Agathe. Cattelain managed to drag himself to
the feet of his mistress and implore her pardon
for having criminated her. "I forgive you, my
poor Cattelain," she said; "it was pain which
forced you to belie yourself and me. Let those
who have compelled the false confession, answer
for it to God."

Although every one was certain of Angélique's
guilt, yet the sympathy excited by her strange
beauty and by her fortitude, extended far and
wide among all classes in France. To add to
the dramatic effect of her trial, by a strange
coincidence it happened that the judge who
condemned her was her former lover, Henri
St. Chaubert. She listened without faltering
to the words of the sentence, and then
looked up at him with a smile, saying loud
enough to be distinctly heard by all, so awe-
stricken was the silence in the court, "Ah!
Monsieur St. Chaubert, is that you? Formerly our
positions were reversed: you were the trembling
culprit, I was the judge. I hear your sentence
to-day with more courage than you heard mine."
St. Chaubert turned ghastly white, and was
obliged to lean back in his seat. For many
minutes, he could not control his feelings.

Redoubled efforts were made to procure
Angélique's pardon, but the king refused to receive
any more petitions in her favour. Although
to the last she encouraged herself with the
idea of ultimate escape from her terrible doom,
the day of her execution found her (as may be
supposed) still under sentence of death. Dressed
as she had been at her trial, and accompanied
by her aunt, and Cattelain, and attended by a
priest who vainly implored her to confess, she
was borne on a cart through the streets of
Paris, exposed to the gaze of thousands upon
thousands. She bore it unmoved, and her sole
anxiety seemed to be that her lovely hair
should not be wetted out of curl by a slight
rain that was falling. When she reached the
place of execution, she said, peremptorily, to
the priest:

"Cease, Monsieur l'Abbé; permit me to die in
peace. Give my love to my husband and daughter.
Tell Monsieur Tiquet I forgive him his
share in the foul conspiracy which has brought
me to this; and to the Chevalier Mongeorge
give my kindest adieux, and my hair, if it must
be cut off. So now, farewell, for I will hear no
more!"

Her companions in crime suffered first. In
a few minutes she, too, ceased to live. The
excitement passed description. Women, and
even men, shrieked and swooned; many fell
and were trodden to death. The smallest lock
of her hair sold for a large sum. As for the
wretched president, he retired from public life,
and, living a life of the utmost seclusion with
his child, placed her, when sufficiently old, in a
convent of the Sacré Cœur, where she ultimately
took the veil, about a year before her father's
death.

Of the poison spoken of in this true history,
the worst was surely that which the honest,
bookseller and jeweller gave to his little child
when he first blindly suffered the foul-hearted
woman who became his murderess, to drop her
poisonous words into her ear.

UNDER THE SNOW.

IN TWO PORTIONS. PORTION THE SECOND.

DECEMBER 14.—We escaped with the fright;
the wolves either did not suspect our presence,
or were hard pressed to obtain some easier prey.
At one time, we thought they were burrowing
through the snow, to storm our citadel in a
body; but it is not certain whether they might
not be tearing to pieces some animal which they
had hunted down on the spot. But when the
surface of the snow is frozen hard, as it is now,
it allows the wolves to travel over it rapidly.
They do not, consequently, remain on the
heights, where little is to be had, but they scour
down the mountain and invade the plain, to
seize whatever falls in their way in the outskirts
of the villages. They departed as abruptly as
they had arrived.

Now that the door and the window are again
barricaded by a deep accumulation of snow, it is
clear that the trap of the chimney is our weakest
point. For the present, I dare not venture
out to breathe the air; which is sad. I have no
choice but to remain a close prisoner. To
guard against a second attack, and at the same
time to be able to light a fire without being
suffocated by smoke, I have fitted an iron tube,
which I found in the stable, into a circular
aperture which I have cut in the trap. It is
safe and convenient, but it cuts us off more
than ever from the outer world.

Hitherto, my grandfather would touch neither
coffee nor wine, reserving them for time of
need. But our last anxieties have made him so
unwell, that he has consented to try whether
they will not restore his appetite and his
strength. He wishes me to take my share;
but I am young, and can do very well without
them. A long-continued milk diet, like that to
which we are now confined, is apt to disagree
with persons of his age.

December 17.—"Time passes," my
grandfather said to-day; "winter is approaching."

"Approaching!" I answered. "Is not winter
come?"

"Not yet, according to the almanack. Winter
does not begin till the twenty-first; it is
still autumn; but who would believe that we
are in the season of fruits?"

My grandfather has eaten scarcely anything
to-day. I persuaded him to taste a little bread
soaked in wine. It is evident that he makes an
effort to appear more cheerful than he really
feels. What should I do, were he to fall seriously ill?

December 22.—It is long since we have
heard any noise outside; our seclusion is more
and more complete. We conclude that a large
quantity of fresh snow has fallen, and that the
chalet is probably completely buried under the
mass. Nevertheless the iron tube still rises
above it; the smoke escapes freely: to-day a few