LOVE THAT PURIFIES.

A sad tale's best for winter,

I have one of sprites and goblins.

MAMILLIUS-Winter's Tale.

HEY were all assembled. The old oak dining-room was lighted

THE up. Flambeaux flashed along the panelled walls. A great

blazing fire leaped upon and licked the sides of the yawning hearth. The table was spread. The curtains were drawn. Outside, the wind went howling over the shelterless plains of Baux. Inside all was warm, and bright, and glowing. It was a pretty family picture. The Marquis de Baux sat at the head of his table. Yolande, his elder daughter, was beside him. Opposite sat Madame Dicken, the aunt of the family. Eulalie de Baux was near her. And the two remaining sides of the table were respectively adorned by M. le Curé de Ste. Marie de Baux, in his neatly brushed and buttoned cassock, and by Henry Trevilyan, Esquire, a distant kinsman, and a close friend of the family.

Dinner was over, but there was yet another ceremony to be accomplished. It was New Year's Eve, and on this night it had been the custom of the de Baux for generations to drink each other's health. Pierre accordingly went round the table with a long-necked bottle. There was a little clatter and clinking of glasses, then the Marquis rose and said solemnly, "Let us drink to the health of the absent:" and everybody raised their glasses, and drank in silence.

"Let us drink to the health of the present, say I," cried Madame Dicken with a superior air. Once more everyone sipped their wine, and then put down their glasses.

The Cure's turn came next. Not that he had any special turn for oratory, poor man. His speech was well meant, but it was lengthy. It was of a comprehensive nature, and embraced the Marquis, his family, his household, his "cattle and the stranger within his gates." . . . . Then suddenly, and without any sort of warning, the poor man sank quite back in his chair, and rubbed his face all over with a yellow cotton pocket-handkerchief.

Eulalie followed in his steps. She made a neat little speech, all

rounded and finished off, just like her own neat little self. She delivered it with great point and emphasis, after the admirable fashion in which she had been wont to address the sisters of the Sacré Cœur, on the yearly occasion of their presenting her with a good conduct prize. Poor pretty Yolande, sitting yonder, with her hand on her father's coat-sleeve, was not accustomed to receive good conduct prizes.

Yolande and Trevilyan were now the only defaulters among the toast-givers. But lips were tightly closed, and Yolande's eyes were turned away from the company. One could see the tremulous movements of one little hand, and the soft pink outline of one shapely arm. The droop of the head was also visible, and so was the arch of the slender throat. But these were all.

Madame Dicken, who was probably well accustomed to the sight of these beauties, began to wax impatient.

"Come, Yolande," she cried, "make haste with your toast. You keep us all waiting. Here is M. votre cousin quite tired out."

"Let M. mon cousin speak then," said the girl, lifting her head at length. "Quant à moi I give no santé to-night." Madame Dicken looked furious, the Marquis seemed annoyed, Eulalie assumed an air of sanctified regret, the Curé was evidently frightened, while as for Henry Trevilyan, he knew not what to make of it all. He remembered the Yolande of seven years ago. What a sweet, bright-faced, loving child it had been, wild as a hedge-row briar no doubt, but fresh as a flower, and true as steel. This pale, somewhat sullen-looking girl was surely a stranger to him, and yet she had the child Yolande's lips and eyes.

Henry made his speech notwithstanding these cogitations. It was a capital one, brief, brisk, and full of fun. When it was over they all rose from the table. Henry led Yolande out of the diningroom. She placed her little hand on his arm. She lifted up to his a sweet, pale, grateful face. The sullen look had gone out of it. A soft, dewy smile was there instead. Her lips were parted, but she did not speak. "Do not thank me so much," said Henry, though she had spoken never a word. "I will gladly make speeches for you all your life if you will only let me.” . . . . And now, perhaps, the astute reader will guess how it was that this Englishman should be passing his New Year among these French people. . . . . Not that Yolande had the remotest idea of his reason.

The drawing-room was lighted up too. The chairs and tables were pushed against the walls, the rugs had been taken up off the polished floors, a file of servants were already assembled. There

was a little group of musicians fiddling away near the window, and the boys and girls had much ado to keep their feet still. The Marquis led out his housekeeper, Yolande followed with the oldest man of the village, Eulalie had selected a youth even fatter than herself. They rolled about like two balls.

Madame Dicken looked as if she would have liked a jig with the Curé. But that reverend gentleman had already seated himself in a comfortable corner, and was enjoying sundry surreptitious pinches of snuff. She therefore kindly took compassion upon Trevilyan, and was presently chasséeing towards him in an airy manner. After the second dance, M. de Baux summoned the Curé to his longed-for game of billiards.

But the fun in the dancing room continued with renewed vigour, the music played faster and faster, the steps hurried backwards and forwards, it was a wild stampede of steps and gambols. Even Yolande caught the infection. She danced with every one-young men and maidens, old men and matrons, all in turn, were her partOnce Henry Trevilyan held out his hand, but she shook her head and went off to keep her engagement with an olive-dresser. Eulalie, on the contrary, was willing enough to dance with her English cousin.

ners.

"You enjoy this, and so does Yolande," he said, during one of the pauses in their dance. "But what was the matter with her at dinner? She did not seem to be quite herself then."

