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+The Project Gutenberg eBook of Murad the Unlucky and Other Tales, by Maria Edgeworth
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
+most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
+of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
+www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you
+will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before
+using this eBook.
+
+Title: Murad the Unlucky and Other Tales
+
+Author: Maria Edgeworth
+
+Release Date: April, 2000 [eBook #2129]
+[Most recently updated: November 22, 2021]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+Produced by: David Price
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE UNLUCKY AND OTHER TALES ***
+
+
+
+
+MURAD THE UNLUCKY
+AND OTHER TALES
+
+
+by Maria Edgeworth
+
+
+
+
+Contents:
+
+  Introduction
+  Murad the Unlucky
+  The Limerick Gloves
+  Madame de Fleury
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+
+Maria Edgeworth came of a lively family which had settled in Ireland in
+the latter part of the sixteenth century. Her father at the age of five-
+and-twenty inherited the family estates at Edgeworthstown in 1769. He
+had snatched an early marriage, which did not prove happy. He had a
+little son, whom he was educating upon the principles set forth in
+Rousseau's "Emile," and a daughter Maria, who was born on the 1st of
+January, 1767. He was then living at Hare Hatch, near Maidenhead. In
+March, 1773, his first wife died after giving birth to a daughter named
+Anna. In July, 1773, he married again, Honora Sneyd, and went to live in
+Ireland, taking with him his daughter Maria, who was then about six years
+old. Two years afterwards she was sent from Ireland to a school at
+Derby. In April, 1780, her father's second wife died, and advised him
+upon her death-bed to marry her sister Elizabeth. He married his
+deceased wife's sister on the next following Christmas Day. Maria
+Edgeworth was in that year removed to a school in London, and her
+holidays were often spent with her father's friend Thomas Day, the author
+of "Sandford and Merton," an eccentric enthusiast who lived then at
+Anningsley, in Surrey.
+
+Maria Edgeworth--always a little body--was conspicuous among her
+schoolfellows for quick wit, and was apt alike for study and invention.
+She was story-teller general to the community. In 1782, at the age of
+fifteen, she left school and went home with her father and his third
+wife, who then settled finally at Edgeworthstown.
+
+At Edgeworthstown Richard Lovell Edgeworth now became active in the
+direct training of his children, in the improvement of his estate, and in
+schemes for the improvement of the country. His eldest daughter, Maria,
+showing skill with the pen, he made her more and more his companion and
+fellow-worker to good ends. She kept household accounts, had entrusted
+to her the whole education of a little brother, wrote stories on a slate
+and read them to the family, wiped them off when not approved, and copied
+them in ink if they proved popular with the home public. Miss
+Edgeworth's first printed book was a plea for the education of women,
+"Letters to Literary Ladies," published in 1795, when her age was eight-
+and-twenty. Next year, 1796, working with her father, she produced the
+first volume of the "Parent's Assistant." In November, 1797, when Miss
+Edgeworth's age was nearly thirty-one, her father, then aged fifty-three,
+lost his third wife, and he married a fourth in the following May. The
+fourth wife, at first objected to, was young enough to be a companion and
+friend, and between her and Maria Edgeworth a fast friendship came to be
+established. In the year of her father's fourth marriage Maria joined
+him in the production of two volumes on "Practical Education." Then
+followed books for children, including "Harry and Lucy," which had been
+begun by her father years before in partnership with his second wife,
+when Thomas Day began writing "Sandford and Merton," with the original
+intention that it should be worked in as a part of the whole scheme.
+
+In the year 1800 Miss Edgeworth, thirty-three years old, began her
+independent career as a novelist with "Castle Rackrent;" and from that
+time on, work followed work in illustration of the power of a woman of
+genius to associate quick wit and quick feeling with sound sense and a
+good reason for speaking. Sir Walter Scott in his frank way declared
+that he received an impulse from Miss Edgeworth's example as a
+story-teller. In the general preface to his own final edition of the
+Waverley Novels he said that "Without being so presumptuous as to hope to
+emulate the rich humour, pathetic tenderness, and admirable tact, which
+pervade the works of my accomplished friend, I felt that something might
+be attempted for my own country of the same kind with that which Miss
+Edgeworth so fortunately achieved for Ireland--something which might
+introduce her natives to those of the sister kingdom in a more favourable
+light than they had been placed hitherto, and tend to procure sympathy
+for their virtues and indulgence for their foibles."
+
+Of the three stories in this volume, who--"Murad the Unlucky" and "The
+Limerick Gloves"--first appeared in three volumes of "Popular Tales,"
+which were first published in 1804, with a short introduction by Miss
+Edgeworth's father. "Madame de Fleury" was written a few years later.
+
+H. M.
+
+
+
+
+MURAD THE UNLUCKY
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+It is well known that the grand seignior amuses himself by going at
+night, in disguise, through streets of Constantinople; as the caliph
+Haroun Alraschid used formerly to do in Bagdad.
+
+One moonlight night, accompanied by his grand vizier, he traversed
+several of the principal streets of the city without seeing anything
+remarkable. At length, as they were passing a rope-maker's, the sultan
+recollected the Arabian story of Cogia-Hassan Alhabal, the rope-maker,
+and his two friends, Saad and Saadi, who differed so much in their
+opinion concerning the influence of fortune over human affairs.
+
+"What is your opinion on this subject?" said the grand seignior to his
+vizier.
+
+"I am inclined, please your majesty," replied the vizier, "to think that
+success in the world depends more upon prudence than upon what is called
+luck, or fortune."
+
+"And I," said the sultan, "am persuaded that fortune does more for men
+than prudence. Do you not every day hear of persons who are said to be
+fortunate or unfortunate? How comes it that this opinion should prevail
+amongst men, if it be not justified by experience?"
+
+"It is not for me to dispute with your majesty," replied the prudent
+vizier.
+
+"Speak your mind freely; I desire and command it," said the sultan.
+
+"Then I am of opinion," answered the vizier, "that people are often led
+to believe others fortunate, or unfortunate, merely because they only
+know the general outline of their histories; and are ignorant of the
+incidents and events in which they have shown prudence or imprudence. I
+have heard, for instance, that there are at present, in this city, two
+men, who are remarkable for their good and bad fortune: one is called
+Murad the Unlucky, and the other Saladin the Lucky. Now, I am inclined
+to think, if we could hear their stories, we should find that one is a
+prudent and the other an imprudent character."
+
+"Where do these men live?" interrupted the sultan. "I will hear their
+histories from their own lips before I sleep."
+
+"Murad the Unlucky lives in the next square," said the vizier.
+
+The sultan desired to go thither immediately. Scarcely had they entered
+the square, when they heard the cry of loud lamentations. They followed
+the sound till they came to a house of which the door was open, and where
+there was a man tearing his turban, and weeping bitterly. They asked the
+cause of his distress, and he pointed to the fragments of a china vase,
+which lay on the pavement at his door.
+
+"This seems undoubtedly to be beautiful china," said the sultan, taking
+up one of the broken pieces; "but can the loss of a china vase be the
+cause of such violent grief and despair?"
+
+"Ah, gentlemen," said the owner of the vase, suspending his lamentations,
+and looking at the dress of the pretended merchants, "I see that you are
+strangers: you do not know how much cause I have for grief and despair!
+You do not know that you are speaking to Murad the Unlucky! Were you to
+hear all the unfortunate accidents that have happened to me, from the
+time I was born till this instant, you would perhaps pity me, and
+acknowledge I have just cause for despair."
+
+Curiosity was strongly expressed by the sultan; and the hope of obtaining
+sympathy inclined Murad to gratify it by the recital of his adventures.
+"Gentlemen," said he, "I scarcely dare invite you into the house of such
+an unlucky being as I am; but if you will venture to take a night's
+lodging under my roof, you shall hear at your leisure the story of my
+misfortunes."
+
+The sultan and the vizier excused themselves from spending the night with
+Murad, saying that they were obliged to proceed to their khan, where they
+should be expected by their companions; but they begged permission to
+repose themselves for half an hour in his house, and besought him to
+relate the history of his life, if it would not renew his grief too much
+to recollect his misfortunes.
+
+Few men are so miserable as not to like to talk of their misfortunes,
+where they have, or where they think they have, any chance of obtaining
+compassion. As soon as the pretended merchants were seated, Murad began
+his story in the following manner:--
+
+"My father was a merchant of this city. The night before I was born he
+dreamed that I came into the world with the head of a dog and the tail of
+a dragon; and that, in haste to conceal my deformity, he rolled me up in
+a piece of linen, which unluckily proved to be the grand seignior's
+turban; who, enraged at his insolence in touching his turban, commanded
+that his head should be struck off.
+
+"My father awaked before he lost his head, but not before he had lost
+half his wits from the terror of his dream. He considered it as a
+warning sent from above, and consequently determined to avoid the sight
+of me. He would not stay to see whether I should really be born with the
+head of a dog and the tail of a dragon; but he set out, the next morning,
+on a voyage to Aleppo.
+
+"He was absent for upwards of seven years; and during that time my
+education was totally neglected. One day I inquired from my mother why I
+had been named Murad the Unlucky. She told me that this name was given
+to me in consequence of my father's dream; but she added that perhaps it
+might be forgotten, if I proved fortunate in my future life. My nurse, a
+very old woman, who was present, shook her head, with a look which I
+shall never forget, and whispered to my mother loud enough for me to
+hear, 'Unlucky he was, and is, and ever will be. Those that are born to
+ill luck cannot help themselves; nor can any, but the great prophet,
+Mahomet himself, do anything for them. It is a folly for an unlucky
+person to strive with their fate: it is better to yield to it at once.'
+
+"This speech made a terrible impression upon me, young as I then was; and
+every accident that happened to me afterwards confirmed my belief in my
+nurse's prognostic. I was in my eighth year when my father returned from
+abroad. The year after he came home my brother Saladin was born, who was
+named Saladin the Lucky, because the day he was born a vessel freighted
+with rich merchandise for my father arrived safely in port.
+
+"I will not weary you with a relation of all the little instances of good
+fortune by which my brother Saladin was distinguished, even during his
+childhood. As he grew up, his success in everything he undertook was as
+remarkable as my ill luck in all that I attempted. From the time the
+rich vessel arrived, we lived in splendour; and the supposed prosperous
+state of my father's affairs was of course attributed to the influence of
+my brother Saladin's happy destiny.
+
+"When Saladin was about twenty, my father was taken dangerously ill; and
+as he felt that he should not recover, he sent for my brother to the side
+of his bed, and, to his great surprise, informed him that the
+magnificence in which we had lived had exhausted all his wealth; that his
+affairs were in the greatest disorder; for, having trusted to the hope of
+continual success, he had embarked in projects beyond his powers.
+
+"The sequel was, he had nothing remaining to leave to his children but
+two large china vases, remarkable for their beauty, but still more
+valuable on account of certain verses inscribed upon them in an unknown
+character, which were supposed to operate as a talisman or charm in
+favour of their possessors.
+
+"Both these vases my father bequeathed to my brother Saladin; declaring
+he could not venture to leave either of them to me, because I was so
+unlucky that I should inevitably break it. After his death, however, my
+brother Saladin, who was blessed with a generous temper, gave me my
+choice of the two vases; and endeavoured to raise my spirits by repeating
+frequently that he had no faith either in good fortune or ill fortune.
+
+"I could not be of his opinion, though I felt and acknowledged his
+kindness in trying to persuade me out of my settled melancholy. I knew
+it was in vain for me to exert myself, because I was sure that, do what I
+would, I should still be Murad the Unlucky. My brother, on the contrary,
+was nowise cast down, even by the poverty in which my father left us: he
+said he was sure he should find some means of maintaining himself; and so
+he did.
+
+"On examining our china vases, he found in them a powder of a bright
+scarlet colour; and it occurred to him that it would make a fine dye. He
+tried it, and after some trouble, it succeeded to admiration.
+
+"During my father's lifetime, my mother had been supplied with rich
+dresses by one of the merchants who was employed by the ladies of the
+grand seignior's seraglio. My brother had done this merchant some
+trifling favours, and, upon application to him, he readily engaged to
+recommend the new scarlet dye. Indeed, it was so beautiful, that, the
+moment it was seen, it was preferred to every other colour. Saladin's
+shop was soon crowded with customers; and his winning manners and
+pleasant conversation were almost as advantageous to him as his scarlet
+dye. On the contrary, I observed that the first glance at my melancholy
+countenance was sufficient to disgust every one who saw me. I perceived
+this plainly; and it only confirmed me the more in my belief in my own
+evil destiny.
+
+"It happened one day that a lady, richly apparelled and attended by two
+female slaves, came to my brother's house to make some purchases. He was
+out, and I alone was left to attend to the shop. After she had looked
+over some goods, she chanced to see my china vase, which was in the room.
+She took a prodigious fancy to it, and offered me any price if I would
+part with it; but this I declined doing, because I believed that I should
+draw down upon my head some dreadful calamity if I voluntarily
+relinquished the talisman. Irritated by my refusal, the lady, according
+to the custom of her sex, became more resolute in her purpose; but
+neither entreaties nor money could change my determination. Provoked
+beyond measure at my obstinacy, as she called it, she left the house.
