his sore heart. His hopes and happiness revived
under her magic, as Julia's had. In the midst of
it all, the wise woman quietly made terms, he
was not to come to the house but on her invitation,
unless indeed he had news of the Agra
to communicate; but he might write once a week
to her, and enclose a few lines to Julia. On this
concession he proceeded to mumble her white
wrist, and call her his best, dearest, loveliest
friend; his mother. "Oh, remember!" said he,
with a relic of distrust; "you are the only mother
I can ever hope to have."

That touched her. Hitherto, he had been to
her but a thing her daughter loved.

Her eyes filled. "My poor, warm-hearted,
motherless boy," she said, "pray for my husband's
safe return! For on that your happiness depends:
and hers. And mine."

So now two more bright eyes looked longingly
seaward for the Agra; homeward bound.

BEHIND THE CURTAIN.

A VAUDEVILLE is a short French dramatic
composition, spoken and sung, much resembling
our old-fashioned Afterpiece "with songs," except
that it is often employed as a "Lever du
Rideau," or Curtain-Raiser. The singing, too,
is much less formally introduced. The actors
pass from singing to speaking, and from speaking
to singing, without any pause, as if they were
doing so merely for their own amusement, or as
if the song were a continuation of the speech.
The couplets, indeed, carry on the plot almost
as much as the dialogue. The characters are a
party of merry magpies, who chirp or chatter,
who whistle or prate, just as the whim seizes
them. The great points in vaudeville acting are
to be sprightly, natural, and gay— unless the
part require the actor to exhibit clever dulness
and witty stupidity.

The vaudeville is said to be of Norman origin.
There is a pleasant old town called Vire, with a
brawling stream rushing through it, where it is
the fashion not to breakfast, but to make up for
the privation by eating two dinners per day. It
is a land flowing with milk and honey, and
absolutely inundated with cyder. In its immediate
environs are two wooded valleys, renowned
of old as "Les Vaux de Vire," whither
the townsfolk used to resort to make merry with
dancing, drinking, and singing. The songs
composed in and for the festive meetings of the
Vaux de Vire, became in time so popular that,
by a bold etymological leap, a little drama, half
made up of couplets, and which is now a national
institution, received the title of Vaudeville.
But before assuming the proportions of
a theatrical piece, the vaudeville, for centuries,
was no more than a satirical song called forth
by the circumstances of the day, in which the
people avenged themselves of the ill treatment
they received from their rulers. One Paris
theatre, in the Place de la Bourse, takes its
name from, and is devoted to, vaudeville especially;
but vaudevilles flourish and are enjoyed
in all the secondary theatres of the French
metropolis.

A sketch of the principal vaudeville writers has
just been published by M. de Rochefort, himself
a distinguished vaudevilliste, who has been either
the collaborateur or the friend of all the vaudevillistes
of his time. With one great exception,
Eugène Scribe, these writers bear a wonderful
family likeness; they were all so merry,
so witty, so poor, and most of them, report
says, so frightfully ugly. Vaudeville writing
appears to be either the last resource of prodigality
reduced to straits, or else a passion which
holds complete dominion over its enraptured
votary. M. de Rochefort himself gave up government
employment to pursue the pleasures
of dramatic authorship. He preceded his literary
career by official travels in foreign countries.
Mosquitoes stung him before critics did.
He had inhaled the perfume of orange groves
long before he sniffed and preferred the smell of
lamps and orange-peel.

His own biography is brief but remarkable.
He was all but born in the prisons of the Reign
of Terror: having spent the first two years of
his life there, in company with his mother, a
strong courageous woman, who was condemned
to the guillotine, and whose execution was only
prevented by the death of Robespierre. After
their liberation from prison, the family were completely
ruined. The boy was sent to the Orleans
Grammar School, where his education was interrupted
by a long illness, in which he had a
narrow escape from death. At the age of fifteen
he entered the office of the Minister of the Interior,
after serving for some time as clerk to a
bookseller. But having contrived to get a piece
played at the Vaudeville Theatre, all the other
office clerks treated him as if he had the plague.
The still more decided success of a second vaudeville
converted him into a perfect pariah. He
sent in his resignation, and started with the
governor of the Ile Bourbon in the capacity of
secretary.

As secretary, M. de Rochefort bore the
whole weight of government on his shoulders.
The governor fell ill with the gout, and was
confined to his bed for eleven months at a
single spell. Two years of this work tired
the secretary out. Besides, as he remarks,
pleasure, in the colonies, is suppressed; your
only amusement is to look at the sky, bask in
the sun, or doze in a hammock. Seized with
invincible nostalgia, he begged the governor to
send him back to France. The governor, only
two days afterwards, followed his secretary's
example, and solicited his own recal. Anywhere
but in Paris, they felt themselves to
be fish out of water. Their natural history
studies had been limited to tasting roast monkey
and stewed parroquet. The ex-secretary was
successively charged to write the theatrical
reports of two grand journals which were extinguished
by the revolution of July. Finally,
slipping into his congenial element, he became
a professional manufacturer of vaudevilles; but