seemed to be tears very close behind his
smiles for ever after. My father went to see
him when he had been about a week absent
from us—no reason given, for did not we, did
not every one know the horror the sun had
looked upon! As soon as my father had gone,
my mother gave it in charge to us to make
the dressing-room belonging to our guest-
chamber as much like a sitting room as
possible. My father hoped to bring back
M. de Chalabre for a visit to us; but he
would probably like to be a good deal alone;
and we might move any article of furniture
we liked, if we only thought it would make
him comfortable.

I believe General Ashburton had been on a
somewhat similar errand to my father's
before; but he had failed. My father gained
his point, as I afterwards learnt, in a very
unconscious and characteristic manner. He
had urged his invitation on M. de Chalabre,
and received such a decided negative that he
was hopeless, and quitted the subject.
Then M. de Chalabre began to relieve his
heart by telling him all the details; my father
held his breath to listen—at last, his honest
heart could contain itself no longer, and the
tears ran down his face. His unaffected
sympathy touched M. de Chalabre inexpressibly;
and in an hour after we saw our dear
French master coming down the clover-
field slope, leaning on my father's arm, which
he had involuntarily offered as a support to
one in trouble—although he was slightly
lame, and ten or fifteen years older than M.
de Chalabre.

For a year after that time M. de Chalabre
never wore any flowers; and after that, to
the day of his death, no gay or coloured
rose or carnation could tempt him. We
secretly observed his taste, and always took
care to bring him white flowers for his
posy. I noticed, too, that on his left arm,
under his coat sleeve (sleeves were made
very open then), he always wore a small
band of black crape. He lived to be eighty-
one, but he had the black crape band on
when he died.

M. de Chalabre was a favourite in all the
forest circle. He was a great acquisition to
the sociable dinner parties that were
perpetually going on; and though some of the
families piqued themselves on being aristocratic,
and turned up their noses at any one
who had been engaged in trade, however
largely, M. de Chalabre, in right of his good
blood, his loyalty, his daring " preux chevalier"
actions, was ever an honoured guest. He
took his poverty, and the simple habits it
enforced, so naturally and gaily, as a mere
trifling accident of his life, about which
neither concealment nor shame could be
necessary, that the very servants—often so
much more pseudo-aristocratic than their
masters—loved and respected the French
gentleman, who perhaps came to teach in the
mornings, and in the evenings made his
appearance dressed with dainty neatness as
a dinner guest. He came, lightly prancing
through the forest mire; and, in our little
hall, at any rate, he would pull out a neat
minute case containing a blacking-brush and
blacking, and repolish his boots, speaking
gaily, in his broken English, to the footman
all the time. That blacking case was his own
making; he had a genius for using his fingers.
After our lessons were over, he relaxed into
the familiar house friend—the merry play-
fellow. We lived far from any carpenter or
joiner; if a lock was out of order M. de
Chalabre made it right for us. If any box
was wanted, his ingenious fingers had made
it before our lesson day. He turned silk
winders for my mother, made a set of chess-
men for my father, carved an elegant watch-
case out of a rough beef bone—dressed up
little cork dolls for us—in short, as he said,
his heart would have been broken but for his
joiner's tools. Nor were his ingenious gifts
employed for us alone. The farmer's wife
where he lodged had numerous contrivances
in her house which he had made. One
particularly which I remember was a paste-board,
made after a French pattern, which would
not slip about on a dresser, as he had observed
her English paste-board do. Susan, the
farmer's ruddy daughter, had her work-box,
too, to show us; and her cousin-lover had a
wonderful stick, with an extraordinary demon
head carved upon it;—all by M. de Chalabre.
Farmer, farmer's wife, Susan, Robert, and all
were full of his praises.

We grew from children into girls—from
girls into women; and still M. de Chalabre
taught on in the forest; still he was beloved
and honoured; still no dinner-party within
five miles was thought complete without him,
and ten miles' distance strove to offer him a
bed sooner than miss his company. The
pretty merry Susan of sixteen had been
jilted by the faithless Robert; and was now a
comely demure damsel of thirty-one or two;
still waiting upon M. de Chalabre, and still
constant in respectfully singing his praises.
My own poor mother was dead; my sister was
engaged to be married to a young lieutenant
who was with his ship in the Mediterranean.
My father was as youthful as ever in heart,
and indeed in many of his ways; only his
hair was quite white, and the old lameness
was more frequently troublesome than it had
been. An uncle of his had left him a
considerable fortune, so he farmed away to
his heart's content, and lost an annual sum of
money with the best grace and the lightest
heart in the world. There were not even the
gentle reproaches of my mother's eyes to be
dreaded now.

Things were in this state when the peace of
eighteen hundred and fourteen was declared.
We had heard so many and such contradictory
rumours that we were inclined to doubt even
the " Gazette" at last, and were discussing
probabilities with some vehemence, when M.