last day. her. A tidy servant, in smart cap and apron, opened the door; | should rouse him more, but only the archangel's trump on the I hastened past her, and stood in my sister's presence. She sprang toward me with a cry of joy, and when I released her from my arms, I saw sitting near the window, with the pale, earnest face of my boy pressed close to her bosom, a young girl whom I surely had never until then beheld. We could not leave Rosalie in her affliction and loneliness. Our preparations were countermanded. When the funeral was over, and Rosalie could think of self and her future, we found she was not only an orphan, but She rose up quickly and gave my boy to my arms. The lit- quite destitute of near relations. She was homeless also, and tle fellow clung to me, and stroked my brown cheeks and flow-poor, since the poor old soldier's pension ceased with his life. ing beard with his wasted hands. He pressed kisses upon my mouth, and nestled close to my breast, and called me "papa" with his weak but loving childish voice. He grew tired at length, and fell asleep in my arms, and then I had time to answer my sister's questions, and to observe that our guest had quitted the apartment. I inquired who she was. "Our Rosalie!" my sister exclaimed. "I bad quite forgotten that she was a stranger to you, and she is timid, poor child, and hastened silently away as soon as you came. She is Mademoiselle de la Paix, the grand-daughter of an old soldier of the Empire, who occupies some tiny rooms on the ground floor. She is plain, as you see, but a very angel of mercy. She has done more even than the pure air to bring little Philip back to his present health, after that dreadful illness he had when we came here. We owe her far more than we can ever repay, and so do all her neighbors, and all the poor of the quarterfor, wherever there is suffering or want, there she is to be found quietly doing good." The next day I saw Mademoiselle de la Paix again. When my boy went to take his daily airing in the fields beyond the barrier, I carried him in my arms, instead of the Norman nurse who usually performed that office. It was in returning from our walk that we met Mademoiselle de la Paix. She came out of a wayside cottage as we passed it, an old woman following her to the very gate, and uttering thanks and blessings. Mademoiselle blushed and smiled as she saw us, hesitated a little, then with a grateful courtesy acknowledged my salutation, and joined us. Our road was the same, little Philip was welcoming her in the most ecstatic manner, and it was impossible that she should leave us until the dear child's questions had been answered. Ere that we had passed the barrier, and were near our home. Then the child grew weary, and the nurse took him in her arms to soothe him. I offered my arm to my neighbor, and she accepted it with simple grace. We outstripped the lagging nurse, and were alone. We conversed, and I was charmed by the unaffected simplicity and modest intelligence of my new friend. Thenceforth I saw her every day. I obtained permission to visit the war-worn veteran, her grandfather; and if I was pleased with Rosalie's attentions to my child, I was profoundly touched by her devotion to the garrulous and exacting old man. It became evident to me that Rosalie was one of the Sisterhood of Mercy-a sister unprofessed-like many of her class, who quietly and unostentatiously, apparently without design, save the impulse of love-abounding souls, devote themselves, time, strength, life to good works. These are our ministering angels in the flesh. It was only when I made preparations that were to separate me from Rosalie that I learned how I loved her. Hitherto I had speculated upon, admired and venerated her goodness. I had appreciated; now I found mingling with the feeling something of human passion, and I loved her. We were going home, for Philip would never be better, and his native air was desirable for him. We were going, but Rosalie could not leave her grandfather. I dared not ask it, but I promised myself, and said to her that I should soon return. I determined it should not be long. We were quite ready, trunks packed, passports obtained, everything completed, and were to set out that morning for Calais. As we sat at our early breakfast, there was a knock at the door. Rosalie's servant came to beg my sister to come to her young mistress. I followed also, for I learned from the woman's frightened words that her master was very ill. Past all illness and sorrow-gone for ever from the decrepitude and suffering of old age-he lay upon the couch, beside which the young girl knelt. Silently, in the night, the messenger had come. By my suggestion, my sister invited her to accompany us on our homeward voyage, to become her guest and the inmate of her home. I think little Philip's pleadings determined her, though she may have heeded my anxious glances. I did not leave her behind. Nor has she ever left me. Years ago she came to dwell beneath my roof. Poor, frail and crippled Philip has reached his imperfect manhood now. He blesses her every day; for no mother could have loved or tended him more carefully. And I-how can I enough thank heaven, which gave me the angel of my life-my second wife. HOUSEHOLD