room, a footman of Madame de Créquy's
brought Urian the starling's nest.

"Well! we came back to England, and the
boys were to correspond; and Madame de
Créquy and I exchanged civilities; and
Urian went to sea.

"After that, all seemed to drop away. I
cannot tell you all. However, to confine
myself to the De Créquys. I had a letter
from Clément: I knew he felt his friend's
death deeply; but I should never have learnt
it from the letter he sent. It was formal,
and seemed like chaff to my hungering heart.
Poor fellow! I dare say he had found it
hard to write. What could he—or any one—
say to a mother who has lost her child?
The world does not think so, and, in general,
one must conform to the customs of the
world; but, judging from my own experience,
I should say that reverent silence at such
times is the tenderest balm. Madame de
Créquy wrote too. But I knew she could
not feel my loss so much as Clément, and
therefore her letter was not such a
disappointment. She and I went on being civil
and polite in the way of commissions, and
occasionally introducing friends to each other,
for a year or two, and then we ceased to have
any intercourse. Then the terrible revolution
came. No one who did not live at those
times can imagine the daily expectation of
news,—the hourly terror of rumours affecting
the fortunes and lives of those whom
most of us had known as pleasant hosts,
receiving us with peaceful welcome in their
magnificent houses. Of course there was sin
enough and suffering enough behind the
scenes; but we English visitors to Paris had
seen little or nothing of that,—and I had
sometimes thought indeed how even Death
seemed loth to choose his victims out of
that brilliant throng whom I had known.
Madame de Créquy's one boy lived; while
three out of my six were gone since we had
met! I do not think all lots are equal, even
now that I know the end of her hopes; but
I do say, that whatever our individual lot is,
it is our duty to accept it, without comparing
it with that of others.

"The times were thick with, gloom and
terror. 'What next?' was the question we
asked of every one who brought us news
from Paris. Where were these demons
hidden when, so few years ago, we danced and
feasted, and enjoyed the brilliant salons and
the charming friendships of Paris?

"One evening, I was sitting alone in Saint
James' Square; my lord off at the club
with Mr. Fox and others; he had left me,
thinking that I should go to one of the many
places to which I had been invited for that
evening; but I had no heart to go anywhere,
for it was poor Urian's birthday, and I had
not even rung for lights, though the day was
fast closing in, but was thinking over all his
pretty ways, and on his warm affectionate
nature, and how often I had been over hasty
in speaking to him, for all I loved him so
dearly; and how I seemed to have neglected
and dropped his dear friend Clément, who
might even now be in need of help in that cruel,
bloody Paris. I say I was thinking reproachfully
of all this, and particularly of Clément
de Créquy in connection with Urian, when
Fenwick brought me a note, sealed with a
coat of arms I knew well, though I could
not remember at the moment where I had
seen it. I puzzled over it, as one does
sometimes, for a minute or more, before I opened
the letter. In a moment I saw it was from
Clément de Créquy. 'My mother is here,'
he said: 'she is very ill, and I am
bewildered in this strange country. May I entreat
you to receive me for a few minutes?' The
bearer of the note was the woman of the
house where they lodged. I had her brought
up into the ante-room, and questioned her
myself, while my carriage was being brought
round. They had arrived in London a
fortnight or so before; she had not known their
quality, judging them (according to her
kind) by their dress and their luggage; poor
enough, no doubt. The lady had never left
her bed-room since her arrival; the young
man waited upon her, did everything for her,
never left her in fact; only she (the messenger)
had promised to stay within call, as
soon as she returned, while he went out
somewhere. She could hardly understand
him, he spoke English so badly. He had
never spoken it, I dare say, since he had
talked to my Urian."

SAXON-ENGLISH.

WHEN a man has anything of his own
to say, and is really in earnest that it
should be understood, he does not usually
make cavalry regiments of his sentences,
and seek abroad for sesquipedalian words.
We all know that an Englishman, if he will,
is able to speak easily and clearly; also he
can, if he please, write in such a manner
as to send the common people to their
dictionaries at least once in every page.
Let him write Saxon, and the Saxons
understand him; let him use Latin forms that
have been long in use, and they will also
understand him; but let him think proper to
adopt Latin or Greek expressions which are
new, or at all events new to the many, and
they will be puzzled. We can all read with
comfort the works of Thomas Fuller, Swift,
Bunyan, Defoe, Franklin, and Cobbett;
there, sense is clear, feeling is homely, and
the writers take care that there shall be no
misunderstanding. But in Robertson, Johnson,
and Gibbon, one word in every three is
an alien; and so an Englishman who happens
to have, like Shakespeare, "small Latin and
less Greek," is by no means quite at home in
their society.

Two hundred years ago, Dr. Heylin
remarked, " Many think that they can never