Athanase Gerbier, in despair at leaving
Paris and his mistress to devote himself to the
Church, had waited till his father stopped
at the first inn, and then fled, in spite of the
distance of several leagues. He returned to
Paris, joyous and out of breath, faint with
hunger and fatigue, bathed in perspiration
and dust, but sustained by the love which
drove him back. On his arrival in the Rue
d'Ecosse, towards midnight, he observed a
communication established between my
window and that of Nanette. He also saw, on
this mysterious bridge, a living shadow
travelling with prudent slowness. Grief and
astonishment deprived him of speech, and he
remained the mute spectator of what he would
have hindered at the price of his blood. He
refused to believe his own eyes for the sake
of excusing his dear Nanette; but, as soon
as I had broken the sashes and disappeared
through the breach, he was no longer master
of himself. He swore a thousand deaths, cried
vengeance, and sought the most prompt mode
of surprising me. I had neglected to shut the
street door; he mounted the stairs without
hindrance, penetrated into my apartment, and
blindly crossed over by the dangerous road
which I had passed with so much precaution.

"Ah!" said Nanette in a persuasive tone,
and folding him in her arms, "thank from
the bottom of your heart, and repay with
a grateful friendship this good M. Jacob,
who has saved my life; for, without him, you
would have found only my corpse. I had
resolved to suffocate myself!"

"You are the cause of her dying," added I,
with a smile, " and I bring her to life: still
she does not love me, and will love no one
but you! " ,

We embraced each other. They promised
me friendship instead of love, and I assisted
these lovers with so disinterested a zeal, that
in spite of an angry father -- in spite of the
bishop and the Sorbonne -- in spite of
misfortune and the rest, this history finished, like
the old fairy tales, with a marriage and a
numerous family.

ALL ABOUT PIGS.

CONSIDERING how many nations abhor
pork, it may appear remarkable that the pig
has been so generally deemed a valuable
animal. The Jews, the Mohammedans, and
the Hindoos, all shun pork as an article of
food. There is a story told of the early Jews,
which places their porco-phobia in rather a
ludicrous light. Although they were
forbidden to eat pork, they were permitted to
rear pigs for sale, and they might also use
lard as a fuel for their lamps; but about
70 B.C. further restrictions were laid on
them. Dr. Kitto states that, at that period,
Jerusalem was besieged by one of two
brothers, who were rival claimants for power.
The besieger, not wishing to interrupt the
services of the temple, permitted an arrangement
under which money was let down from
the temple in a box, in return for which the
lambs required for the daily sacrifices were
sent up. But one morning, some mischievous
Jerusalemite contrived to put a pig into the
box instead of a lamb. When half way, the
pig reared himself up, and happened to rest
his fore feet upon the temple wall! This sacrilege
was enough to bring about a new decree
or law, prohibiting the rearing of swine at
Jerusalem.

The wild pigs, unowned and uncared for,
which roam about many cities, obtrude themselves
upon the notice of travellers in a way
most unavoidable. Thus, Colonel Sykes says
that in the Deccan, every village abounds in
wild hogs, but any property in them is
equally abjured by individuals and the
community; they live in the streets, they are
public scavengers, and they dispute with the
dogs the possession of the offal thrown out
from the houses.

The Cincinnati pigs, which Mrs. Trollope,
Sir Charles Lyell, and other English tourists
in America have commented upon, are not
all rovers; there is much pig-enterprise in
this great centre of Ohio commerce. Lyell
describes the unowned swine, and also the
sleeker animals which bring large fortunes to
the "pork aristocracy" of Cincinnati. The
former is a roaming, restless, thriftless brute,
with long legs, porcupine-like bristles, a hide
of almost rhinocerine thickness, and much of
the grim aspect of a wolf; whereas the tame
hog of the same city has been rendered a
most valuable animal.

To what extent a pig may be useful to man
while yet living, in addition to the purposes
which he subserves when dead, has, perhaps, not
yet been fairly ascertained. Certain it is that
pigs are treated in a very ungentlemanly
way, by the gentlemen who walk on two
legs. Charles Lamb, it is true, by his Disquisition
on Roast Pig, does by implication pay a
compliment to the living animal. But Leigh
Hunt characterises a pig as an animal
"having a peculiar turn of mind; a fellow
that would not move faster than he could
help; irritable, retrospective, picking objections,
and prone to boggle; a chap with a
tendency to take every path but the proper
one, and with a sidelong tact for the alleys."
The moral and mental philosophy of a pig's
existence is thus ingeniously set forth by Sir
Francis Head:-- " With pigs, as with mankind,
idleness is the root of all evil. The
poor animal, finding that he has absolutely
nothing to do, having no enjoyment, nothing
to look forward to, but the pail which feeds
him; must eagerly (or, as we accuse him,
greedily), greet its arrival. Having no business
or diversion -- nothing to occupy his hours
-- the whole powers of his system are directed
to the digestion of a super-abundance of food.
To encourage this nature assists him with
sleep, which, lulling his better faculties, leads
his stomach to become the ruling power of his