LIGHTS. (Written for Frank Leslie's Monthly.) To the tired cosmopolite Travelling when comes the night- That have wavered through his years; H. M. B. A MELODRAMA IN A FIRST-CLASS CARRIAGE. PROLOGUE. ITHIN the blue chamber of a firstclass compartment there is not much room for what is called dramatic action. There can be neither fitting scenery, nor, indeed, change of scene. There can be no properties beyond the ordinary adjuncts of travelling-the bags and rugs and sandwich baskets-perhaps a dressing case-at most an umbrella. We can have no tables or chairs to bring down to the front, or dash upon the ground with suitable emphasis, preparatory to putting our friend Belmore in possession of our little narrative, which begins, "It is now exactly eighteen months since I first met Constantia Mildmay." We can have no fair ground for putting ourselves in graceful He lay quite dead-no battle summons | fencing posture, and drawing our rapiers, appearing in our manity down a thin channel of platform, to be grazed and skimmed by competing two-wheeled cars of baggage, racing noisily past. Into the grander French Hall of Eblis gush from the arrival entrances clouds of dusky figures-muffled, indistinct-who drift about, and flit by other shades, and get lost down in the gloomy mists. It is a very railway orcus, dimly lighted, gloomy, awe-striking. shirts, at least from the waist upwards, as is the habit of twin, railway caste. There is not that cramping and oozing of hubrethren born in Corsica. We may not, unhappily, fly from the baron's banqueting chamber, where he riots in degrading revelry, to the hut of the innocent but tedious agriculturist, whom, in his heart of hearts, he loathes unaccountably. No amount of ingenuity can make our blue chamber at one moment do duty for the brilliant salon of the Countess of Frangipani, as it appeared lit up on the night of her well-known festivity at Paris, where the bearded stranger recognized in the countess the orphan village girl of his youth, Emilie de Beau Jupon; and at the next instant change to the Old Inn, on the Surrey road, where good old Woodville, who says his prayers a little too conspicuously, and leaves a moral sentiment with honest Philip, the ostler, in lieu of more substantial guerdon, is feloniously done to death. There is no apparent room for plotting, countermining, set ting houses a-fire, escaping through skylights, or, indeed, any decent villainy. We are hampered within these four walls. Nay, even within those restricted conditions there is scarcely space for any physical or moral emotion. With his whole dramatis personæ fixed immovably into armchairs, what playwright or storyteller could compass anything like vigorous dramatic action? But the unities at least will have been saved-saved in their strictest and most perfect shape. The unities of time and place shall bave been presented intact, in a fashion which would have joyed the heart of a Greek tragedian. Having nothing but such pure mental material to work with, and the mere frayings and dust of mind, ground against mind, dramatist or storyteller is pretty well put to his metal to make what he can of the business. With what success, in the present instance, he or she, who will take the trouble to read, may judge, hiss or applaud, according to the issue. When on one weary night-I think the sorest and weariest night of all our life-our dear father died, and left six of us on a provision that could barely keep one decently, it was resolved, as a matter of course, that two of the girls should go out into genteel slavery, and earn their bread as governesses. I believe this is always the course thought of under such dismal circumstances, where there is a surplus of daughters; and I recollect, after the proposal had been gravely debated in full family congress, and it had been determined by a narrow majority-for there were some who thought it an indignity that clergymen's daughters should go out into this polite servitude-that I, and my sister Mary, should adopt this profession, we all became a little cheerful, and even elated, as though a decent competence had been permanently settled on the two selected sisters. What gradations of hope deferred, what sickness of the heart, what wearing and costly repetition of newspaper advertisements, protracted through many weeks and months, followed between that resolve and final success, which came not through such idle channels, but by pure accident, is known in the melancholy chronicles of reduced families. The incidents of governesshunting repeat themselves with a sure and fatal iteration. The advertising columns and the signature XYZ would never have helped me to a situation. It was an old friend of our father's, living abroad, who heard of our troubles and our views, and wrote to us of a noble French family living in the south, near Marseilles, and in want of an English governess. I was soon provided with a modest governess's equipment, and within a fortnight was standing in the great hall of the Paris and Lyons railway, on the Boulevart Mazas, at eight o'clock of a November night, waiting for the express to depart. For a true pandemonium of flurry and business-like chaos, which yet reaches to a certain dignity and solemnity