+
+"On my brother's return, I related to him what had happened, and expected
+that he would have praised me for my prudence; but, on the contrary, he
+blamed me for the superstitious value I set upon the verses on my vase;
+and observed that it would be the height of folly to lose a certain means
+of advancing my fortune for the uncertain hope of magical protection. I
+could not bring myself to be of his opinion; I had not the courage to
+follow the advice he gave. The next day the lady returned, and my
+brother sold his vase to her for ten thousand pieces of gold. This money
+he laid out in the most advantageous manner, by purchasing a new stock of
+merchandise. I repented when it was too late; but I believe it is part
+of the fatality attending certain persons, that they cannot decide
+rightly at the proper moment. When the opportunity has been lost, I have
+always regretted that I did not do exactly the contrary to what I had
+previously determined upon. Often, whilst I was hesitating, the
+favourable moment passed.[1] Now this is what I call being unlucky. But
+to proceed with my story.
+
+    [1] "Whom the gods wish to destroy, they first deprive of
+    understanding."
+
+"The lady who bought my brother Saladin's vase was the favourite of the
+Sultan, and all-powerful in the seraglio. Her dislike to me, in
+consequence of my opposition to her wishes, was so violent, that she
+refused to return to my brother's house while I remained there. He was
+unwilling to part with me; but I could not bear to be the ruin of so good
+a brother. Without telling him my design, I left his house careless of
+what should become of me. Hunger, however, soon compelled me to think of
+some immediate mode of obtaining relief. I sat down upon a stone, before
+the door of a baker's shop: the smell of hot bread tempted me in, and
+with a feeble voice I demanded charity.
+
+"The master baker gave me as much bread as I could eat, upon condition
+that I should change dresses with him and carry the rolls for him through
+the city this day. To this I readily consented; but I had soon reason to
+repent of my compliance. Indeed, if my ill-luck had not, as usual,
+deprived me at this critical moment of memory and judgment, I should
+never have complied with the baker's treacherous proposal. For some time
+before, the people of Constantinople had been much dissatisfied with the
+weight and quality of the bread furnished by the bakers. This species of
+discontent has often been the sure forerunner of an insurrection; and, in
+these disturbances, the master bakers frequently lose their lives. All
+these circumstances I knew, but they did not occur to my memory when they
+might have been useful.
+
+"I changed dresses with the baker; but scarcely had I proceeded through
+the adjoining streets with my rolls before the mob began to gather round
+me with reproaches and execrations. The crowd pursued me even to the
+gates of the grand seignior's palace, and the grand vizier, alarmed at
+their violence, sent out an order to have my head struck off; the usual
+remedy, in such cases, being to strike off the baker's head.
+
+"I now fell upon my knees, and protested I was not the baker for whom
+they took me; that I had no connection with him; and that I had never
+furnished the people of Constantinople with bread that was not weight. I
+declared I had merely changed clothes with a master baker for this day,
+and that I should not have done so but for the evil destiny which governs
+all my actions. Some of the mob exclaimed that I deserved to lose my
+head for my folly; but others took pity on me, and whilst the officer,
+who was sent to execute the vizier's order, turned to speak to some of
+the noisy rioters, those who were touched by my misfortune opened a
+passage for me through the crowd, and thus favoured, I effected my
+escape.
+
+"I quitted Constantinople; my vase I had left in the care of my brother.
+At some miles' distance from the city I overtook a party of soldiers. I
+joined them, and learning that they were going to embark with the rest of
+the grand seignior's army for Egypt, I resolved to accompany them. 'If
+it be,' thought I, 'the will of Mahomet that I should perish, the sooner
+I meet my fate the better.' The despondency into which I was sunk was
+attended by so great a degree of indolence, that I scarcely would take
+the necessary means to preserve my existence. During our passage to
+Egypt I sat all day long upon the deck of the vessel, smoking my pipe,
+and I am convinced that if a storm had risen, as I expected, I should not
+have taken my pipe from my mouth, nor should I have handled a rope to
+save myself from destruction. Such is the effect of that species of
+resignation, or torpor, whichever you please to call it, to which my
+strong belief in fatality had reduced my mind.
+
+"We landed, however, safely, contrary to my melancholy forebodings. By a
+trifling accident, not worth relating, I was detained longer than any of
+my companions in the vessel when we disembarked, and I did not arrive at
+the camp till late at night. It was moonlight, and I could see the whole
+scene distinctly. There was a vast number of small tents scattered over
+a desert of white sand; a few date-trees were visible at a distance; all
+was gloomy, and all still; no sound was to be heard but that of the
+camels feeding near the tents, and, as I walked on, I met with no human
+creature.
+
+"My pipe was now out, and I quickened my pace a little towards a fire
+which I saw near one of the tents. As I proceeded, my eye was caught by
+something sparkling in the sand: it was a ring. I picked it up and put
+it on my finger, resolving to give it to the public crier the next
+morning, who might find out its rightful owner; but, by ill-luck, I put
+it on my little finger, for which it was much too large, and as I
+hastened towards the fire to light my pipe, I dropped the ring. I
+stooped to search for it amongst the provender on which a mule was
+feeding, and the cursed animal gave me so violent a kick on the head that
+I could not help roaring aloud.
+
+"My cries awakened those who slept in the tent near which the mule was
+feeding. Provoked at being disturbed, the soldiers were ready enough to
+think ill of me, and they took it for granted that I was a thief, who had
+stolen the ring I pretended to have just found. The ring was taken from
+me by force, and the next day I was bastinadoed for having found it; the
+officer persisting in the belief that stripes would make me confess where
+I had concealed certain other articles of value which had lately been
+missed in the camp. All this was the consequence of my being in a hurry
+to light my pipe and of my having put the ring on a finger that was too
+little for it, which no one but Murad the Unlucky would have done.
+
+"When I was able to walk again, after my wounds were healed, I went into
+one of the tents distinguished by a red flag, having been told that these
+were coffee-houses. Whilst I was drinking coffee I heard a stranger near
+me complaining that he had not been able to recover a valuable ring he
+had lost, although he had caused his loss to be published for three days
+by the public crier, offering a reward of two hundred sequins to whoever
+should restore it. I guessed that this was the very ring which I had
+unfortunately found. I addressed myself to the stranger, and promised to
+point out to him the person who had forced it from me. The stranger
+recovered his ring, and, being convinced that I had acted honestly, he
+made me a present of two hundred sequins, as some amends for the
+punishment which I had unjustly suffered on his account.
+
+"Now you would imagine that this purse of gold was advantageous to me.
+Far the contrary; it was the cause of new misfortunes.
+
+"One night, when I thought that the soldiers who were in the same tent
+with me were all fast asleep, I indulged myself in the pleasure of
+counting my treasure. The next day I was invited by my companions to
+drink sherbet with them. What they mixed with the sherbet which I drank
+I know not, but I could not resist the drowsiness it brought on. I fell
+into a profound slumber, and when I awoke, I found myself lying under a
+date-tree, at some distance from the camp.
+
+"The first thing I thought of when I came to my recollection was my purse
+of sequins. The purse I found still safe in my girdle; but on opening
+it, I perceived that it was filled with pebbles, and not a single sequin
+was left. I had no doubt that I had been robbed by the soldiers with
+whom I had drunk sherbet, and I am certain that some of them must have
+been awake the night I counted my money; otherwise, as I had never
+trusted the secret of my riches to any one, they could not have suspected
+me of possessing any property; for ever since I kept company with them I
+had appeared to be in great indigence.
+
+"I applied in vain to the superior officers for redress: the soldiers
+protested they were innocent; no positive proof appeared against them,
+and I gained nothing by my complaint but ridicule and ill-will. I called
+myself, in the first transport of my grief, by that name which, since my
+arrival in Egypt, I had avoided to pronounce: I called myself Murad the
+Unlucky. The name and the story ran through the camp, and I was
+accosted, afterwards, very frequently, by this appellation. Some,
+indeed, varied their wit by calling me Murad with the purse of pebbles.
+
+"All that I had yet suffered is nothing compared to my succeeding
+misfortunes.
+
+"It was the custom at this time, in the Turkish camp, for the soldiers to
+amuse themselves with firing at a mark. The superior officers
+remonstrated against this dangerous practice, but ineffectually.
+Sometimes a party of soldiers would stop firing for a few minutes, after
+a message was brought them from their commanders, and then they would
+begin again, in defiance of all orders. Such was the want of discipline
+in our army, that this disobedience went unpunished. In the meantime,
+the frequency of the danger made most men totally regardless of it. I
+have seen tents pierced with bullets, in which parties were quietly
+seated smoking their pipes, whilst those without were preparing to take
+fresh aim at the red flag on the top.
+
+"This apathy proceeded, in some, from unconquerable indolence of body; in
+others, from the intoxication produced by the fumes of tobacco and of
+opium; but in most of my brother Turks it arose from the confidence which
+the belief in predestination inspired. When a bullet killed one of their
+companions, they only observed, scarcely taking the pipes from their
+mouths, 'Our hour is not yet come: it is not the will of Mahomet that we
+should fall.'
+
+"I own that this rash security appeared to me, at first, surprising, but
+it soon ceased to strike me with wonder, and it even tended to confirm my
+favourite opinion, that some were born to good and some to evil fortune.
+I became almost as careless as my companions, from following the same
+course of reasoning. 'It is not,' thought I, 'in the power of human
+prudence to avert the stroke of destiny. I shall perhaps die to-morrow;
+let me therefore enjoy to-day.'
+
+"I now made it my study every day to procure as much amusement as
+possible. My poverty, as you will imagine, restricted me from indulgence
+and excess, but I soon found means to spend what did not actually belong
+to me. There were certain Jews who were followers of the camp, and who,
+calculating on the probability of victory for our troops, advanced money
+to the soldiers, for which they engaged to pay these usurers exorbitant
+interest. The Jew to whom I applied traded with me also, upon the belief
+that my brother Saladin, with whose character and circumstances he was
+acquainted, would pay my debts if I should fall. With the money I raised
+from the Jew I continually bought coffee and opium, of which I grew
+immoderately fond. In the delirium it created I forgot all my
+misfortunes, all fear of the future.
+
+"One day, when I had raised my spirits by an unusual quantity of opium, I
+was strolling through the camp, sometimes singing, sometimes dancing,
+like a madman, and repeating that I was not now Murad the Unlucky. Whilst
+these words were on my lips, a friendly spectator, who was in possession
+of his sober senses, caught me by the arm, and attempted to drag me from
+the place where I was exposing myself. 'Do you not see,' said he, 'those
+soldiers, who are firing at a mark? I saw one of them, just now,
+deliberately taking aim at your turban; and observe, he is now reloading
+his piece.' My ill luck prevailed even at this instant--the only instant
+in my life when I defied its power. I struggled with my adviser,
+repeating, 'I am not the wretch you take me for; I am not Murad the
+Unlucky.' He fled from the danger himself; I remained, and in a few
+seconds afterwards a ball reached me, and I fell senseless on the sand.
+
+"The ball was cut out of my body by an awkward surgeon, who gave me ten
+times more pain than was necessary. He was particularly hurried at this
+time, because the army had just received orders to march in a few hours,
+and all was confusion in the camp. My wound was excessively painful, and
+the fear of being left behind with those who were deemed incurable added
+to my torments. Perhaps, if I had kept myself quiet, I might have
+escaped some of the evils I afterwards endured; but, as I have repeatedly
+told you, gentlemen, it was my ill fortune never to be able to judge what
+was best to be done till the time for prudence was past.
+
+"During the day, when my fever was at the height, and when my orders were
+to keep my bed, contrary to my natural habits of indolence, I rose a
+hundred times, and went out of my tent in the very heat of the day, to
+satisfy my curiosity as to the number of the tents which had not been
+struck, and of the soldiers who had not yet marched. The orders to march
+were tardily obeyed, and many hours elapsed before our encampment was
+raised. Had I submitted to my surgeon's orders, I might have been in a
+state to accompany the most dilatory of the stragglers; I could have
+borne, perhaps, the slow motion of a litter, on which some of the sick
+were transported; but in the evening, when the surgeon came to dress my
+wounds, he found me in such a situation that it was scarcely possible to
+remove me.
+
+"He desired a party of soldiers, who were left to bring up the rear, to
+call for me the next morning. They did so; but they wanted to put me
+upon the mule which I recollected, by a white streak on its back, to be
+the cursed animal that had kicked me whilst I was looking for the ring. I
+could not be prevailed upon to go upon this unlucky animal. I tried to
+persuade the soldiers to carry me, and they took me a little way; but,
+soon growing weary of their burden, they laid me down on the sand,
+pretending that they were going to fill a skin with water at a spring
+they had discovered, and bade me lie still, and wait for their return.
+
+"I waited and waited, longing for the water to moisten my parched lips;
+but no water came--no soldiers returned; and there I lay, for several
+hours, expecting every moment to breathe my last. I made no effort to
+move, for I was now convinced my hour was come, and that it was the will
+of Mahomet that I should perish in this miserable manner, and lie
+unburied like a dog: 'a death,' thought I, 'worthy of Murad the Unlucky.'
+
+"My forebodings were not this time just; a detachment of English soldiers
+passed near the place where I lay: my groans were heard by them, and they
+humanely came to my assistance. They carried me with them, dressed my
+wound, and treated me with the utmost tenderness. Christians though they
+were, I must acknowledge that I had reason to love them better than any
+of the followers of Mahomet, my good brother only excepted.