"She was herself then, and she is herself now," replied Eulalie. "She is often like that, silent and moody."

"She never was so as a child," said Henry.

"But I suppose

it is the excitable French nature which makes her able to pass from one mood into another so quickly."

"Yes, of course-we are both French," returned the literal Eulalie.

Henry smiled. That was not what he meant. "At any rate she dances still as well as she did when she was a child," he continued. "I remember almost the last time I was here, you had a dance-you were both children then, and there was another child present, too—a boy, I think."

He and Yolande

"Yes! Raoul de Longueville was here then. were always quarrelling, and always making it up. That was the last dance we had. We have had none since, till to-night, because we have all mourned for our country." Even Eulalie was French enough to be patriotic.

"The last time, was it? And what has become of De Longue

ville? Does Yolande quarrel with him still?" asked Henry, feeling vaguely uncomfortable.

"Oh! we never see him now. We have not seen him since the war-since four years ago. Nobody knows what has become of Raoul de Longueville." Eulalie's voice was like a trumpet. It had certain metallic tones in it. The music stopped at that moment. Her words rang distinctly through the room.

Yolande, who was passing with her olive-dresser, looked up with an angry flush. Perhaps she thought such a topic as war should not have been introduced at the festive scene. A lamp went out with a sniff. A fiddle string snapped and broke. The evening had come to an end. Coffee was brought in, with liqueurs and sweetmeats. There was tea, too, for those who might like it. Yolande seemed anxious concerning its composition.

"Is it right?" she asked of Trevilyan. "Is it strong enough? or shall I put in some more tea? And is the milk as you like it?" Her soft clear eyes glanced nervously under her crown of dusky hair. Her pale cheeks were flushed. Her feet seemed to be dancing still.

"It is all right," answered Trevilyan. Though the tea was as black as ink, and the milk had evidently been boiled, yet coming from such hands it naturally tasted like nectar.

Yolande looked up a little doubtfully. "Are you sure?" she asked. "We don't often make tea here, except as a tisane when anyone is sick or sorry."

Well, I was sick and sorry too, and you or your tea have comforted me!" said Henry looking at her.

Yolande looked down, and presently moved away.

"Is it not bedtime?" said Eulalie, yawning.

"To be sure it is," cried Madame Dicken, suddenly waking up from a nap over her coffee cup. "Ring the bell for candles, children. I presume you smoke, Mr. Trevilyan. My brother never does so late at night. But he tells me you know your way about the house perfectly—that you knew it, in fact, before I did. So I need not say more than that your room is in the turret, up the stairs. Good-night," and with a sweeping curtsey, the old lady went her way, followed by her nieces, like two votive maidens in white muslin, with tapers in their hands.

Yes, it was true. Henry Trevilyan had known the Château de Baux very well-indeed, long before Madame Dicken had taken up her abode therein. He thought of this presently, when, the Curé having taken his leave, and the Marquis having gone to his bed, he

found himself sitting alone in the old smoking room, with its leatherhung walls, and its inlaid escritoires and bureaux. It was also M. de Baux's business room. Henry remembered it as a boy. The whiffs of smoke went curling up to the ceiling: a crowd of thoughts went circling with them.

He thought of the days when he, a lad at school in the south of France, found his dearest delights in spending his holidays in the home of his mother's kinsman, the Marquis de Baux. He thought of the poor pale Marquise, with her kindly greetings, and her sweet anxious glances after her little daughters. He thought of a winter's day some twelve years ago, when the windows of the Château were closed, and the gates of the family chapel in the little village church were set open; when the Cure's voice choked in the intoning, and the Marquis stood up with a grey set face; when a little black-gloved hand stole into his, and when, at last, the mournful ceremony being over, he, a big rough fellow of sixteen, carried little motherless Yolande across the fields, over which the great bell was tolling, to the desolate house, where, presently, she sobbed herself to sleep on his shoulder. How pretty she looked, with the great tear-drops hanging on her eyelashes, and all her crumpled hair falling round her white wet face. How fractious she was when she woke; how entirely she refused to leave him. She would follow him about, like a little dog; she would nestle in his arms, like a little dove. "Talk to me of mamma," she would say, in her pretty broken English. "Papa cannot do so yet; and Eulalie is too much of a baby. You knew her, mon cousin. Tell me of her." . And so, from day to day, this pair became greater friends.

After that season of sorrow and friendship, Trevilyan's visits to the Château de Baux became fewer. His schooldays were over. There were college terms to keep; there were diplomatic duties to engage his time. Once or twice, however, he managed to squeeze in a visit or two to old Baux. He found Yolande grown taller, indeed, but she was just the same loyal, impetuous, tender-hearted little thing, faithful to the memory of her dead mother and to her own childish friendship. The last visit before this one he remembered very distinctly. It was seven years ago. Yolande was then about eleven years old. It was on a day in early spring. The young green wheat was springing up under the vines. Trees were quivering into leaf and flower. The very air was full of blossoms, pink, and white, and red. All the streams were flowing; all the fields were blooming. A soft wind came blowing from the plains; a salt taste was wafted from the sea, Lavender and rosemary sent up their