overlaying those meaner associations of ticket-taking, money-changing, baggage-weighing, and such like, there is nothing reaches to that departing of the night mail from Paris. A clear stroke right down the very spine of France; the bold cut of an express carving knife along the best bits of country, down to Marseilles-a swoop of twenty hours. In our own land the thing has more of the vulgarities incident to such progresses. We lack the awful pandemonium hall, where the roof is away in the clouds, vast and spacious, where clay of first and second and third class may wander without distinction, and without check from the vile laws of But the whole poetry of the thing is centred in the luggage. Nothing grander, more confusing to the weak mind of a traveller than the long mound of accumulating luggage, ever growing, stretching away far down into space, grand as Mr. Ruskin's dragon, and spreading in huge sinuosities, like that famous monster. What fierce haulings by the hands of blueclad gnomes. What swingings of monster chests, flung on the counter to bide their turn; what a melting away towards the head of the dragon, and constant growing towards the tail! It is a concrete mass of poly-chromatic leathers, shining French black, yellow' English, brass nails, iron bands, straps, and a light froth of smaller hat cases, little boxes, that bound and roll upon the back of the monster. At the edges hover uneasily the dusky figures, vaguely outlined, enwrapped and swathed out of shape. That weighing seems a savage fiendish business, done for the bare life as it were. He who is in the little round house, illuminated, seen through cross-barred grating, as it were in a furnace, has a fearful express time of it, all to himself. A crash of steel upon steel, a grinding and thumping of heavy chests, a fierce shout, and weighing is done. The swathed shadows-their minds now at rest-flit away downwards, and are swallowed in remote clouds of Erebus. There is not much weighing in that small corded trunk of mine, with the Folkestone labels still adhering, upon which a fiercely-bearded pard, all in blue, has flung himself savagely, and has flung down again as savagely, when he finds it has no fellows. Not even a sou to pay. An eye-glassed Englishman, of a prying disposition, has taken up the label in his fingers, and is spelling out, "Miss Summertrees, Marseilles." That was my destination; and when the eye-glassed Englishman looked from the label, and took me in from head to foot, I have no doubt, setting down the small corded trunk, and my deep black dress under that, and my singleness under that again, and drawing a line, and totting up all together, must have brought out the total, "Governess!" he was very right in his figures. By-and-bye we are seated in one of the heavy gamboge-colored carriages, lined with loose, flabby cushions, which have an ancient and fishlike mail-coach flavor, and seem only to travel on these southerly lines downwards. We are very full, as we always are in these French coaches, there being a jealous economy in the matter of space. In the chamber in which we sit there is one other lady and many bearded men in broad felt hats, who somehow, yet withort any reasonable foundation, suggest the notion of going out a shooting. But by their talk, and the fierce way they do battle on the price of silks, I know they are in tradę, trading travellers flying by night. As a matter of course, they produce their cigars, and going through an empty sham of asking permission, striking a light before they hear the answer, proceed to corrupt the air. There was one face nearly opposite, quite smooth and beardless, upon whose shining convexities the yellow lamp overhead played in dull patches; a fresh, youngish face, bespectacled, fitted to a round heavy head, which in its turn belonged to a strong burly chest. The whole someway suggested to me the late Count Cavour, whom I had never seen, but whose glossy prominences were familiar from the traditional portraits. He, I noted, was smoking no cigar, but was busy with a swollen, heavy pocketbook, from which he took letters and read diligently. Neither was he an oldish Cavour, nor could he have travelled more than five-and-thirty of those long miles of life we call years. First hour gone by. The cigars have been smoked away, and some of the bearded heads lie back helpless in corners of their stuffed chairs. Some droop over on their chests, and swing in slow beats, in time to the motion of the carriage. Cavour is still awake, restless, biting his nails, busy with his letters, and looking uneasily from side to side. Gradually I begin to feel the influence of the night, my head swings slowly with the rest; 1 the eternal burr at the windows, of saw-mills as it were, drones | reflecting, too, was very curious. He seemed to me now a kind rors. This was scarcely a question to which a solemn answer would be needed, so I held my peace. Then he went on in monologue: "Mademoiselle is going southward-to Marseilles or Lyons? Do not start," he said, smiling, "this is no soothsayer's discovery. Just think of the direction in which we are going." So I did, and smiled, too. "You are going, perhaps, to supervise the education of youth-to bind yourself to