+
+"Under their care I recovered; but scarcely had I regained my strength
+before I fell into new disasters. It was hot weather, and my thirst was
+excessive. I went out with a party, in hopes of finding a spring of
+water. The English soldiers began to dig for a well, in a place pointed
+out to them by one of their men of science. I was not inclined to such
+hard labour, but preferred sauntering on in search of a spring. I saw at
+a distance something that looked like a pool of water; and I pointed it
+out to my companions. Their man of science warned me by his interpreter
+not to trust to this deceitful appearance; for that such were common in
+this country, and that, when I came close to the spot, I should find no
+water there. He added, that it was at a greater distance than I
+imagined; and that I should, in all probability, be lost in the desert if
+I attempted to follow this phantom.
+
+"I was so unfortunate as not to attend to his advice: I set out in
+pursuit of this accursed delusion, which assuredly was the work of evil
+spirits, who clouded my reason, and allured me into their dominion. I
+went on, hour after hour, in expectation continually of reaching the
+object of my wishes; but it fled faster than I pursued, and I discovered
+at last that the Englishman, who had doubtless gained his information
+from the people of the country, was right; and that the shining
+appearance which I had taken for water was a mere deception.
+
+"I was now exhausted with fatigue: I looked back in vain after the
+companions I had left; I could see neither men, animals, nor any trace of
+vegetation in the sandy desert. I had no resource but, weary as I was,
+to measure back my footsteps, which were imprinted in the sand.
+
+"I slowly and sorrowfully traced them as my guides in this unknown land.
+Instead of yielding to my indolent inclinations, I ought, however, to
+have made the best of my way back, before the evening breeze sprang up. I
+felt the breeze rising, and, unconscious of my danger, I rejoiced, and
+opened my bosom to meet it; but what was my dismay when I saw that the
+wind swept before it all trace of my footsteps in the sand. I knew not
+which way to proceed; I was struck with despair, tore my garments, threw
+off my turban, and cried aloud; but neither human voice nor echo answered
+me. The silence was dreadful. I had tasted no food for many hours, and
+I now became sick and faint. I recollected that I had put a supply of
+opium into the folds of my turban; but, alas! when I took my turban up, I
+found that the opium had fallen out. I searched for it in vain on the
+sand, where I had thrown the turban.
+
+"I stretched myself out upon the ground, and yielded without further
+struggle to my evil destiny. What I suffered from thirst, hunger, and
+heat cannot be described. At last I fell into a sort of trance, during
+which images of various kinds seemed to flit before my eyes. How long I
+remained in this state I know not: but I remember that I was brought to
+my senses by a loud shout, which came from persons belonging to a caravan
+returning from Mecca. This was a shout of joy for their safe arrival at
+a certain spring, well known to them in this part of the desert.
+
+"The spring was not a hundred yards from the spot where I lay; yet, such
+had been the fate of Murad the Unlucky, that he missed the reality,
+whilst he had been hours in pursuit of the phantom. Feeble and
+spiritless as I was, I sent forth as loud a cry as I could, in hopes of
+obtaining assistance; and I endeavoured to crawl to the place from which
+the voices appeared to come. The caravan rested for a considerable time
+whilst the slaves filled the skins with water, and whilst the camels took
+in their supply. I worked myself on towards them; yet, notwithstanding
+my efforts, I was persuaded that, according to my usual ill-fortune, I
+should never be able to make them hear my voice. I saw them mount their
+camels! I took off my turban, unrolled it, and waved it in the air. My
+signal was seen! The caravan came towards me!
+
+"I had scarcely strength to speak; a slave gave me some water, and, after
+I had drunk, I explained to them who I was, and how I came into this
+situation.
+
+"Whilst I was speaking, one of the travellers observed the purse which
+hung to my girdle: it was the same the merchant for whom I recovered the
+ring had given to me; I had carefully preserved it, because the initials
+of my benefactor's name and a passage from the Koran were worked upon it.
+When he give it to me, he said that perhaps we should meet again in some
+other part of the world, and he should recognise me by this token. The
+person who now took notice of the purse was his brother; and when I
+related to him how I had obtained it, he had the goodness to take me
+under his protection. He was a merchant, who was now going with the
+caravan to Grand Cairo: he offered to take me with him, and I willingly
+accepted the proposal, promising to serve him as faithfully as any of his
+slaves. The caravan proceeded, and I was carried with it."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+"The merchant, who was become my master, treated me with great kindness;
+but on hearing me relate the whole series of my unfortunate adventures,
+he exacted a promise from me that I would do nothing without first
+consulting him. 'Since you are so unlucky, Murad,' said he, 'that you
+always choose for the worst when you choose for yourself, you should
+trust entirely to the judgment of a wiser or a more fortunate friend.'
+
+"I fared well in the service of this merchant, who was a man of a mild
+disposition, and who was so rich that he could afford to be generous to
+all his dependants. It was my business to see his camels loaded and
+unloaded at proper places, to count his bales of merchandise, and to take
+care that they were not mixed with those of his companions. This I
+carefully did till the day we arrived at Alexandria; when, unluckily, I
+neglected to count the bales, taking it for granted that they were all
+right, as I had found them so the preceding day. However, when we were
+to go on board the vessel that was to take us to Cairo, I perceived that
+three bales of cotton were missing.
+
+"I ran to inform my master, who, though a good deal provoked at my
+negligence, did not reproach me as I deserved. The public crier was
+immediately sent round the city, to offer a reward for the recovery of
+the merchandise; and it was restored by one of the merchants' slaves with
+whom we had travelled. The vessel was now under sail; my master and I
+and the bales of cotton were obliged to follow in a boat; and when we
+were taken on board, the captain declared he was so loaded, that he could
+not tell where to stow the bales of cotton. After much difficulty, he
+consented to let them remain upon deck; and I promised my master to watch
+them night and day.
+
+"We had a prosperous voyage, and were actually in sight of shore, which
+the captain said we could not fail to reach early the next morning. I
+stayed, as usual, this night upon deck, and solaced myself by smoking my
+pipe. Ever since I had indulged in this practice at the camp at El
+Arish, I could not exist without opium and tobacco. I suppose that my
+reason was this night a little clouded with the dose I took; but towards
+midnight I was sobered by terror. I started up from the deck on which I
+had stretched myself; my turban was in flames--the bale of cotton on
+which I had rested was all on fire. I awakened two sailors, who were
+fast asleep on deck. The consternation became general, and the confusion
+increased the danger. The captain and my master were the most active,
+and suffered the most, in extinguishing the flames--my master was
+terribly scorched.
+
+"For my part, I was not suffered to do anything; the captain ordered that
+I should be bound to the mast; and when at last the flames were
+extinguished, the passengers, with one accord, besought him to keep me
+bound hand and foot, lest I should be the cause of some new disaster. All
+that had happened was, indeed, occasioned by my ill-luck. I had laid my
+pipe down, when I was falling asleep, upon the bale of cotton that was
+beside me. The fire from my pipe fell out and set the cotton in flames.
+Such was the mixture of rage and terror with which I had inspired the
+whole crew, that I am sure they would have set me ashore on a desert
+island rather than have had me on board for a week longer. Even my
+humane master, I could perceive, was secretly impatient to get rid of
+Murad the Unlucky and his evil fortune.
+
+"You may believe that I was heartily glad when we landed, and when I was
+unbound. My master put a purse containing fifty sequins into my hand,
+and bade me farewell. 'Use this money prudently, Murad, if you can,'
+said he, 'and perhaps your fortune may change.' Of this I had little
+hopes, but determined to lay out my money as prudently as possible.
+
+"As I was walking through the streets of Grand Cairo, considering how I
+should lay out my fifty sequins to the greatest advantage, I was stopped
+by one who called me by my name, and asked me if I could pretend to have
+forgotten his face. I looked steadily at him, and recollected to my
+sorrow that he was the Jew Rachub, from whom I had borrowed certain sums
+of money at the camp at El Arish. What brought him to Grand Cairo,
+except it was my evil destiny, I cannot tell. He would not quit me; he
+would take no excuses; he said he knew that I had deserted twice, once
+from the Turkish and once from the English army; that I was not entitled
+to any pay; and that he could not imagine it possible that my brother
+Saladin would own me or pay my debts.
+
+"I replied, for I was vexed by the insolence of this Jewish dog, that I
+was not, as he imagined, a beggar: that I had the means of paying him my
+just debt, but that I hoped he would not extort from me all that
+exorbitant interest which none but a Jew could exact. He smiled, and
+answered that if a Turk loved opium better than money this was no fault
+of his; that he had supplied me with what I loved best in the world, and
+that I ought not to complain when he expected I should return the favour.
+
+"I will not weary you, gentlemen, with all the arguments that passed
+between me and Rachub. At last we compromised matters; he would take
+nothing less than the whole debt: but he let me have at a very cheap rate
+a chest of second-hand clothes, by which he assured me I might make my
+fortune. He brought them to Grand Cairo, he said, for the purpose of
+selling them to slave merchants, who, at this time of the year, were in
+want of them to supply their slaves; but he was in haste to get home to
+his wife and family at Constantinople, and, therefore, he was willing to
+make over to a friend the profits of this speculation. I should have
+distrusted Rachub's professions of friendship, and especially of
+disinterestedness, but he took me with him to the khan where his goods
+were, and unlocked the chest of clothes to show them to me. They were of
+the richest and finest materials, and had been but little worn. I could
+not doubt the evidence of my senses; the bargain was concluded, and the
+Jew sent porters to my inn with the chest.
+
+"The next day I repaired to the public market-place; and, when my
+business was known, I had choice of customers before night--my chest was
+empty, and my purse was full. The profit I made upon the sale of these
+clothes was so considerable, that I could not help feeling astonishment
+at Rachub's having brought himself so readily to relinquish them.
+
+"A few days after I had disposed of the contents of my chest, a Damascene
+merchant, who had bought two suits of apparel from me, told me, with a
+very melancholy face, that both the female slaves who had put on these
+clothes were sick. I could not conceive that the clothes were the cause
+of their sickness; but soon afterwards, as I was crossing the market, I
+was attacked by at least a dozen merchants, who made similar complaints.
+They insisted upon knowing how I came by the garments, and demanded
+whether I had worn any of them myself. This day I had, for the first
+time, indulged myself with wearing a pair of yellow slippers, the only
+finery I had reserved for myself out of all the tempting goods. Convinced
+by my wearing these slippers that I could have had no insidious designs,
+since I shared the danger, whatever it might be, the merchants were a
+little pacified; but what was my terror and remorse the next day, when
+one of them came to inform me that plague-boils had broken out under the
+arms of all the slaves who had worn this pestilential apparel! On
+looking carefully into the chest, we found the word 'Smyrna' written, and
+half effaced, upon the lid. Now, the plague had for some time raged at
+Smyrna; and, as the merchants suspected, these clothes had certainly
+belonged to persons who had died of that distemper. This was the reason
+why the Jew was willing to sell them to me so cheap; and it was for this
+reason that he would not stay at Grand Cairo himself to reap the profits
+of his speculation. Indeed, if I had paid attention to it at the proper
+time, a slight circumstance might have revealed the truth to me. Whilst
+I was bargaining with the Jew, before he opened the chest, he swallowed a
+large dram of brandy, and stuffed his nostrils with sponge dipped in
+vinegar; he told me, he did to prevent his perceiving the smell of musk,
+which always threw him into convulsions.
+
+"The horror I felt when I discovered that I had spread the infection of
+the plague, and that I had probably caught it myself, overpowered my
+senses--a cold dew spread over all my limbs, and I fell upon the lid of
+the fatal chest in a swoon. It is said that fear disposes people to take
+the infection; however this may be, I sickened that evening, and soon was
+in a raging fever. It was worse for me whenever the delirium left me,
+and I could reflect upon the miseries my ill-fortune had occasioned. In
+my first lucid interval I looked round, and saw that I had been removed
+from the khan to a wretched hut. An old woman, who was smoking her pipe
+in the farthest corner of my room, informed me that I had been sent out
+of the town of Grand Cairo by order of the cadi, to whom the merchants
+had made their complaint. The fatal chest was burnt, and the house in
+which I had lodged razed to the ground. 'And if it had not been for me,'
+continued the old woman, 'you would have been dead probably at this
+instant; but I have made a vow to our great Prophet that I would never
+neglect an opportunity of doing a good action; therefore, when you were
+deserted by all the world, I took care of you. Here, too, is your purse,
+which I saved from the rabble--and, what is more difficult, from the
+officers of justice. I will account to you for every part that I have
+expended; and will, moreover, tell you the reason of my making such an
+extraordinary vow.'
+
+"As I believed that this benevolent old woman took great pleasure in
+talking, I made an inclination of my head to thank her for her promised
+history, and she proceeded; but I must confess I did not listen with all
+the attention her narrative doubtless deserved. Even curiosity, the
+strongest passion of us Turks, was dead within me. I have no
+recollection of the old woman's story. It is as much as I can do to
+finish my own.
+
+"The weather became excessively hot; it was affirmed by some of the
+physicians that this heat would prove fatal to their patients; but,
+contrary to the prognostics of the physicians, it stopped the progress of
+the plague. I recovered, and found my purse much lightened by my
+illness. I divided the remainder of my money with my humane nurse, and
+sent her out into the city to inquire how matters were going on.
