This is such a touching scene, as it is
represented on the stage, that the corporal
of Dragoons is constrained to have recourse
to his handkerchief to staunch his tears. He
is in time to catch them. All—except one,
which, rolling down his moustache, drops
from its extreme tip, and mingles with the
dust upon the playhouse floor. A noble
tribute. A pure and great appeal against the
sentence of those Englishmen, particularly
those who are meek and gentle
church-dignitaries,  full of loving-kindness, who
would give  both play and playhouses to the
Devil. A confirmation strong of the words of
that  mighty moralist who thundered it into
Boswell's ears, "That he was a friend to public
amusements, for that they kept the people
from private vice."

                             III

IT is to my mind a difficult thing to imagine
a more romantic scene than a château in
provincial France. Think of the house itself.
Think of its high roof with dormer windows
snugly ensconced in its steep and sloping
sides. Think of the trim gardens, the oblong
fish-ponds with fat old tench rooting about
at the bottom, waiting to be caught on the
next jour maigre. Think—but I have
positively no space for description.

It is to such a country house as I have
just hinted at that the scene now changes.
The family of Laroque which inhabits it
belongs to the tribe of the newly rich. It
consists of an old father, Monsieur Laroque,
his wife, much younger than himself, and a
daughter, an only child. The other residents
in the château are the governess of
Mademoiselle Laroque, and a certain
Mademoiselle Aubry, a poor—and it is needless
to add touchy—relation. A fatuous resident in the
neighbourhood, who is a suitor for Mademoiselle
Laroque's hand, completes such portion
of the dramatis personæ as, in this brief
abstract of the piece, it is necessary we
should come in contact with.

Le jeune homme pauvre—abandoning his
title, and appearing under a name which
belongs to him through his mother's family,
enters this household in the capacity of
"intendant," a sort of steward or bailiff. But the
inconsistency of his appearance and manners
with his present occupation is not wholly lost
upon those whom he has come amongst. Nor
Is the secret of his real name and title altogether
his own. The governess who has been
already alluded to, and who is possessed of
some personal attractions and of a shrewd
and scheming character, has been at the
convent where Maxime's sister is being educated,
and has frequently seen him when he has
visited the little girl at school. This governess,
who, though Mademoiselle Laroque is now
grown up, is retained as a sort of companion
for her, falls in love with Le jeune homme
pauvre, and as the passion is not returned,
it very soon (as is its habit when neglected)
changes into hate. The governess perceives,
too, that Maxime is in love with Mademoiselle
Laroque. and reveals to that young lady
the secret of his birth, representing him as
an adventurer who has come to the château
under false pretences, and whose real object
is to retrieve the position of his family by
marrying Mademoiselle Laroque for her fortune.
The young lady, who, in her secret
heart, is far from insensible to the merits of
Le jeune homme pauvre, is so outraged at
this as to treat him with a contempt verging
upon insult, to which the nature of his situation
in the château renders him peculiarly
liable. It is painful in the extreme to witness
these scenes; but indicating, as they are
made to do, the perpetual struggles between
the growing interest which Mademoiselle
Laroque feels in Maxime and her indignation
at what she believes to be his mercenary
ambition, they form an important part in the
drama.

It must be acknowledged that this young
lady is slow to believe that one so faultless
in the discharge of all the duties which his
present situation involves, so unexceptionable
in all his conduct as the new "intendant,"
can be the wretch whom the governess
represents him to be. But she is convinced at
last of his treachery, by the sight of an
unfinished letter from Maxime, addressed to
the old lawyer, who procured for him his
present position in the household of the
Laroques, and in which, describing the
wretched life he is leading, he speaks of it as
only tolerable for the sake of "that dowry
which he so ardently desires——" The letter
in this unfinished state gets into the hands
of the governess, and is by her shown to
Mademoiselle Laroque. Had it been
concluded, it would have been seen that it
was the dowry for his sister, which by his
labours he was seeking to amass, to which
the letter alluded.

But a scene is at hand which is to reveal
unmistakably the metal of which our hero is
made. A scene which, while it is the climax
of the romantic, has yet the chastity of
truth about it; a scene, displaying in its true
colours that high, and, and as it is called,
Quixotic sense of honour, which characterises
him indeed throughout the play.

In the course of one of those excursions in
the neighbourhood which his duties involve,
the "intendant" turns aside, as the evening
draws on, to examine a certain round tower
which he has often heard of, and which lies
beside his path. The scene shows us the
interior of this tower at its highest point,
and at the back of the stage a sort of platform,
or look-out, reveals through its broken
gap the tops of the trees which grow at the
foot of the tower—some fifty feet below.
While Maxime is examining the building,
Mademoiselle Laroque, whose constant
practice it is to take long and solitary rides on
horseback about the environs of the château,