an elegant helotry. I know your whole story, mademoiselle, at this moment." I did not smile at this familiar reading of my history, which, after all, was no such difficult task, considering it was written in large characters in my dress and solitary position. "I am going to Marseilles," I said, coldly. Mademoiselle will pardon me," he said, humbly. "I sometimes speak out the very first thought that comes uppermost. Ah!" he added, abruptly, "we spoke but a moment ago of a yet undiscovered instrument—a barometer for measuring what cold might be in the grave. Has any one, yet discovered scales for weighing that secret heaviness of the heart? You have felt, before now, such a thing as a weight on your heart." "Really, sir, these speculations are so strange and singular-" "That you are half inclined to set me down as a little odd, queer, flighty-or, say boldly and at once, insane. No," he added, "such a weight I have at this moment hanging round my heart; how many hundred pounds avoirdupois or kilo. grammes I cannot even approximate to. Yet it has no business to be there. I should, properly, be gay, boisterous, running I felt very dull and heavy-more heavy still in heart with a weary feeling that this night would never end. My limbs seemed all sore and bruised, as though I had been walk-over with spirits. I should, in all duty, be inclined to dance ing many miles. Yet he who was opposite was fresh and brilliant as ever; fresh as though he had just got up and stepped from a bath. Not even a sign of lethargy or drowsiness. He was still full of motion, and looking out through the closed window-glasses, now at one side, now at another, as tho gh then there was a visible country to admire. and sing, and yet, all the while, I have a load of presentiment on me. You are going to be a governess (forgive this rough way of putting the thing, too simple for the laws of courtesy); I am going to be married. You are sitting in presence of a possible bridegroom." A very curious and Mephistopheles sort of bridegroom he did look, peering out of that peaked hood, with a pair of shining glasses for eyes. After his plain speaking with me, I feit there was no undue inquisitiveness in my asking him a question or two : "And this is some young and fair girl, it is to supposed," I said, the words unconsciously taking a sarcastic shape. I did not relish being part imprisoned with this strange being, and resolved at the next station, which could not be far away, to change carriages. I looked for the little thin pamphlet, of half a dozen leaves, which contains the whole history of French railway times and stoppages-a mere pigmy beside its swollen English brother-which had fallen down under the seat. If I had been in spirits, or, perhaps, not quite so sleepy, I would 'Strange as it may appear, unsuitable as mademoiselle will have found some entertainment in tracing out national types think, the fact is so. There is waiting for me beyond Marseilles, and peculiarities, even in those trivial symbols of their respec- a beautiful creature, twenty-one years old, with some sacks of tive communities. For one was, indeed, broadly, even grossly, golden sequins for dowry. You are amused at the notion. It English-a bulky, John Bull of print and paper-sound, sub-is comical; yet the beautiful do not always wed with the beaustantial, abundant in quantity, yet confused, clumsy and undi-tiful, and as there are some who marry for face and figure, and gested. The other, a light, mincing Jean Crapaud, cheap, superficial, deceptive, yet, so far as it went, orderly and skilfully arranged. In our little family circle-far away now-such a conceit would have been taken up by playful tongues and twisted into humorous shapes, and kept in the air, shuttlecocklike, for an hour. He saw my trouble, and watched for a few moments. "You have lost something," he said, in a voice soft as honey, that seemed to slip from between his lips with a kind of saccharine trickle," possibly your 'Railway Guide,' I am afraid without chance of recovery, for I saw one of our late companious pick up such a thing as he went out. But you will not have so long to wait," he added, with that sugary smile, "for we shall be at a station in less than half an hour." Mystified at his clear divination of my thoughts, I thanked him a little confusedly, and said it was a very chilly night. He said it was that now that I reminded him, it was cold-cold to the very marrow, to the very heart's core. And then he took from a bundle on the seat beside him a heavy cloth cloak, on the Bournous model, with a peaked hood or lay cowl, with a tassel hanging to it. This, with much shivering, he put on, and drew the cowl over his head. The effect generally, taking n the shining glasses, and the round face with the smooth nobs, some who marry for lands and the precious metals, so there are And as be spoke I found a more persuasive argument for his theory, in the soft tones of his voice, which fell into a strangely insinuating and even tender key. "I am no believer in that sordid gospel of the nineteenth century." "I did not suppose so," he said. "Still is it not wonderful the fair and the wealthy waiting the last scene of beautitude in a good novel, ready set; and yet you see me