+
+"She brought me word that the fury of the plague had much abated, but
+that she had met several funerals, and that she had heard many of the
+merchants cursing the folly of Murad the Unlucky, who, as they said, had
+brought all this calamity upon the inhabitants of Cairo. Even fools,
+they say, learn by experience. I took care to burn the bed on which I
+had lain and the clothes I had worn; I concealed my real name, which I
+knew would inspire detestation, and gained admittance, with a crowd of
+other poor wretches, into a lazaretto, where I performed quarantine and
+offered up prayers daily for the sick.
+
+"When I thought it was impossible I could spread the infection, I took my
+passage home. I was eager to get away from Grand Cairo, where I knew I
+was an object of execration. I had a strange fancy haunting my mind; I
+imagined that all my misfortunes, since I left Constantinople, had arisen
+from my neglect of the talisman upon the beautiful china vase. I dreamed
+three times, when I was recovering from the plague, that a genius
+appeared to me, and said, in a reproachful tone, 'Murad, where is the
+vase that was entrusted to thy care?'
+
+"This dream operated strongly upon my imagination. As soon as we arrived
+at Constantinople, which we did, to my great surprise, without meeting
+with any untoward accidents, I went in search of my brother Saladin to
+inquire for my vase. He no longer lived in the house in which I left
+him, and I began to be apprehensive that he was dead, but a porter,
+hearing my inquiries, exclaimed, 'Who is there in Constantinople that is
+ignorant of the dwelling of Saladin the Lucky? Come with me, and I will
+show it to you.'
+
+"The mansion to which he conducted me looked so magnificent that I was
+almost afraid to enter lest there should be some mistake. But whilst I
+was hesitating the doors opened, and I heard my brother Saladin's voice.
+He saw me almost at the same instant that I fixed my eyes upon him, and
+immediately sprang forward to embrace me. He was the same good brother
+as ever, and I rejoiced in his prosperity with all my heart. 'Brother
+Saladin,' said I, 'can you now doubt that some men are born to be
+fortunate and others to be unfortunate? How often you used to dispute
+this point with me!'
+
+"'Let us not dispute it now in the public street,' said he, smiling; 'but
+come in and refresh yourself, and we will consider the question
+afterwards at leisure.'
+
+"'No, my dear brother,' said I, drawing back, 'you are too good: Murad
+the Unlucky shall not enter your house, lest he should draw down
+misfortunes upon you and yours. I come only to ask for my vase.'
+
+"'It is safe,' cried he; 'come in, and you shall see it: but I will not
+give it up till I have you in my house. I have none of these
+superstitious fears: pardon me the expression, but I have none of these
+superstitious fears.'
+
+"I yielded, entered his house, and was astonished at all I saw. My
+brother did not triumph in his prosperity; but, on the contrary, seemed
+intent only upon making me forget my misfortunes: he listened to the
+account of them with kindness, and obliged me by the recital of his
+history: which was, I must acknowledge, far less wonderful than my own.
+He seemed, by his own account, to have grown rich in the common course of
+things; or rather, by his own prudence. I allowed for his prejudices,
+and, unwilling to dispute farther with him, said, 'You must remain of
+your opinion, brother, and I of mine; you are Saladin the Lucky, and I
+Murad the Unlucky; and so we shall remain to the end of our lives.'
+
+"I had not been in his house four days when an accident happened, which
+showed how much I was in the right. The favourite of the sultan, to whom
+he had formerly sold his china vase, though her charms were now somewhat
+faded by time, still retained her power and her taste for magnificence.
+She commissioned my brother to bespeak for her, at Venice, the most
+splendid looking-glass that money could purchase. The mirror, after many
+delays and disappointments, at length arrived at my brother's house. He
+unpacked it, and sent to let the lady know it was in perfect safety. It
+was late in the evening, and she ordered it should remain where it was
+that night, and that it should be brought to the seraglio the next
+morning. It stood in a sort of ante-chamber to the room in which I
+slept; and with it were left some packages, containing glass chandeliers
+for an unfinished saloon in my brother's house. Saladin charged all his
+domestics to be vigilant this night, because he had money to a great
+amount by him, and there had been frequent robberies in our
+neighbourhood. Hearing these orders, I resolved to be in readiness at a
+moment's warning. I laid my scimitar beside me upon a cushion, and left
+my door half open, that I might hear the slightest noise in the
+ante-chamber or the great staircase. About midnight I was suddenly
+awakened by a noise in the ante-chamber. I started up, seized my
+scimitar, and the instant I got to the door, saw, by the light of the
+lamp which was burning in the room, a man standing opposite to me, with a
+drawn sword in his hand. I rushed forward, demanding what he wanted, and
+received no answer; but seeing him aim at me with his scimitar, I gave
+him, as I thought, a deadly blow. At this instant I heard a great crash;
+and the fragments of the looking-glass, which I had shivered, fell at my
+feet. At the same moment something black brushed by my shoulder: I
+pursued it, stumbled over the packages of glass, and rolled over them
+down the stairs.
+
+"My brother came out of his room to inquire the cause of all this
+disturbance; and when he saw the fine mirror broken, and me lying amongst
+the glass chandeliers at the bottom of the stairs, he could not forbear
+exclaiming, 'Well, brother! you are indeed Murad the Unlucky.'
+
+"When the first emotion was over, he could not, however, forbear laughing
+at my situation. With a degree of goodness, which made me a thousand
+times more sorry for the accident, he came downstairs to help me up, gave
+me his hand, and said, 'Forgive me if I was angry with you at first. I
+am sure you did not mean to do me any injury; but tell me how all this
+has happened?'
+
+"Whilst Saladin was speaking, I heard the same kind of noise which had
+alarmed me in the ante-chamber; but, on looking back, I saw only a black
+pigeon, which flew swiftly by me, unconscious of the mischief he had
+occasioned. This pigeon I had unluckily brought into the house the
+preceding day; and had been feeding and trying to tame it for my young
+nephews. I little thought it would be the cause of such disasters. My
+brother, though he endeavoured to conceal his anxiety from me, was much
+disturbed at the idea of meeting the favourite's displeasure, who would
+certainly be grievously disappointed by the loss of her splendid looking-
+glass. I saw that I should inevitably be his ruin if I continued in his
+house; and no persuasions could prevail upon me to prolong my stay. My
+generous brother, seeing me determined to go, said to me, 'A factor, whom
+I have employed for some years to sell merchandise for me, died a few
+days ago. Will you take his place? I am rich enough to bear any little
+mistakes you may fall into from ignorance of business; and you will have
+a partner who is able and willing to assist you.'
+
+"I was touched to the heart by this kindness, especially at such a time
+as this. He sent one of his slaves with me to the shop in which you now
+see me, gentlemen. The slave, by my brother's directions, brought with
+us my china vase, and delivered it safely to me, with this message: 'The
+scarlet dye that was found in this vase, and in its fellow, was the first
+cause of Saladin's making the fortune he now enjoys: he therefore does no
+more than justice in sharing that fortune with his brother Murad.'
+
+"I was now placed in as advantageous a situation as possible; but my mind
+was ill at ease when I reflected that the broken mirror might be my
+brother's ruin. The lady by whom it had been bespoken was, I well knew,
+of a violent temper; and this disappointment was sufficient to provoke
+her to vengeance. My brother sent me word this morning, however, that
+though her displeasure was excessive, it was in my power to prevent any
+ill consequences that might ensue. 'In my power!' I exclaimed; 'then,
+indeed, I am happy! Tell my brother there is nothing I will not do to
+show him my gratitude and to save him from the consequences of my folly.'
+
+"The slave who was sent by my brother seemed unwilling to name what was
+required of me, saying that his master was afraid I should not like to
+grant the request. I urged him to speak freely, and he then told me the
+favourite declared nothing would make her amends for the loss of the
+mirror but the fellow-vase to that which she had bought from Saladin. It
+was impossible for me to hesitate; gratitude for my brother's generous
+kindness overcame my superstitious obstinacy, and I sent him word I would
+carry the vase to him myself.
+
+"I took it down this evening from the shelf on which it stood; it was
+covered with dust, and I washed it, but, unluckily, in endeavouring to
+clean the inside from the remains of the scarlet powder, I poured hot
+water into it, and immediately I heard a simmering noise, and my vase, in
+a few instants, burst asunder with a loud explosion. These fragments,
+alas! are all that remain. The measure of my misfortunes is now
+completed! Can you wonder, gentlemen, that I bewail my evil destiny? Am
+I not justly called Murad the Unlucky? Here end all my hopes in this
+world! Better would it have been if I had died long ago! Better that I
+had never been born! Nothing I ever have done or attempted has
+prospered. Murad the Unlucky is my name, and ill-fate has marked me for
+her own."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+The lamentations of Murad were interrupted by the entrance of Saladin.
+Having waited in vain for some hours, he now came to see if any disaster
+had happened to his brother Murad. He was surprised at the sight of the
+two pretended merchants, and could not refrain from exclamations on
+beholding the broken vase. However, with his usual equanimity and good-
+nature, he began to console Murad; and, taking up the fragments, examined
+them carefully, one by one joined them together again, found that none of
+the edges of the china were damaged, and declared he could have it mended
+so as to look as well as ever.
+
+Murad recovered his spirits upon this. "Brother," said he, "I comfort
+myself for being Murad the Unlucky when I reflect that you are Saladin
+the Lucky. See, gentlemen," continued he, turning to the pretended
+merchants, "scarcely has this most fortunate of men been five minutes in
+company before he gives a happy turn to affairs. His presence inspires
+joy: I observe your countenances, which had been saddened by my dismal
+history, have brightened up since he has made his appearance. Brother, I
+wish you would make these gentlemen some amends for the time they have
+wasted in listening to my catalogue of misfortunes by relating your
+history, which, I am sure, they will find rather more exhilarating."
+
+Saladin consented, on condition that the strangers would accompany him
+home and partake of a social banquet. They at first repeated the former
+excuse of their being obliged to return to their inn; but at length the
+sultan's curiosity prevailed, and he and his vizier went home with
+Saladin the Lucky, who, after supper, related his history in the
+following manner:--
+
+"My being called Saladin the Lucky first inspired me with confidence in
+myself; though I own that I cannot remember any extraordinary instances
+of good luck in my childhood. An old nurse of my mother's, indeed,
+repeated to me twenty times a day that nothing I undertook could fail to
+succeed, because I was Saladin the Lucky. I became presumptuous and
+rash; and my nurse's prognostics might have effectually prevented their
+accomplishment had I not, when I was about fifteen, been roused to
+reflection during a long confinement, which was the consequence of my
+youthful conceit and imprudence.
+
+"At this time there was at the Porte a Frenchman, an ingenious engineer,
+who was employed and favoured by the sultan, to the great astonishment of
+many of my prejudiced countrymen. On the grand seignior's birthday he
+exhibited some extraordinarily fine fireworks; and I, with numbers of the
+inhabitants of Constantinople, crowded to see them. I happened to stand
+near the place where the Frenchman was stationed; the crowd pressed upon
+him, and I amongst the rest; he begged we would, for our own sakes, keep
+at a greater distance, and warned us that we might be much hurt by the
+combustibles which he was using. I, relying upon my good fortune,
+disregarded all these cautions; and the consequence was that, as I
+touched some of the materials prepared for the fireworks, they exploded,
+dashed me upon the ground with great violence, and I was terribly burnt.
+
+"This accident, gentlemen, I consider as one of the most fortunate
+circumstances of my life; for it checked and corrected the presumption of
+my temper. During the time I was confined to my bed the French gentleman
+came frequently to see me. He was a very sensible man; and the
+conversations he had with me enlarged my mind and cured me of many
+foolish prejudices, especially of that which I had been taught to
+entertain concerning the predominance of what is called luck or fortune
+in human affairs. 'Though you are called Saladin the Lucky,' said he,
+'you find that your neglect of prudence has nearly brought you to the
+grave even in the bloom of youth. Take my advice, and henceforward trust
+more to prudence than to fortune. Let the multitude, if they will, call
+you Saladin the Lucky; but call yourself, and make yourself, Saladin the
+Prudent.'
+
+"These words left an indelible impression on my mind, and gave a new turn
+to my thoughts and character. My brother, Murad, has doubtless told you
+our difference of opinion on the subject of predestination produced
+between us frequent arguments; but we could never convince one another,
+and we each have acted, through life, in consequence of our different
+beliefs. To this I attribute my success and his misfortunes.
+
+"The first rise of my fortune, as you have probably heard from Murad, was
+owing to the scarlet dye, which I brought to perfection with infinite
+difficulty. The powder, it is true, was accidentally found by me in our
+china vases; but there it might have remained to this instant, useless,
+if I had not taken the pains to make it useful. I grant that we can only
+partially foresee and command events; yet on the use we make of our own
+powers, I think, depends our destiny. But, gentlemen, you would rather
+hear my adventures, perhaps, than my reflections; and I am truly
+concerned, for your sakes, that I have no wonderful events to relate. I
+am sorry I cannot tell you of my having been lost in a sandy desert. I
+have never had the plague, nor even been shipwrecked: I have been all my
+life an inhabitant of Constantinople, and have passed my time in a very
+quiet and uniform manner.
