the past. The stranger observed the effort, and spoke again in his low nervous tone—
“Madame does not know me.”
“I have not that pleasure, monsieur,” said she, with apparent diffidence of her memory.
“You are Madame St. Auliere; and this,” pointing to Marie, “is your child.”
“You are right, monsieur. What then?”
“It is also my name,” he replied, and he paused, as if waiting for the effect, or to master his feelings.
Madame’s eyes lighted up as if by the kindling of an inward fire. A superhuman effort of will gave her momentary strength, and with almost a spring she raised herself in her bed, and, looking fixedly at the stranger, exclaimed—
“I see, it is true, you are the father of my husband—”
“And I am come to ask that the past may be forgotten, and to offer my regrets and my assistance. Will you accept them, and allow me to take up my duties as a parent?”
There was something like a glow of happiness on the flushed face of madame as she glanced towards Marie, and rejoined—
“Be it so, for his child’s sake. For me it comes too late. We have struggled long, and you have been very hard, monsieur.”
“My son was disobedient, and I was proud, but I am humbled; for I am left alone, and have long sought my lost child. Let those of us that remain, speak only of the future.”
These words were broken in their utterance, and it was evident that the speaker was suffering from violent emotion. Marie sat listening to the dialogue without uttering a word. Her face reflected the pleasure felt by her mother at this late reconciliation; but it was veiled and darkened by the anxiety she felt for her dying parent. Her arms were tenderly twined round her mother like a vine around the decayed tree which the next gale shall lay prostrate. She gazed wistfully in her mother’s face, and once almost fancied that the new hopes which had dawned upon their prospects had imparted fresh vitality to the sinking frame within her arms, but the illusion was only transitory. Mortality had gathered its supporters together for one last grand struggle with the champion of immortality, and the victory remained with the powers of the spirit world. Ere her grandfather had done speaking, Marie felt a shiver pass through the frame of her mother, which was the precursor of death. Her arms were suddenly called upon for additional support, and she gazed with a terrified look upon the bloodless cheeks and closed eyes of her mother, and then silently appealed to us. We saw that the sufferer had ceased to suffer; and that the angels were about to lead home another fugitive from its earthly prison, and we unwound the poor girl’s arms from the almost breathless clay.
The patient was soon beyond the reach of worldly ministration. Her pulse ceased to indicate the presence of life, and the brightest mirror would have passed unstained over her mouth. She was gone, and we retired from the presence of the grief that was too holy to be witnessed by a stranger.
When we descended, we found Justine all anxiety regarding the patient and her visitor. She scanned our features with an almost ludicrous mixture of curiosity and earnestness, and, with a volubility considerably accelerated by the remnant of our second bottle of wine, her questions followed each other with the haste of a flock of sheep, with a dog at their heels.
“Was madame better? Was monsieur, the visitor, an old friend? Did mademoiselle comfort herself tranquilly?”
We answered the first question in its order of precedence, and a single expression took possession of her face.
“Great God? and is it so, monsieur? And mademoiselle—?”
“Is with her grandfather,” we rejoined.
“Did monsieur say ‘her grandfather?’”
We replied in the affirmative.
“I see; Heaven is at length mindful of its own. Then monsieur will care for her, and the shorn lamb shall not be driven out into the wilderness,” exclaimed Justine.
We promised to call next day to inquire after Marie, and we kept our word. The wrinkles in Justine’s cheeks seemed to have very recently been the channels of an unwonted flow of water, which, in subsiding, had left the usual tide-marks on the banks. Mademoiselle, said she, had passed a wretched night. She had been desolate, inconsolable; but monsieur, son grandpère, was prodigal of his sympathy, and the poor child was growing more reconciled to her loss.
“After the funeral,” said Justine, “they will retire to the chateâu of monsieur, where Marie is to take the place of her deceased grandmère in the household. But I know not how long this arrangement will last,” continued she, “for events crowd in rather thickly at present. Marie has received by this day’s post a letter from her affianced, who is recovered, and about to return home to establish his health. He is a captain of his regiment now, and will not quietly submit to see his favourite conscript becoming the follower of another.”
A few days subsequently we received a handsome mourning ring from Marie’s grandfather, accompanied by a note containing warm, but unearned thanks from herself, and we have treasured both until now, as mementos of one of the most painful incidents in our professional career.
TRAINS AND TRAMWAYS.
The aristocracy of Marylebone have rushed to the rescue, and the projected train is off the line for the present. Lord Portman heads the onslaught in defence of vested rights, though the inhabitant householders of Gloucester Place, Portman Square, acknowledge “that private interest must yield to public convenience when a clear ease is made out.”
Lord Portman and his clients are quite right in defending themselves from injury; and we may go further than that, and add that they ought to have compensation for any proven injury—as is the case of railways—which may occur from benefitting the public. Only, they must not be compensated first, and discover afterwards that