downcast, drooping, and with a load of say five hundred kilogrammes pressing on my heart. I would we were at the altar before the bishop." He stopped, looked uneasily from window to window in his old manner, and thrummed on the arms of his seat. The express was flying full speed, screaming through the night. I looked out, too. There were scattered dots of light far away, sprinkled over a black prairie, beginning to twinkle by us. "Lyons!" said he, in fifteen minutes." I was still drowsy; my eyes were weighed down with sleepthe sleep of night-travelling. I felt my head dropping to one side, seeking the support of the projecting arm that divided the seats. Fifteen minutes was a long span. There would be ample time; some one would be sure to wake me at Lyons. It was sweet, very sweet, this bathing in weary slumber with bedewed eyelids, and so, no resistance; but covering my head decently, sink back into repose. How or when that second figure, who was seated directly opposite-sunk in slumber, too-got in, seemed to me an inscrutable mystery. A foraging cap over the eyes-not so much as a glimpse of his face (for a handkerchief was laid over his cheek) -a slight figure, as of a young man, wrapped in a cloak. When could he have entered? We should be at Lyons shortly; and yet, strange, we were now at full speed-again flying through the night. The double of Count Cavour, still fresh, bright and superior-wonderful being- to the necessities of sleep, sees, I suppose, some wonder in my drowsy eyes, and stoops over to say 46 'Lyons is twenty miles behind; it would have been cruel to have disturbed you." For the first moment it came like a shock upon me, for I had a dreamy idea that Lyons was my destination, and that I was now hopelessly undone, and carried away beyond recall. I started up, thoroughly wakened. 'Marseilles," said the count, quietly; "think a moment; you told me you were going to Marseilles." I sank back again, confused by this strange being's power of reading everything in my mind. I did not stand in such awe of him now, for I was glad of the arrival of this new comer, even though still invisible as to face, and sleeping profoundly. That sudden start has made me wide-staring awake, and I take out a green French novel and begin to read by the dim light. It must now be a good hour since we passed Lyons-at least so the Count Cavour announces to me, adding that it will be three good hours before we reach another station. "It is unfortunate, for maderhoiselle will be getting exbausted. She should have had something to eat at Lyons." "Three hours!" I repeated. "It is a long time." Suddenly, at this moment, the young man opposite to me took down his handkerchief and threw back his cloak. I saw his face now-a swarthy, olive-colored skin, with black shiny hair, trimmed in the fashion peculiar to Frenchmen of the army. He was broad-shouldered, and had stern piercing eyes. He stood up suddenly, and passing me, sat down exactly opposite him who I have christened Couat Cavour. work of a family should not be done in the market-place. You remember the maxim Napoleon was so fond of?" "This way of taking it will not do," said the young man, excitedly. "You will not dispose of me so readily with your cold sneers. I have staked and lost too much for this meeting. It is not every day, mademoiselle," he said, turning to me with a bitter smile, a man deserts his regiment, disgraces his honor and perils his life for the pleasure of a three hours conversation with his relative." 66 Thus appealed to, I could not answer. Every moment I felt an increasing sense of some terrible scene impending. "Yes," he went on, "my fortunate relative. Fortunate in all the ways of success, even in love. Might he not have left this walk at least, which brings no profit, to younger and less lucky relatives? Listen, mademoiselle, I was to have been married to a young and beautiful Italian girl-engaged for years, brought up together-made for each other as the older people, admiring us together, said, often and often—” "I repeat, Louis," struck in the count, with remonstrance, "these details are scarcely-” "I say," continued the young man, "she was to have been my wife, promised under most solemn obligation, when this man-you can see already what manner of cold nature his is, from his smooth speeches-this man steps in, when I am away serving with the army, and taking a base advantage of his powers of mind, and some better schooling, in which, I confess it, he is superior to me, winds himself round the heart of my destined wife, and meanly supplants me. He tempted her with his ambition. He will be great at the court, great in diplomacy, one of those days; and so deluded that child."' I saw the count smiling complacently at these compliments. Unfortunately the young man saw it, and started up. 