+
+"The money I received from the sultan's favourite for my china vase, as
+my brother may have told you, enabled me to trade on a more extensive
+scale. I went on steadily with my business, and made it my whole study
+to please my employers by all fair and honourable means. This industry
+and civility succeeded beyond my expectations: in a few years I was rich
+for a man in my way of business.
+
+"I will not proceed to trouble you with the journal of a petty merchant's
+life; I pass on to the incident which made a considerable change in my
+affairs.
+
+"A terrible fire broke out near the walls of the grand seignior's
+seraglio. As you are strangers, gentlemen, you may not have heard of
+this event, though it produced so great a sensation in Constantinople.
+The vizier's superb palace was utterly consumed, and the melted lead
+poured down from the roof of the mosque of St. Sophia. Various were the
+opinions formed by my neighbours respecting the cause of the
+conflagration. Some supposed it to be a punishment for the sultan's
+having neglected one Friday to appear at the mosque of St. Sophia; others
+considered it as a warning sent by Mahomet to dissuade the Porte from
+persisting in a war in which we were just engaged. The generality,
+however, of the coffee-house politicians contented themselves with
+observing that it was the will of Mahomet that the palace should be
+consumed. Satisfied by this supposition, they took no precaution to
+prevent similar accidents in their own houses. Never were fires so
+common in the city as at this period; scarcely a night passed without our
+being wakened by the cry of fire.
+
+"These frequent fires were rendered still more dreadful by villains, who
+were continually on the watch to increase the confusion by which they
+profited, and to pillage the houses of the sufferers. It was discovered
+that these incendiaries frequently skulked, towards evening, in the
+neighbourhood of the bezestein, where the richest merchants store their
+goods. Some of these wretches were detected in throwing _coundaks_, or
+matches, into the windows; and if these combustibles remained a
+sufficient time, they could not fail to set the house on fire.
+
+"Notwithstanding all these circumstances, many even of those who had
+property to preserve continued to repeat, 'It is the will of Mahomet,'
+and consequently to neglect all means of preservation. I, on the
+contrary, recollecting the lesson I had learned from the sensible
+foreigner, neither suffered my spirits to sink with superstitious fears
+of ill-luck, nor did I trust presumptuously to my good fortune. I took
+every possible means to secure myself. I never went to bed without
+having seen that all the lights and fires in the house were extinguished,
+and that I had a supply of water in the cistern. I had likewise learned
+from my Frenchman that wet mortar was the most effectual thing for
+stopping the progress of flames. I, therefore, had a quantity of mortar
+made up in one of my outhouses, which I could use at a moment's warning.
+These precautions were all useful to me. My own house, indeed, was never
+actually on fire; but the houses of my next-door neighbours were no less
+than five times in flames in the course of one winter. By my exertions,
+or rather by my precautions, they suffered but little damage, and all my
+neighbours looked upon me as their deliverer and friend; they loaded me
+with presents, and offered more, indeed, than I would accept. All
+repeated that I was Saladin the Lucky. This compliment I disclaimed,
+feeling more ambitious of being called Saladin the Prudent. It is thus
+that what we call modesty is often only a more refined species of pride.
+But to proceed with my story.
+
+"One night I had been later than usual at supper at a friend's house;
+none but the watch were in the streets, and even they, I believe, were
+asleep.
+
+"As I passed one of the conduits which convey water to the city, I heard
+a trickling noise; and, upon examination, I found that the cock of the
+water-spout was half turned, so that the water was running out. I turned
+it back to its proper place, thought it had been left unturned by
+accident, and walked on; but I had not proceeded far before I came to
+another spout, and another, which were in the same condition. I was
+convinced that this could not be the effect merely of accident, and
+suspected that some ill-intentioned persons designed to let out and waste
+the water of the city, that there might be none to extinguish any fire
+that should break out in the course of the night.
+
+"I stood still for a few moments, to consider how it would be most
+prudent to act. It would be impossible for me to run to all parts of the
+city, that I might stop the pipes that were running to waste. I first
+thought of wakening the watch and the firemen, who were most of them
+slumbering at their stations; but I reflected that they were perhaps not
+to be trusted, and that they were in a confederacy with the incendiaries,
+otherwise they would certainly before this hour have observed and stopped
+the running of the sewers in their neighbourhood. I determined to waken
+a rich merchant, called Damat Zade, who lived near me, and who had a
+number of slaves whom he could send to different parts of the city, to
+prevent mischief and give notice to the inhabitants of their danger.
+
+"He was a very sensible, active man, and one that could easily be
+wakened; he was not like some Turks, an hour in recovering their
+lethargic senses. He was quick in decision and action; and his slaves
+resembled their master. He despatched a messenger immediately to the
+grand vizier, that the sultan's safety might be secured, and sent others
+to the magistrates in each quarter of Constantinople. The large drums in
+the janissary aga's tower beat to rouse the inhabitants; and scarcely had
+they been heard to beat half an hour before the fire broke out in the
+lower apartments of Damat Zade's house, owing to a _coundak_ which had
+been left behind one of the doors.
+
+"The wretches who had prepared the mischief came to enjoy it, and to
+pillage; but they were disappointed. Astonished to find themselves taken
+into custody, they could not comprehend how their designs had been
+frustrated. By timely exertions, the fire in my friend's house was
+extinguished; and though fires broke out during the night in many parts
+of the city, but little damage was sustained, because there was time for
+precautions, and, by the stopping of the spouts, sufficient water was
+preserved. People were awakened and warned of the danger, and they
+consequently escaped unhurt.
+
+"The next day, as soon as I made my appearance at the bezestein, the
+merchants crowded round, called me their benefactor, and the preserver of
+their lives and fortunes. Damat Zade, the merchant whom I had awakened
+the preceding night, presented to me a heavy purse of gold, and put upon
+my finger a diamond ring of considerable value; each of the merchants
+followed his example in making me rich presents; the magistrates also
+sent me tokens of their approbation; and the grand vizier sent me a
+diamond of the first water, with a line written by his own hand, 'To the
+man who has saved Constantinople.' Excuse me, gentlemen, for the vanity
+I seem to show in mentioning these circumstances. You desired to hear my
+history, and I cannot, therefore, omit the principal circumstance of my
+life. In the course of four-and-twenty hours I found myself raised, by
+the munificent gratitude of the inhabitants of this city, to a state of
+affluence far beyond what I had ever dreamed of attaining.
+
+"I now took a house suited to my circumstances, and bought a few slaves.
+As I was carrying my slaves home, I was met by a Jew, who stopped me,
+saying, in his language, 'My lord, I see, has been purchasing slaves; I
+could clothe them cheaply.' There was something mysterious in the manner
+of this Jew, and I did not like his countenance; but I considered that I
+ought not to be governed by caprice in my dealings, and that, if this man
+could really clothe my slaves more cheaply than another, I ought not to
+neglect his offer merely because I took a dislike to the cut of his
+beard, the turn of his eye, or the tone of his voice. I, therefore, bade
+the Jew follow me home, saying that I would consider of his proposal.
+
+"When we came to talk over the matter, I was surprised to find him so
+reasonable in his demands. On one point, indeed, he appeared unwilling
+to comply. I required not only to see the clothes I was offered, but
+also to know how they came into his possession. On this subject he
+equivocated; I, therefore, suspected there must be something wrong. I
+reflected what it could be, and judged that the goods had been stolen, or
+that they had been the apparel of persons who had died of some contagious
+distemper. The Jew showed me a chest, from which he said I might choose
+whatever suited me best. I observed that, as he was going to unlock the
+chest, he stuffed his nose with some aromatic herbs. He told me that he
+did so to prevent his smelling the musk with which the chest was
+perfumed; musk, he said, had an extraordinary effect upon his nerves. I
+begged to have some of the herbs which he used himself, declaring that
+musk was likewise offensive to me.
+
+"The Jew, either struck by his own conscience or observing my suspicions,
+turned as pale as death. He pretended he had not the right key, and
+could not unlock the chest; said he must go in search of it, and that he
+would call on me again.
+
+"After he had left me, I examined some writing upon the lid of the chest
+that had been nearly effaced. I made out the word 'Smyrna,' and this was
+sufficient to confirm all my suspicions. The Jew returned no more; he
+sent some porters to carry away the chest, and I heard nothing of him for
+some time, till one day, when I was at the house of Damat Zade, I saw a
+glimpse of the Jew passing hastily through one of the courts, as if he
+wished to avoid me. 'My friend,' said I to Damat Zade, 'do not attribute
+my question to impertinent curiosity, or to a desire to intermeddle with
+your affairs, if I venture to ask the nature of your business with the
+Jew who has just now crossed your court?'
+
+"'He has engaged to supply me with clothing for my slaves,' replied my
+friend, 'cheaper than I can purchase it elsewhere. I have a design to
+surprise my daughter Fatima, on her birthday, with an entertainment in
+the pavilion in the garden, and all her female slaves shall appear in new
+dresses on the occasion.'
+
+"I interrupted my friend, to tell him what I suspected relative to this
+Jew and his chest of clothes. It is certain that the infection of the
+plague can be communicated by clothes, not only after months, but after
+years have elapsed. The merchant resolved to have nothing more to do
+with this wretch, who could thus hazard the lives of thousands of his
+follow-creatures for a few pieces of gold. We sent notice of the
+circumstance to the cadi, but the cadi was slow in his operations; and
+before he could take the Jew into custody the cunning fellow had effected
+his escape. When his house was searched, he and his chest had
+disappeared. We discovered that he sailed for Egypt, and rejoiced that
+we had driven him from Constantinople.
+
+"My friend, Damat Zade, expressed the warmest gratitude to me. 'You
+formerly saved my fortune; you have now saved my life, and a life yet
+dearer than my own: that of my daughter Fatima.'
+
+"At the sound of that name I could not, I believe, avoid showing some
+emotion. I had accidentally seen this lady, and I had been captivated by
+her beauty and by the sweetness of her countenance; but as I knew she was
+destined to be the wife of another, I suppressed my feeling, and
+determined to banish the recollection of the fair Fatima for ever from my
+imagination. Her father, however, at this instant threw into my way a
+temptation which it required all my fortitude to resist. 'Saladin,'
+continued he, 'it is but just that you, who have saved our lives, should
+share our festivity. Come here on the birthday of my Fatima; I will
+place you in a balcony which overlooks the garden, and you shall see the
+whole spectacle. We shall have a _feast of tulips_, in imitation of that
+which, as you know, is held in the grand seignior's gardens. I assure
+you the sight will be worth seeing; and besides, you will have a chance
+of beholding my Fatima, for a moment, without her veil.'
+
+"'That,' interrupted I, 'is the thing I most wish to avoid. I dare not
+indulge myself in a pleasure which might cost me the happiness of my
+life. I will conceal nothing from you, who treat me with so much
+confidence. I have already beheld the charming countenance of your
+Fatima, but I know that she is destined to be the wife of a happier man.'
+
+"Damat Zade seemed much pleased by the frankness with which I explained
+myself; but he would not give up the idea of my sitting with him in the
+balcony on the day of the feast of tulips; and I, on my part, could not
+consent to expose myself to another view of the charming Fatima. My
+friend used every argument, or rather every sort of persuasion, he could
+imagine to prevail upon me; he then tried to laugh me out of my
+resolution; and, when all failed, he said, in a voice of anger, 'Go,
+then, Saladin: I am sure you are deceiving me; you have a passion for
+some other woman, and you would conceal it from me, and persuade me you
+refuse the favour I offer you from prudence, when, in fact, it is from
+indifference and contempt. Why could you not speak the truth of your
+heart to me with that frankness with which one friend should treat
+another?'
+
+"Astonished at this unexpected charge, and at the anger which flashed
+from the eyes of Damat Zade, who till this moment had always appeared to
+me a man of a mild and reasonable temper, I was for an instant tempted to
+fly into a passion and leave him; but friends, once lost, are not easily
+regained. This consideration had power sufficient to make me command my
+temper. 'My friend,' replied I, 'we will talk over this affair
+to-morrow. You are now angry, and cannot do me justice, but to-morrow
+you will be cool; you will then be convinced that I have not deceived
+you, and that I have no design but to secure my own happiness, by the
+most prudent means in my power, by avoiding the sight of the dangerous
+Fatima. I have no passion for any other woman.'
+
+"'Then,' said my friend, embracing me, and quitting the tone of anger
+which he had assumed only to try my resolution to the utmost, 'Then,
+Saladin, Fatima is yours.'
+
+"I scarcely dared to believe my senses; I could not express my joy! 'Yes,
+my friend,' continued the merchant, 'I have tried your prudence to the
+utmost, it has been victorious, and I resign my Fatima to you, certain
+that you will make her happy. It is true I had a greater alliance in
+view for her--the Pacha of Maksoud has demanded her from me; but I have
+found, upon private inquiry, he is addicted to the intemperate use of
+opium, and my daughter shall never be the wife of one who is a violent
+madman one-half the day and a melancholy idiot during the remainder. I
+have nothing to apprehend from the pacha's resentment, because I have
+powerful friends with the grand vizier, who will oblige him to listen to
+reason, and to submit quietly to a disappointment he so justly merits.
