united that one is always more or less under the influence of the other. If the body be subject to hypochondriac tempers, the mind is affected thereby, and this furnishes that melancholic nature invested with a certain power of the spirit. This nature sometimes believes itself endowed with the gift of prophecy. The noted Dr. Zimmermann was a man of this temperament, a Christian, and possessed of remarkable penetration. He believed he was a prophet, which, added to the unhealthy condition of his body, had the effect of deepening his melancholy. Although a seer himself, he contended against a sect of the Illuminés, who saw farther than he, and endeavored to inaugurate such a social revolution in Switzerland as has been planted in America by some visionary sects. His peculiar organization saddled on his brain an idea which never left it until death, which was that the Illuminés were constantly endeavorng to take his life. In a word, he became a nonomaniac. His case is a striking illustraion of the way in which the abnormal conlition of the body affects a most intelligent nd cultivated mind. As a venerable archishop said, "Two things are necessary to be lone for the cure or removal of religious nelancholy, namely, that the persons afflicted vith it do take care of their bodies; that hey be put into a better state of health and igor, and freed from all hypochondriac fumes hat do oppress them." This ecclesiastic

hought the advice of a physician was more mportant in the treatment of such people han that of the divine, and that, when the todily indisposition was removed, most of he frights and disturbances about religion ould disappear with it. The same authory advised, as a cure for sin, physic, cleanliess, exercise, and good nourishment, as the reliminary steps.

Revivals get into the channel of the suernatural, or run closely alongside of it. If iracles are not performed, events of a wonerful character take place. Not long ago I eard a man tell his "experience," who had en a big black dog jump out of the ground, ad he knew it was the devil who came to empt him. This was received with a groan sympathy by the brethren who listened. he man conducted his secular business with dinary sagacity, and it is improbable that e would have ever offered such a statement a court of justice, but he was possessed f a mania on the subject of the devil, and, ccording to his own account, not a day assed that he did not wrestle with him. When he found himself in the midst of a ympathetic element, he gave free rein to his

accounts of the battles with his own particular enemy. He had probably read or heard of Luther's strivings with the same antagonist, and unconsciously imitated him.

The burden of the revivalist's lament has always been the same, and self-suffering is the key-note of it. Although self-torture is much modified to what it was in other times, the man is still held to strike his breast in agony and roll his head in sackcloth and ashes to avoid the flowers and the sunshine, the good cheer and healthy laughter, the fascination of art in music, dancing, painting, and the drama. The earth is only a vale of tears through which he walks on probation to reach heaven. There is nothing good in it; every thing is of the ashy hue of death. Thus a bountiful Creator has blessed this seeker of suffering with the instincts of appreciation, and made a dwelling for him full of beauty, from which he turns away. He prefers the thorn to the rose. His great Host offers him a banquet, of which he refuses to partake. His Maker has given him an eye, a palate, an ear, and a heart, in vain. The condition of such a one is abnormal, and he is much more in need of prayer than those for whom he prays.

The man who is systematically miserable does not confine his misery to himself. He has a mission to change cheerful people into sorry ones like himself, and in this way becomes a meddler. This act of interference at the outset is full of presumption, for it is based upon the idea that he knows more about the Bible and religion than he whom he addresses. His religion is the only true one, it contains all the excellences, and he as one of its chief members is endowed with them, which makes of him a person especially enlightened. All other religions are wrong and most of them wicked. He does not hesitate to pray for the conversion of a Greek, an Armenian, and a Roman Catholic, without knowing what they believe. A man of this type was sent to convert the orthodox Greeks, but found when he encountered them that he was only a tyro in theology compared to them. He shouted to them, after the revivalistic method, that they were hardened sinners, out of the way of the Lord. They requested him to stop calling names, and reason; when he attempted to do this, he was obliged to give up the field.

The miserable acts by system on the egotistical assumption that he knows better than his neighbors where to draw the line between sin and godliness. He sees sin lurking in places where another would not think of looking for it. He is a persistent hunter thereof, and if he does not find it is disappointed. He seeks for it in harmless amusements and in natural actions. To handle a cue is to hold the devil by the tail, to dance a quadrille is to invite him to one's embrace.

Extraordinary importance is attached to trifles. One man believes the road to heaven lies in eating fish on Friday and abstaining from any other kind of meat; another believes that to cook meat on Sunday is to follow the path of perdition. One thinks that recreation on Sunday is enjoined and permitted by the Bible; another thinks that it is forbidden, and that the practice endangers

the safety of the soul. One see no harm in dancing on the seventh day, after the performance of spiritual duties; another sees in it the dance of sin and death. One believes that it is wholesome to occupy the mind, even on Sunday, with singing and playing; another believes that a secular song sung on that day is the requiem of a lost soul. From a religious point of view, one man's milk is another man's poison. The man of the West eats pork with the consciousness of performing an ordinary and sinless act of life, and the man of the Orient turns away from it, seeing sin in its fibre and its nourishment. One drinks a glass of wine as he would eat a piece of bread; another looks upon it as poison. When the American and English missionaries appeared in Palestine, the English told the Arab that the Book of Common Prayer would show him the road to heaven, and the Americans that the true sign-board for that destination was Watts's version of the Psalmswhich would have bewildered a wiser head than that of the simple Arab.

Blasphemy in one country is sometimes piety in another. The Christian of Europe takes off his hat when he enters the house of worship; not to do so would be regarded by him as sacrilegious. The Mohammedan removes his shoes when he enters his mosque and keeps on his turban; to fail in either respect would also be for him a sacrilege. There are members of religious sects who stand erect when they pray; to the Mohammedans this would be impiety. Thus, piety and sacrilege are to some extent matters of climate and custom.

The extremists in religion always attach much importance to supernatural influences, and their most common mode of communicating with the Almighty is through visions. They are of capricious moods, rising to great heights of enthusiasm and sinking to the depths of despair. Sometimes they sit at the foot of the throne, at others they are at the gates of hell. In their happy moments they pour out their praises as if they were angels in heaven; in their unhappy ones they often cross the line which separates reason from insanity.

These fanatics are generally in especial favor with the Deity, being employed as agents to carry out the divine will. Of such were John Kelsey, who went to Constantinople to convert the sultan, and ended in a lunatic asylum; John Mason, minister of Water-Stratford, who was possessed of the idea that he was the Elias appointed to proclaim the approach of Christ. Brigham Young told Hepworth Dixon that when he went in search of a new home for his people he saw, vision of the night, an angel standing on a conical hill, pointing to a spot of ground on which the temple was to be built." On reaching the neighborhood of Salt Lake he sought for the cone and naturally found it, with a clear, flowing stream at the foot of it.

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According to Elder Knapp's own account he was in close and constant relations with the Almighty through dreams, signs, and visions. Whenever his life was threatened, he was saved in a miraculous way through beav enly influences. Whenever he met with op