'He is mocking me!" he cried. "Take care what you do. At this moment you are on the brink of your grave, and you dare to trifle with me!" "Again, I repeat," said the other, in a tone of.reproof, "you forget that a lady is by. This unseemly bravado, as you should well know, being brought up with gentlemen, is ungentlemanly, and unworthy of a Frenchman and a soldier; at least," he added, sarcastically, "of one who was, till lately, a soldier." Captain Louis colored up, his eyes seemed starting from his head, and he set his teeth firmly, as if about to spring. But, with an effort, he became calm again. have forgot "You are right, quite right-I am corrected. ten myself for a moment, and mademoiselle will accept my apologies. You see," he said, turning to me, "I have not that sweet control, that perfect command over myself which he has. But he is right, quite right. Time is flying by, we are losing precious minutes; now to business.” to settle all matters." When Cavour heard him st.iding across, he had looked up; the dull light of the lamp fell upon the soldier's cheek; then starting up, he uttered something between a cry and an oath. This would seem to have been almost involuntary, for he sank down again hastily in his seat with a kind of smile of indiffer-getic mutterings, emphasized with violent gesticulation; and ence upon his face. With that he became quite calm again, and, stooping forward, began to talk in a low voice to the other. What was said was indistinct, and did not reach me; but there was a hum of ener I could see, now and again, scornful smiles on the face of the count, with a savage showing of teeth in reply from the other. Which interchange of protest, and savage expostulation, now "You are caged," said the younger man, stooping forward, and still looking into his face; "caged, caged, hopelessly caged! You see Fortune was not to go with you in every-rising high, now running low in an undercurrent, seemed at thing." "I have had more blessings than I deserve, certainly," the count answered, now quite calm again. “But what is it you wish for, Louis? What is this talk about caging and being caught?' "Simply, that I have tracked you, hunted you, and I repeat it, caged you," the younger man said savagely. "You thought you had effectively disposed of me; getting me ordered away to Algeria; taken from my own regiment. Artful oid fox! Your scheme broke down. I have three days more of grace; though, thank heaven, three good hours is long enough, amply long, for the work I have before me." These ominous words made me feel strangely ill at ease. Was I to be imprisoned for three hours with these excited men, and with no prospect of deliverance? last to die. It would be strange if they reasoned each other into harmony, and yet no such great surprise after all, for that sugary smile and persuasive tongue would prevail against much. "Give your solemn oath-if you don't-" "Never! I say again "-words savagely spoken, the young man glaring at him with eyes, and with shining teeth, even. They did not care to disguise their thoughts in mutterings now. "No, sir," the count said, loudly, "you shall not scare me with your vulgar terrorism." Again the young man glared at him from opposite, as if now, indeed, about to spring. But the other folded his arns across his broad chest, and with an indescribable smile of fat scorn, seemed so utterly fearless, so triumphant, that the young man ground his teeth again, and beat the cushions in a sort of fury. By-and-bye they had fallen into the old battle of whisper, the "I will have it from you before you leave this carriage." A scoffing laugh from Cavour. "Swear! I am dangerous, I tell you." Another scoffing laugh from Cavour. The next moment there was a hollow stamping upon the floor of the carriage, and the younger man was at the other's throat. The two were together in one undistinguishable mass. They seemed to be flung from side to side, to be rolled from one seat on to the other. There was an undercurrent of gasps and choking utterances, and the young man seemed to have wound himself about the massive figure of the other with the grip and coil of a boa-constrictor. For me, I lay there motionless, voiceless, benumbed with terror. Once, indeed, I forced out a shriek for help, but there was that roaring as of a great mill at the window which swallowed up every sound. For a moment, with my own feeble fingers, I strove to put them asunder, but was flung off in an instant in the swaying and lurching of this terrible struggle. I wrung my hands, prayed, even flung myself on my knees, imploring them to have done with this frightful contest. But at that moment they had no sense for anything beyond themselves. The mass now swung over with a crash against the door-now against the corner-now toppled on the sharp edges of the seat. I could see a hand burrowing deeply in another's throat, and another hand, to which that throat belonged, was twisted tightly in the hair of another's head. Eyeballs protruded, eyelids strained round to the corner, blackening cheeks, purple skins, bursting veins, came up in succession under the sickly light of the lamp. Now they have rolled with a loud scuffling thud on to the floor, as it were, into a well of darkness; and there I can hear them grinding and tearing each other to death. I know not what to do. Again I let down the glass; and putting my face out to the wind roaring by at fifty miles an hour, shriek for aid. My cry is borne backwards with the gale. I can see the engine far in front aflying, and the glowing coal shedding a trail of sparks. There are whole chambers full of muffled men and women between me and it, comfortably