+And now, Saladin, have you any objection to seeing the feast of tulips?'
+
+"I replied only by falling at the merchant's feet, and embracing his
+knees. The feast of tulips came and on that day I was married to the
+charming Fatima! The charming Fatima I continue still to think her,
+though she has now been my wife some years. She is the joy and pride of
+my heart; and, from our mutual affection, I have experienced more
+felicity than from all the other circumstances of my life, which are
+called so fortunate. Her father gave me the house in which I now live,
+and joined his possessions to ours; so that I have more wealth even than
+I desire. My riches, however, give me continually the means of relieving
+the wants of others; and therefore I cannot affect to despise them. I
+must persuade my brother Murad to share them with me, and to forget his
+misfortunes: I shall then think myself completely happy. As to the
+sultana's looking-glass and your broken vase, my dear brother," continued
+Saladin, "we must think of some means--"
+
+"Think no more of the sultana's looking-glass or of the broken vase,"
+exclaimed the sultan, throwing aside his merchant's habit, and showing
+beneath it his own imperial vest. "Saladin, I rejoice to have heard,
+from your own lips, the history of your life. I acknowledge, vizier, I
+have been in the wrong in our argument," continued the sultan, turning to
+his vizier. "I acknowledge that the histories of Saladin the Lucky and
+Murad the Unlucky favour your opinion, that prudence has more influence
+than chance in human affairs. The success and happiness of Saladin seem
+to me to have arisen from his prudence: by that prudence Constantinople
+has been saved from flames and from the plague. Had Murad possessed his
+brother's discretion, he would not have been on the point of losing his
+head, for selling rolls which he did not bake: he would not have been
+kicked by a mule or bastinadoed for finding a ring: he would not have
+been robbed by one party of soldiers, or shot by another: he would not
+have been lost in a desert, or cheated by a Jew: he would not have set a
+ship on fire; nor would he have caught the plague, and spread it through
+Grand Cairo: he would not have run my sultana's looking-glass through the
+body, instead of a robber: he would not have believed that the fate of
+his life depended on certain verses on a china vase: nor would he, at
+last, have broken this precious talisman, by washing it with hot water.
+Henceforward, let Murad the Unlucky be named Murad the Imprudent: let
+Saladin preserve the surname he merits, and be henceforth called Saladin
+the Prudent."
+
+So spake the sultan, who, unlike the generality of monarchs, could bear
+to find himself in the wrong, and could discover his vizier to be in the
+right without cutting off his head. History farther informs us that the
+sultan offered to make Saladin a pacha, and to commit to him the
+government of a province; but, Saladin the Prudent declined this honour,
+saying he had no ambition, was perfectly happy in his present situation,
+and that, when this was the case, it would be folly to change, because no
+one can be more than happy. What farther adventures befell Murad the
+Imprudent are not recorded; it is known only that he became a daily
+visitor to the Teriaky, and that he died a martyr to the immoderate use
+of opium.
+
+
+
+
+THE LIMERICK GLOVES
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+It was Sunday morning, and a fine day in autumn; the bells of Hereford
+Cathedral rang, and all the world, smartly dressed, were flocking to
+church.
+
+"Mrs. Hill! Mrs. Hill!--Phœbe! Phœbe! There's the cathedral bell, I
+say, and neither of you ready for church, and I a verger," cried Mr.
+Hill, the tanner, as he stood at the bottom of his own staircase. "I'm
+ready, papa," replied Phœbe; and down she came, looking so clean, so
+fresh, and so gay, that her stern father's brows unbent, and he could
+only say to her, as she was drawing on a new pair of gloves, "Child, you
+ought to have had those gloves on before this time of day."
+
+"Before this time of day!" cried Mrs. Hill, who was now coming downstairs
+completely equipped--"before this time of day! She should know better, I
+say, than to put on those gloves at all: more especially when going to
+the cathedral."
+
+"The gloves are very good gloves, as far as I see," replied Mr. Hill.
+"But no matter now. It is more fitting that we should be in proper time
+in our pew, to set an example, as becomes us, than to stand here talking
+of gloves and nonsense."
+
+He offered his wife and daughter each an arm, and set out for the
+cathedral; but Phœbe was too busy in drawing on her new gloves, and her
+mother was too angry at the sight of them, to accept of Mr. Hill's
+courtesy. "What I say is always nonsense, I know, Mr. Hill," resumed the
+matron: "but I can see as far into a millstone as other folks. Was it
+not I that first gave you a hint of what became of the great dog that we
+lost out of our tan-yard last winter? And was it not I who first took
+notice to you, Mr. Hill, verger as you are, of the hole under the
+foundation of the cathedral? Was it not, I ask you, Mr. Hill?"
+
+"But, my dear Mrs. Hill, what has all this to do with Phœbe's gloves?"
+
+"Are you blind, Mr. Hill? Don't you see that they are Limerick gloves?"
+
+"What of that?" said Mr. Hill, still preserving his composure, as it was
+his custom to do as long as he could, when he saw his wife was ruffled.
+
+"What of that, Mr. Hill! why, don't you know that Limerick is in Ireland,
+Mr. Hill?"
+
+"With all my heart, my dear."
+
+"Yes, and with all your heart, I suppose, Mr. Hill, you would see our
+cathedral blown up, some fair day or other, and your own daughter married
+to the person that did it; and you a verger, Mr. Hill."
+
+"God forbid!" cried Mr, Hill; and he stopped short and settled his wig.
+Presently recovering himself, he added, "But, Mrs. Hill, the cathedral is
+not yet blown up; and our Phœbe is not yet married."
+
+"No; but what of that, Mr. Hill? Forewarned is forearmed, as I told you
+before your dog was gone; but you would not believe me, and you see how
+it turned out in that case; and so it will in this case, you'll see, Mr.
+Hill."
+
+"But you puzzle and frighten me out of my wits, Mrs. Hill," said the
+verger, again settling his wig. "_In that case and in this case_! I
+can't understand a syllable of what you've been saying to me this half-
+hour. In plain English, what is there the matter about Phœbe's gloves?"
+
+"In plain English, then, Mr. Hill, since you can understand nothing else,
+please to ask your daughter Phœbe who gave her those gloves. Phœbe,
+who gave you those gloves?"
+
+"I wish they were burnt," said the husband, whose patience could endure
+no longer. "Who gave you those cursed gloves, Phœbe?"
+
+"Papa," answered Phœbe, in a low voice, "they were a present from Mr.
+Brian O'Neill."
+
+"The Irish glover!" cried Mr. Hill, with a look of terror.
+
+"Yes," resumed the mother; "very true, Mr. Hill, I assure you. Now, you
+see, I had my reasons."
+
+"Take off the gloves directly: I order you, Phœbe," said her father, in
+his most peremptory tone. "I took a mortal dislike to that Mr. Brian
+O'Neill the first time I ever saw him. He's an Irishman, and that's
+enough, and too much for me. Off with the gloves, Phœbe! When I order
+a thing, it must be done."
+
+Phœbe seemed to find some difficulty in getting off the gloves, and
+gently urged that she could not well go into the cathedral without them.
+This objection was immediately removed by her mother's pulling from her
+pocket a pair of mittens, which had once been brown, and once been whole,
+but which were now rent in sundry places; and which, having been long
+stretched by one who was twice the size of Phœbe, now hung in huge
+wrinkles upon her well-turned arms.
+
+"But, papa," said Phœbe, "why should we take a dislike to him because he
+is an Irishman? Cannot an Irishman be a good man?"
+
+The verger made no answer to this question, but a few seconds after it
+was put to him observed that the cathedral bell had just done ringing;
+and, as they were now got to the church door, Mrs. Hill, with a
+significant look at Phœbe, remarked that it was no proper time to talk
+or think of good men, or bad men, or Irishmen, or any men, especially for
+a verger's daughter.
+
+We pass over in silence the many conjectures that were made by several of
+the congregation concerning the reason why Miss Phœbe Hill should appear
+in such a shameful shabby pair of gloves on a Sunday. After service was
+ended, the verger went, with great mystery, to examine the hole under the
+foundation of the cathedral; and Mrs. Hill repaired, with the grocer's
+and the stationer's ladies, to take a walk in the Close, where she
+boasted to all her female acquaintance, whom she called her friends, of
+her maternal discretion in prevailing upon Mr. Hill to forbid her
+daughter Phœbe to wear the Limerick gloves.
+
+In the meantime, Phœbe walked pensively homewards, endeavouring to
+discover why her father should take a mortal dislike to a man at first
+sight, merely because he was an Irishman: and why her mother had talked
+so much of the great dog which had been lost last year out of the tan-
+yard; and of the hole under the foundation of the cathedral! "What has
+all this to do with my Limerick gloves?" thought she. The more she
+thought, the less connection she could perceive between these things: for
+as she had not taken a dislike to Mr. Brian O'Neill at first sight,
+because he was an Irishman, she could not think it quite reasonable to
+suspect him of making away with her father's dog, nor yet of a design to
+blow up Hereford Cathedral. As she was pondering upon these matters, she
+came within sight of the ruins of a poor woman's house, which a few
+months before this time had been burnt down. She recollected that her
+first acquaintance with her lover began at the time of this fire; and she
+thought that the courage and humanity he showed, in exerting himself to
+save this unfortunate woman and her children, justified her notion of the
+possibility that an Irishman might be a good man.
+
+The name of the poor woman whose house had been burnt down was Smith: she
+was a widow, and she now lived at the extremity of a narrow lane in a
+wretched habitation. Why Phœbe thought of her with more concern than
+usual at this instant we need not examine, but she did; and, reproaching
+herself for having neglected it for some weeks past, she resolved to go
+directly to see the widow Smith, and to give her a crown which she had
+long had in her pocket, with which she had intended to have bought play
+tickets.
+
+It happened that the first person she saw in the poor widow's kitchen was
+the identical Mr. O'Neill. "I did not expect to see anybody here but
+you, Mrs. Smith," said Phœbe, blushing.
+
+"So much the greater the pleasure of the meeting; to me, I mean, Miss
+Hill," said O'Neill, rising, and putting down a little boy, with whom he
+had been playing. Phœbe went on talking to the poor woman; and, after
+slipping the crown into her hand, said she would call again. O'Neill,
+surprised at the change in her manner, followed her when she left the
+house, and said, "It would be a great misfortune to me to have done
+anything to offend Miss Hill, especially if I could not conceive how or
+what it was, which is my case at this present speaking." And as the
+spruce glover spoke, he fixed his eyes upon Phœbe's ragged gloves. She
+drew them up in vain; and then said, with her natural simplicity and
+gentleness, "You have not done anything to offend me, Mr. O'Neill; but
+you are some way or other displeasing to my father and mother, and they
+have forbid me to wear the Limerick gloves."
+
+"And sure Miss Hill would not be after changing her opinion of her humble
+servant for no reason in life but because her father and mother, who have
+taken a prejudice against him, are a little contrary."
+
+"No," replied Phœbe; "I should not change my opinion without any reason;
+but I have not yet had time to fix my opinion of you, Mr. O'Neill."
+
+"To let you know a piece of my mind, then, my dear Miss Hill," resumed
+he, "the more contrary they are, the more pride and joy it would give me
+to win and wear you, in spite of 'em all; and if without a farthing in
+your pocket, so much the more I should rejoice in the opportunity of
+proving to your dear self, and all else whom it may consarn, that Brian
+O'Neill is no fortune-hunter, and scorns them that are so narrow-minded
+as to think that no other kind of cattle but them there fortune-hunters
+can come out of all Ireland. So, my dear Phœbe, now we understand one
+another, I hope you will not be paining my eyes any longer with the sight
+of these odious brown bags, which are not fit to be worn by any Christian
+arms, to say nothing of Miss Hill's, which are the handsomest, without
+any compliment, that ever I saw, and, to my mind, would become a pair of
+Limerick gloves beyond anything: and I expect she'll show her generosity
+and proper spirit by putting them on immediately."
+
+"You expect, sir!" repeated Miss Hill, with a look of more indignation
+than her gentle countenance had ever before been seen to assume.
+"Expect!" "If he had said hope," thought she, "it would have been
+another thing: but expect! what right has he to expect?"
+
+Now Miss Hill, unfortunately, was not sufficiently acquainted with the
+Irish idiom to know that to expect, in Ireland, is the same thing as to
+hope in England; and, when her Irish admirer said "I expect," he meant
+only, in plain English, "I hope." But thus it is that a poor Irishman,
+often, for want of understanding the niceties of the English language,
+says the rudest when he means to say the civillest things imaginable.
+
+Miss Hill's feelings were so much hurt by this unlucky "I expect" that
+the whole of his speech, which had before made some favourable impression
+upon her, now lost its effect: and she replied with proper spirit, as she
+thought, "You expect a great deal too much, Mr. O'Neill; and more than
+ever I gave you reason to do. It would be neither pleasure nor pride to
+me to be won and worn, as you were pleased to say, in spite of them all;
+and to be thrown, without a farthing in my pocket, upon the protection of
+one who expects so much at first setting out.--So I assure you, sir,
+whatever you may expect, I shall not put on the Limerick gloves."
