inhabitants of pure blood struggled long and
hard to be interred apart from the abhorred
race.  The Cagots were equally persistent in
claiming to have a common burying-ground.
Again the texts of the old Testament were
referred to, and the pure blood quoted
triumphantly the precedent of Uzziah the leper
(twenty-sixth chapter of the second book of
Chronicles), who was buried in the field of the
Sepulchres of the Kings, not in the sepulchres
themselves.  The Cagots pleaded that they
were healthy and able-bodied; with no taint
of leprosy near them.  They were met by the
strong argument so difficult to be refuted,
which I have quoted before.  Leprosy was of
two kinds, perceptible and imperceptible.  If
the Cagots were suffering from the latter
kind, who could tell whether they were free
from it or not?  That decision must be left to
the judgment of others.

One sturdy Cagot family alone, Belone
by name, kept up a lawsuit claiming the
privilege of common sepulture, for forty-two
years; although the curé of Biarritz had
to pay one hundred livres for every Cagot
not interred in the right place.  The
inhabitants indemnified the curate for all these
fines.

M. de Romagne, Bishop of Tarbes, who
died in seventeen hundred and sixty-eight,
was the first to allow a Cagot to fill any office
in the Church.  To be sure, some were so
spiritless as to reject office when it was
offered to them, because, by so claiming their
equality, they had to pay the same taxes as
other men, instead of the Rancale or poll-tax
levied on the Cagots; the collector of which
had also a right to claim a piece of bread of
a certain size for his dog at every Cagot
dwelling.

Even in the present century it has been
necessary in some churches, for the
archdeacon of the district, followed by all his
clergy, to pass out of the small door
previously appropriated to the Cagots in order
to mitigate the superstition which, even so
lately, made the people refuse to mingle with
them in the house of God.  A Cagot once
played the congregation at Larroque tricks
suggested by what I have just named.  He
slily locked the great parish-door of the
church while the greater part of the
inhabitants were assisting at mass inside; put
gravel in the lock itself, so as to prevent
the use of any duplicate key,—and had the
pleasure of seeing the proud pure-blooded
people file out with bended head, through
the small low door used by the abhorred
Cagots.

We are naturally shocked at discovering,
from facts such as these, the causeless rancour
with which innocent and industrious people
were so recently persecuted.  Gentle reader,
am I not rightly representing your feelings?
If so, perhaps the moral of the history of the
accursed races may be best conveyed in the
words of an epitaph on Mrs. Mary Haud,
who lies buried in the churchyard of Stratford-
on-Avon.
     What  faults you saw in me,
        Pray strive to shun;
     And look at home: there's
       Something to be done.

THE CHILD-SEER.

THE little story I am going to tell, is a true
story of pioneer life in America.  It is known
to many descendants of the early settlers
among whom it happened, and I write it in
that country.

One of the darkest pages in American
history is that relating to the sufferings of the
inhabitants of Tryon county, New York,
during the war of the revolution, from the
attacks of the Indians and Royalists under
the Mohawk chief Brant and the more savage
Captain Walter Butler.  Early in the war,
Cherry Valley was selected as a place of
refuge and defence for the inhabitants of the
smaller and more exposed settlements.
Blockhouses were built, fortifications were thrown
up, and finally, a fort was erected, under the
direction of General La Fayette. The
inhabitants of the surrounding settlements came
in and lived for several months as in garrison,
submitting to strict military regulations.
Among the families which took temporary
refuge in this fort, was that of Captain
Robert Lindsay, formerly a British officer,—
brave and adventurous, who, only at the
entreaty of his wife, had left his farm
which stood in a lonely unprotected situation,
several miles from any settlement.
This Captain Lindsay was a reserved,
melancholy man, about whom the simple and
honest pioneers wondered and speculated not
a little.  His language and manner bespoke
at once the man of education and breeding.
His wife, though a quiet, heroic woman, was
evidently a lady by nature and association.

Captain Lindsay had a native love of
solitude and adventure,—the first requisites for
a pioneer; and for several years no other
reason was known for his seeking the wilds,
and exposing his tender family to all the
perils and privations of a frontier life.  But
at length an emigrant coming from his native
place, in the Highlands of Scotland, brought
the story of his exile, which was briefly this:
—Captain Lindsay, when a somewhat dissipated
young man, proud and passionate, had
quarrelled with a brother-officer, an old friend,
at a mess-dinner.  Both officers had drunk
freely; and their difference was aggravated
by hot-brained, half-drunken partisans,
insulting words were exchanged, and a duel on
the spot was the consequence. Lindsay
escaped with a slight wound; but his sword
pierced the heart of his friend.  He was
hurried away to a secure hiding-place, but
not before he had learned that in the first
matter of dispute he had been in the wrong.

Lindsay made all the reparation in his