disposed, unconscious what foul work is being done. I may shriek and shriek again, but my cry is stifled ere it quit my lips by the heavy hand of the breeze. If only one of those skilful gymnasts, those light-footed guards, who skip along outside, hanging on by the rail from end to end of the train, should appear suddenly, as deliverer. And yet such a one must have passed by many times, and peered into our lighted chamber through the glass- himself invisible. When I draw in my head, I look with a shudder down upon that dark well between the seats; all is still again-I can distinguish nothing-and there sitting opposite, wrapped in a cloak, is a single figure! the black-haired soldier! As to what was below, or what mystery lay in that deep black well, I did not dare to question. A sense of something terrible seemed to rise upon me in darker waves; my head swam round; I did not know where I was; I would have fainted, as I recollect fainting once before in life, but I felt a desperate purpose in me to do battle with this weakness, and fought it away; still it was gaining on me; my eyes kept drooping, my heart faltering. A dark cloaked figure was standing over me, shiny jetty eyes were peering into mine. "Not a word, on your life," said he, "a step. a motion, and you die." Little faint lights were sprinkled like spray far and wide over the blackness. With an inexpressible relief, I saw that we were not flying with such speed as before. "In twenty minutes we shall be at a station; in five more, the conductor will visit us for tickets. A word, and you die." He struck something under his cloak, as he gave this threat, and flung himself into the seat opposite. I was so filled with rage and grief, that my English blood came rising up within me, and I was tempted to defy this wretch and There was no resistance. They are used to these matters in France, which, like some other things, they order better. Gendarmes, in the peculiar cocked hat of their race, as soon as the train came rolling into halls of light, emerged from mysterious lurking places, and took him away quietly. By another train in the morning, I went forward, and was soon with that family with whom I have remained now many years. CAPTAIN A. H. FOOTE. THIS gallant sailor, whose capture of Fort Henry has made him so prominent at the present moment, is the son of Senator Foote of Connecticut, in which State the subject of our sketch was born, in the early part of this century. He entered the navy on the 4th December, 1822, and has been almost constantly in active service. He has thus risen in the service steadily and laboriously. On the 19th December, 1852, he was made Commander, under which commission he saw about two years and a half of active service. His total active service embraces a period of about thirty years, of which twenty-two years have been at sea and eight on shore. In every station Commodore Foote has shown equal prudence and courage. He was unemployed for over ten years, and was last at sea in June, 1858. At the breaking out of the present troubles he was in command of the Navy Yard at Brooklyn, and shortly after the commencement of hostilities was promoted to a captaincy, with the charge of the Western or Mississippi flotilla, of which he is the commodore or flag-officer. While engaged in his duties he is reported as having worked night and day, with a zeal and energy that are worthy of emulation in both branches of the service, and has accomplished an almost herculean task. Being dependent upon the Navy Department for men and a portion of his equipment, and compelled to call upon the War Department for other things equally necessary to the success of his mission in the inland waters, and apparently an object of jealousy and a subject of neglect from both, he has quietly worked through all obstacles, and is about prepared to undertake the opening up of the Mississippi river from Cairo to New Orleans. He is a quiet, gray-haired veteran, and, although holding a rank equal to major-general of the land forces, attained by a life's service on the broad seas under the old flag, has been quietly and unostentatiously serving his country at the junction of the Ohio and the Mississippi. His expeditions have been carried out with spirit and energy, and the result is gratifying to the nation. In personal appearance Commodore Foote is short, thickset and muscular. He is a close student, considering war to be a science as well as a fatal necessity. He is a fluent and intellectual conversationist, and has the faculty of interesting and attaching all who come in contact with him. His official reports, detailing the capture of Fort Henry and his combat off Fort Donelson, are models of modesty and brevity. OBJECTS OF HOUSEKEEPING.-Some active women, who pride themselves on their housekeeping, seem to forget that the object of keeping house is, that human beings may be accommodated in it. Their sole idea seems to be this, that the object of keeping a house is that the house may be kept in a certain form and order, and to the performance of this form and order they sacrifice the comfort the house was established to secure. Such active women are pests to society, because they want sense to direct and control their energies. |