+
+Mr. O'Neill was not without his share of pride and proper spirit; nay, he
+had, it must be confessed, in common with some others of his countrymen,
+an improper share of pride and spirit. Fired by the lady's coldness, he
+poured forth a volley of reproaches; and ended by wishing, as he said, a
+good morning, for ever and ever, to one who could change her opinion,
+point blank, like the weathercock. "I am, miss, your most obedient; and
+I expect you'll never think no more of poor Brian O'Neill and the
+Limerick gloves."
+
+If he had not been in too great a passion to observe anything, poor Brian
+O'Neill would have found out that Phœbe was not a weathercock: but he
+left her abruptly, and hurried away, imagining all the while that it was
+Phœbe, and not himself, who was in a rage. Thus, to the horseman who is
+galloping at full speed, the hedges, trees, and houses seem rapidly to
+recede, whilst, in reality, they never move from their places. It is he
+that flies from them, and not they from him.
+
+On Monday morning Miss Jenny Brown, the perfumer's daughter, came to pay
+Phœbe a morning visit, with face of busy joy.
+
+"So, my dear!" said she: "fine doings in Hereford! But what makes you
+look so downcast? To be sure you are invited, as well as the rest of
+us."
+
+"Invited where?" cried Mrs. Hill, who was present, and who could never
+endure to hear of an invitation in which she was not included. "Invited
+where, pray, Miss Jenny?"
+
+"La! have not you heard? Why, we all took it for granted that you and
+Miss Phœbe would have been the first and foremost to have been asked to
+Mr. O'Neill's ball."
+
+"Ball!" cried Mrs. Hill; and luckily saved Phœbe, who was in some
+agitation, the trouble of speaking. "Why, this is a mighty sudden thing:
+I never heard a tittle of it before."
+
+"Well, this is really extraordinary! And, Phœbe, have you not received
+a pair of Limerick gloves?"
+
+"Yes, I have," said Phœbe, "but what then? What have my Limerick gloves
+to do with the ball?"
+
+"A great deal," replied Jenny. "Don't you know that a pair of Limerick
+gloves is, as one may say, a ticket to this ball? for every lady that has
+been asked has had a pair sent to her along with the card; and I believe
+as many as twenty, besides myself, have been asked this morning."
+
+Jenny then produced her new pair of Limerick gloves, and as she tried
+them on, and showed how well they fitted, she counted up the names of the
+ladies who, to her knowledge, were to be at this ball. When she had
+finished the catalogue, she expatiated upon the grand preparations which
+it was said the widow O'Neill, Mr. O'Neill's mother, was making for the
+supper, and concluded by condoling with Mrs. Hill for her misfortune in
+not having been invited. Jenny took her leave to get her dress in
+readiness: "for," added she, "Mr. O'Neill has engaged me to open the ball
+in case Phœbe does not go; but I suppose she will cheer up and go, as
+she has a pair of Limerick gloves as well as the rest of us."
+
+There was a silence for some minutes after Jenny's departure, which was
+broken by Phœbe, who told her mother that, early in the morning, a note
+had been brought to her, which she had returned unopened, because she
+knew, from the handwriting of the direction, that it came from Mr.
+O'Neill.
+
+We must observe that Phœbe had already told her mother of her meeting
+with this gentleman at the poor widow's, and of all that had passed
+between them afterwards. This openness on her part had softened the
+heart of Mrs. Hill, who was really inclined to be good-natured, provided
+people would allow that she had more penetration than any one else in
+Hereford. She was, moreover, a good deal piqued and alarmed by the idea
+that the perfumer's daughter might rival and outshine her own. Whilst
+she had thought herself sure of Mr. O'Neill's attachment to Phœbe, she
+had looked higher, especially as she was persuaded by the perfumer's lady
+to think that an Irishman could not but be a bad match; but now she began
+to suspect that the perfumer's lady had changed her opinion of Irishmen,
+since she did not object to her own Jenny's leading up the ball at Mr.
+O'Neill's.
+
+All these thoughts passed rapidly in the mother's mind, and, with her
+fear of losing an admirer for her Phœbe, the value of that admirer
+suddenly rose in her estimation. Thus, at an auction, if a lot is going
+to be knocked down to a lady who is the only person that has bid for it,
+even she feels discontented, and despises that which nobody covets; but
+if, as the hammer is falling, many voices answer to the question, "Who
+bids more?" then her anxiety to secure the prize suddenly rises, and,
+rather than be outbid, she will give far beyond its value.
+
+"Why, child," said Mrs. Hill, "since you have a pair of Limerick gloves;
+and since certainly that note was an invitation to us to this ball; and
+since it is much more fitting that you should open the ball than Jenny
+Brown; and since, after all, it was very handsome and genteel of the
+young man to say he would take you without a farthing in your pocket,
+which shows that those were misinformed who talked of him as an Irish
+adventurer; and since we are not certain 'twas he made away with the dog,
+although he said its barking was a great nuisance; there is no great
+reason to suppose he was the person who made the hole under the
+foundation of the cathedral, or that he could have such a wicked thought
+as to blow it up; and since he must be in a very good way of business to
+be able to afford giving away four or five guineas' worth of Limerick
+gloves, and balls and suppers; and since, after all, it is no fault of
+his to be an Irishman, I give it as my vote and opinion, my dear, that
+you put on your Limerick gloves and go to this ball; and I'll go and
+speak to your father, and bring him round to our opinion, and then I'll
+pay the morning visit I owe to the widow O'Neill and make up your quarrel
+with Brian. Love quarrels are easy to make up, you know, and then we
+shall have things all upon velvet again, and Jenny Brown need not come
+with her hypocritical condoling face to us any more."
+
+After running this speech glibly off, Mrs. Hill, without waiting to hear
+a syllable from poor Phœbe, trotted off in search of her consort. It
+was not, however, quite so easy a task as his wife expected, to bring Mr.
+Hill round to her opinion. He was slow in declaring himself of any
+opinion; but when once he had said a thing, there was but little chance
+of altering his notions. On this occasion Mr. Hill was doubly bound to
+his prejudice against our unlucky Irishman; for he had mentioned with
+great solemnity at the club which he frequented the grand affair of the
+hole under the foundation of the cathedral, and his suspicions that there
+was a design to blow it up. Several of the club had laughed at this
+idea; others, who supposed that Mr. O'Neill was a Roman Catholic, and who
+had a confused notion that a Roman Catholic must be a very wicked,
+dangerous being, thought that there might be a great deal in the verger's
+suggestions, and observed that a very watchful eye ought to be kept upon
+this Irish glover, who had come to settle at Hereford nobody knew why,
+and who seemed to have money at command nobody knew how.
+
+The news of this ball sounded to Mr. Hill's prejudiced imagination like
+the news of a conspiracy. "Ay! ay!" thought he; "the Irishman is cunning
+enough! But we shall be too many for him: he wants to throw all the good
+sober folks of Hereford off their guard by feasting, and dancing, and
+carousing, I take it, and so to perpetrate his evil design when it is
+least suspected; but we shall be prepared for him, fools as he takes us
+plain Englishmen to be, I warrant."
+
+In consequence of these most shrewd cogitations, our verger silenced his
+wife with a peremptory nod when she came to persuade him to let Phœbe
+put on the Limerick gloves and go to the ball. "To this ball she shall
+not go, and I charge her not to put on those Limerick gloves as she
+values my blessing," said Mr. Hill. "Please to tell her so, Mrs. Hill,
+and trust to my judgment and discretion in all things, Mrs. Hill. Strange
+work may be in Hereford yet: but I'll say no more; I must go and consult
+with knowing men who are of my opinion."
+
+He sallied forth, and Mrs. Hill was left in a state which only those who
+are troubled with the disease of excessive curiosity can rightly
+comprehend or compassionate. She hied her back to Phœbe, to whom she
+announced her father's answer, and then went gossiping to all her female
+acquaintance in Hereford, to tell them all that she knew, and all that
+she did not know, and to endeavour to find out a secret where there was
+none to be found.
+
+There are trials of temper in all conditions, and no lady, in high or low
+life, could endure them with a better grace than Phœbe. Whilst Mr. and
+Mrs. Hill were busied abroad, there came to see Phœbe one of the widow
+Smith's children. With artless expressions of gratitude to Phœbe this
+little girl mixed the praises of O'Neill, who, she said, had been the
+constant friend of her mother, and had given her money every week since
+the fire happened. "Mammy loves him dearly for being so good-natured,"
+continued the child; "and he has been good to other people as well as to
+us."
+
+"To whom?" said Phœbe.
+
+"To a poor man who has lodged for these few days past next door to us,"
+replied the child; "I don't know his name rightly, but he is an Irishman,
+and he goes out a-haymaking in the daytime along with a number of others.
+He knew Mr. O'Neill in his own country, and he told mammy a great deal
+about his goodness."
+
+As the child finished these words, Phœbe took out of a drawer some
+clothes, which she had made for the poor woman's children, and gave them
+to the little girl. It happened that the Limerick gloves had been thrown
+into this drawer; and Phœbe's favourable sentiments of the giver of
+those gloves were revived by what she had just heard, and by the
+confession Mrs. Hill had made, that she had no reasons, and but vague
+suspicious, for thinking ill of him. She laid the gloves perfectly
+smooth, and strewed over them, whilst the little girl went on talking of
+Mr. O'Neill, the leaves of a rose which she had worn on Sunday.
+
+Mr. Hill was all this time in deep conference with those prudent men of
+Hereford who were of his own opinion, about the perilous hole under the
+cathedral. The ominous circumstance of this ball was also considered,
+the great expense at which the Irish glover lived, and his giving away
+gloves, which was a sure sign he was not under any necessity to sell
+them, and consequently a proof that, though he pretended to be a glover,
+he was something wrong in disguise. Upon putting all these things
+together, it was resolved by these over-wise politicians that the best
+thing that could be done for Hereford, and the only possible means of
+preventing the immediate destruction of its cathedral, would be to take
+Mr. O'Neill into custody. Upon recollection, however, it was perceived
+that there was no legal ground on which he could be attacked. At length,
+after consulting an attorney, they devised what they thought an admirable
+mode of proceeding.
+
+Our Irish hero had not that punctuality which English tradesmen usually
+observe in the payment of bills; he had, the preceding year, run up a
+long bill with a grocer in Hereford, and, as he had not at Christmas cash
+in hand to pay it, he had given a note, payable six months after date.
+The grocer, at Mr. Hill's request, made over the note to him, and it was
+determined that the money should be demanded, as it was now due, and
+that, if it was not paid directly, O'Neill should be that night arrested.
+How Mr. Hill made the discovery of this debt to the grocer agree with his
+former notion that the Irish glover had always money at command we cannot
+well conceive, but anger and prejudice will swallow down the grossest
+contradictions without difficulty.
+
+When Mr. Hill's clerk went to demand payment of the note, O'Neill's head
+was full of the ball which he was to give that evening. He was much
+surprised at the unexpected appearance of the note: he had not ready
+money by him to pay it; and after swearing a good deal at the clerk, and
+complaining of this ungenerous and ungentleman-like behaviour in the
+grocer and the tanner, he told the clerk to be gone, and not to be
+bothering him at such an unseasonable time: that he could not have the
+money then, and did not deserve to have it at all.
+
+This language and conduct were rather new to the English clerk's
+mercantile ears: we cannot wonder that it should seem to him, as he said
+to his master, more the language of a madman than a man of business. This
+want of punctuality in money transactions, and this mode of treating
+contracts as matters of favour and affection, might not have damned the
+fame of our hero in his own country, where such conduct is, alas! too
+common; but he was now in a kingdom where the manners and customs are so
+directly opposite, that he could meet with no allowance for his national
+faults. It would be well for his countrymen if they were made, even by a
+few mortifications, somewhat sensible of this important difference in the
+habits of Irish and English traders before they come to settle in
+England.
+
+But to proceed with our story. On the night of Mr. O'Neill's grand ball,
+as he was seeing his fair partner, the perfumer's daughter, safe home, he
+felt himself tapped on the shoulder by no friendly hand. When he was
+told that he was the king's prisoner, he vociferated with sundry strange
+oaths, which we forbear to repeat. "No, I am not the king's prisoner! I
+am the prisoner of that shabby, rascally tanner, Jonathan Hill. None but
+he would arrest a gentleman in this way, for a trifle not worth
+mentioning."
+
+Miss Jenny Brown screamed when she found herself under the protection of
+a man who was arrested; and, what between her screams and his oaths,
+there was such a disturbance that a mob gathered.
+
+Among this mob there was a party of Irish haymakers, who, after returning
+late from a hard day's work, had been drinking in a neighbouring
+ale-house. With one accord they took part with their countryman, and
+would have rescued him from the civil officers with all the pleasure in
+life if he had not fortunately possessed just sufficient sense and
+command of himself to restrain their party spirit, and to forbid them, as
+they valued his life and reputation, to interfere, by word or deed, in
+his defence.
+
+He then despatched one of the haymakers home to his mother, to inform her
+of what had happened, and to request that she would get somebody to be
+bail for him as soon as possible, as the officers said they could not let
+him out of their sight till he was bailed by substantial people, or till
+the debt was discharged.
+
+The widow O'Neill was just putting out the candles in the ball-room when
+this news of her son's arrest was brought to her. We pass over Hibernian
+exclamations: she consoled her pride by reflecting that it would
+certainly be the most easy thing imaginable to procure bail for Mr.
+O'Neill in Hereford, where he had so many friends who had just been
+dancing at his house; but to dance at his house she found was one thing
+and to be bail for him quite another. Each guest sent excuses, and the
+widow O'Neill was astonished at what never fails to astonish everybody
+when it happens to themselves. "Rather than let my son be detained in
+this manner for a paltry debt," cried she, "I'd sell all I have within
+half an hour to a pawnbroker." It was well no pawnbroker heard this
+declaration: she was too warm to consider economy. She sent for a
+pawnbroker, who lived in the same street, and, after pledging goods to
+treble the amount of the debt, she obtained ready money for her son's
+release.
+
+O'Neill, after being in custody for about an hour and a half, was set at
+liberty upon the payment of his debt. As he passed by the cathedral in
+his way home, he heard the clock strike; and he called to a man, who was
+walking backwards and forwards in the churchyard, to ask whether it was
+two or three that the clock struck. "Three," answered the man; "and, as
+yet, all is safe."
+
+O'Neill, whose head was full of other things, did not stop to inquire the
+meaning of these last words. He little suspected that this man was a
+watchman whom the over-vigilant verger had stationed there to guard the
+Hereford Cathedral from his attacks. O'Neill little guessed that he had
+been arrested merely to keep him from blowing up the cathedral this
+night. The arrest had an excellent effect upon his mind, for he was a
+young man of good sense: it made him resolve to retrench his expenses in
+time, to live more like a glover and less like a gentleman; and to aim
+more at establishing credit, and less at gaining popularity. He found,
+from experience, that good friends will not pay bad debts.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+On Thursday morning our verger rose in unusually good spirits,
+congratulating himself upon the eminent service he had done to the city
+of Hereford by his sagacity in discovering the foreign plot to blow up
+the Cathedral, and by his dexterity in having the enemy held in custody,
+at the very hour when the dreadful deed was to have been perpetrated. Mr.
+Hill's knowing friends farther agreed it would be necessary to have a
+guard that should sit up every night in the churchyard; and that as soon
+as they could, by constantly watching the enemy's motions, procure any
+information which the attorney should deem sufficient grounds for a legal
+proceeding, they should lay the whole business before the mayor.
+
+After arranging all this most judiciously and mysteriously with friends
+who were exactly of his own opinion, Mr. Hill laid aside his dignity of
+verger, and assuming his other character of a tanner, proceeded to his
+tan-yard. What was his surprise and consternation, when he beheld his
+great rick of oak bark levelled to the ground; the pieces of bark were
+scattered far and wide, some over the close, some over the fields, and
+some were seen swimming upon the water! No tongue, no pen, no muse can
+describe the feelings of our tanner at this spectacle--feelings which
+became the more violent from the absolute silence which he imposed on
+himself upon this occasion. He instantly decided in his own mind that
+this injury was perpetrated by O'Neill, in revenge for his arrest; and
+went privately to the attorney to inquire what was to be done, on his
+part, to secure legal vengeance.
+
+The attorney unluckily--or at least, as Mr. Hill thought, unluckily--had
+been sent for, half an hour before, by a gentleman at some distance from
+Hereford, to draw up a will: so that our tanner was obliged to postpone
+his legal operations.
+
+We forbear to recount his return, and how many times he walked up and
+down the close to view his scattered bark, and to estimate the damage
+that had been done to him. At length that hour came which usually
+suspends all passions by the more imperious power of appetite--the hour
+of dinner: an hour of which it was never needful to remind Mr. Hill by
+watch, clock, or dial; for he was blessed with a punctual appetite, and
+powerful as punctual: so powerful, indeed, that it often excited the
+spleen of his more genteel or less hungry wife. "Bless my stars! Mr.
+Hill," she would oftentimes say, "I am really downright ashamed to see
+you eat so much; and when company is to dine with us, I do wish you would
+take a snack by way of a damper before dinner, that you may not look so
+prodigious famishing and ungenteel."
+
+Upon this hint, Mr. Hill commenced a practice, to which he ever
+afterwards religiously adhered, of going, whether there was to be company
+or no company, into the kitchen regularly every day, half an hour before
+dinner, to take a slice from the roast or the boiled before it went up to
+table. As he was this day, according to his custom, in the kitchen,
+taking his snack by way of a damper, he heard the housemaid and the cook
+talking about some wonderful fortune-teller, whom the housemaid had been
+consulting. This fortune-teller was no less a personage than the
+successor to Bampfylde Moore Carew, king of the gipsies, whose life and
+adventures are probably in many, too many, of our readers' hands.
+Bampfylde, the second king of the gipsies, assumed this title, in hopes
+of becoming as famous, or as infamous, as his predecessor: he was now
+holding his court in a wood near the town of Hereford, and numbers of
+servant-maids and 'prentices went to consult him--nay, it was whispered
+that he was resorted to, secretly, by some whose education might have
+taught them better sense.
+
+Numberless were the instances which our verger heard in his kitchen of
+the supernatural skill of this cunning man; and whilst Mr. Hill ate his
+snack with his wonted gravity, he revolved great designs in his secret
+soul. Mrs. Hill was surprised, several times during dinner, to see her
+consort put down his knife and fork, and meditate. "Gracious me, Mr.
+Hill! what can have happened to you this day? What can you be thinking
+of, Mr. Hill, that can make you forget what you have upon your plate?"
+
+"Mrs. Hill," replied the thoughtful verger, "our grandmother Eve had too
+much curiosity; and we all know it did not lead to good. What I am
+thinking of will be known to you in due time, but not now, Mrs. Hill;
+therefore, pray, no questions, or teasing, or pumping. What I think, I
+think; what I say, I say; what I know, I know; and that is enough for you
+to know at present: only this, Phœbe, you did very well not to put on
+the Limerick gloves, child. What I know, I know. Things will turn out
+just as I said from the first. What I say, I say; and what I think, I
+think; and this is enough for you to know at present."
+
+Having finished dinner with this solemn speech, Mr. Hill settled himself
+in his arm-chair, to take his after-dinner's nap: and he dreamed of
+blowing up cathedrals, and of oak bark floating upon the waters; and the
+cathedral was, he thought, blown up by a man dressed in a pair of woman's
+Limerick gloves, and the oak bark turned into mutton steaks, after which
+his great dog Jowler was swimming; when, all on a sudden, as he was going
+to beat Jowler for eating the bark transformed into mutton steaks, Jowler
+became Bampfylde the Second, king of the gipsies; and putting a horse-
+whip with a silver handle into Hill's hand, commanded him three times, in
+a voice as loud as the town-crier's, to have O'Neill whipped through the
+market-place of Hereford: but just as he was going to the window to see
+this whipping, his wig fell off, and he awoke.
+
+It was difficult, even for Mr. Hill's sagacity, to make sense of this
+dream: but he had the wise art of always finding in his dreams something
+that confirmed his waking determinations. Before he went to sleep, he
+had half resolved to consult the king of the gipsies, in the absence of
+the attorney; and his dream made him now wholly determined upon this
+prudent step. "From Bampfylde the Second," thought he, "I shall learn
+for certain who made the hole under the cathedral, who pulled down my
+rick of bark, and who made away with my dog Jowler; and then I shall
+swear examinations against O'Neill, without waiting for attorneys. I
+will follow my own way in this business: I have always found my own way
+best."
+
+So, when the dusk of the evening increased, our wise man set out towards
+the wood to consult the cunning man. Bampfylde the Second, king of the
+gipsies, resided in a sort of hut made of the branches of trees; the
+verger stooped, but did not stoop low enough, as he entered this
+temporary palace, and, whilst his body was almost bent double, his peruke
+was caught upon a twig. From this awkward situation he was relieved by
+the consort of the king; and he now beheld, by the light of some embers,
+the person of his gipsy majesty, to whose sublime appearance this dim
+light was so favourable that it struck a secret awe into our wise man's
+soul; and, forgetting Hereford Cathedral, and oak bark, and Limerick
+gloves, he stood for some seconds speechless. During this time, the
+queen very dexterously disencumbered his pocket of all superfluous
+articles. When he recovered his recollection, he put with great
+solemnity the following queries to the king of the gipsies, and received
+the following answers:--
+
+"Do you know a dangerous Irishman of the name of O'Neill, who has come,
+for purposes best known to himself, to settle at Hereford?"
+
+"Yes, we know him well."
+
+"Indeed! And what do you know of him?"
+
+"That he is a dangerous Irishman."
+
+"Right! And it was he, was it not, that pulled down, or caused to be
+pulled down, my rick of oak bark?"
+
+"It was."
+
+"And who was it that made away with my dog Jowler, that used to guard the
+tan-yard?"
+
+"It was the person that you suspect."
+
+"And was it the person whom I suspect that made the hole under the
+foundation of our cathedral?"
+
+"The same, and no other."
+
+"And for what purpose did he make that hole?"
+
+"For a purpose that must not be named," replied the king of the gipsies,
+nodding his head in a mysterious manner.
+
+"But it may be named to me," cried the verger, "for I have found it out,
+and I am one of the vergers; and is it not fit that a plot to blow up the
+Hereford Cathedral should be known _to_ me, and _through_ me?"
+
+  "Now, take my word,
+  Wise men of Hereford,
+  None in safety may be,
+  Till the bad man doth flee."
+
+These oracular verses, pronounced by Bampfylde with all the enthusiasm of
+one who was inspired, had the desired effect upon our wise man; and he
+left the presence of the king of the gipsies with a prodigiously high
+opinion of his majesty's judgment and of his own, fully resolved to
+impart, the next morning, to the mayor of Hereford his important
+discoveries.
+
+Now it happened that, during the time Mr. Hill was putting the foregoing
+queries to Bampfylde the Second, there came to the door or entrance of
+the audience chamber an Irish haymaker who wanted to consult the cunning
+man about a little leathern purse which he had lost whilst he was making
+hay in a field near Hereford. This haymaker was the same person who, as
+we have related, spoke so advantageously of our hero O'Neill to the widow
+Smith. As this man, whose name was Paddy M'Cormack, stood at the
+entrance of the gipsies' hut, his attention was caught by the name of
+O'Neill; and he lost not a word of all that pasted. He had reason to be
+somewhat surprised at hearing Bampfylde assert it was O'Neill who had
+pulled down the rick of bark. "By the holy poker!" said he to himself,
+"the old fellow now is out there. I know more o' that matter than he
+does--no offence to his majesty; he knows no more of my purse, I'll
+engage now, than he does of this man's rick of bark and his dog: so I'll
+keep my tester in my pocket, and not be giving it to this king o' the
+gipsies, as they call him: who, as near as I can guess, is no better than
+a cheat. But there is one secret which I can be telling this conjuror
+himself: he shall not find it such an easy matter to do all what he
+thinks; he shall not be after ruining an innocent countryman of my own
+whilst Paddy M'Cormack has a tongue and brains."
+
+Now, Paddy M'Cormack had the best reason possible for knowing that Mr.
+O'Neill did not pull down Mr. Hill's rick of bark; it was M'Cormack
+himself who, in the heat of his resentment for the insulting arrest of
+his countryman in the streets of Hereford, had instigated his fellow
+haymakers to this mischief; he headed them, and thought he was doing a
+clever, spirited action.
+
+There is a strange mixture of virtue and vice in the minds of the lower
+class of Irish: or rather, a strange confusion in their ideas of right
+and wrong, from want of proper education. As soon as poor Paddy found
+out that his spirited action of pulling down the rick of bark was likely
+to be the ruin of his countryman, he resolved to make all the amends in
+his power for his folly--he went to collect his fellow haymakers, and
+persuaded them to assist him this night in rebuilding what they had
+pulled down.
+
+They went to this work when everybody except themselves, as they thought,
+was asleep in Hereford. They had just completed the stack, and were all
+going away except Paddy, who was seated at the very top, finishing the
+pile, when they heard a loud voice cry out, "Here they are! Watch!
+Watch!"
+
+Immediately all the haymakers who could, ran off as fast as possible. It
+was the watch who had been sitting up at the cathedral who gave the
+alarm. Paddy was taken from the top of the rick and lodged in the watch-
+house till morning. "Since I'm to be rewarded this way for doing a good
+action, sorrow take me," said he, "if they catch me doing another the
+longest day ever I live."
+
+Happy they who have in their neighbourhood such a magistrate as Mr.
+Marshal! He was a man who, to an exact knowledge of the duties of his
+office, joined the power of discovering truth from the midst of
+contradictory evidence, and the happy art of soothing or laughing the
+angry passions into good-humour. It was a common saying in Hereford that
+no one ever came out of Justice Marshal's house as angry as he went into
+it.
+
+Mr. Marshal had scarcely breakfasted when he was informed that Mr. Hill,
+the verger, wanted to speak to him on business of the utmost importance.
+Mr. Hill, the verger, was ushered in; and, with gloomy solemnity, took a
+seat opposite to Mr. Marshal.
+
+"Sad doings in Hereford, Mr. Marshal! Sad doings, sir."
+
+"Sad doings? Why, I was told we had merry doings in Hereford. A ball
+the night before last, as I heard."
+
+"So much the worse, Mr. Marshal--so much the worse: as those think with
+reason that see as far into things as I do."
+
+"So much the better, Mr. Hill," said Mr. Marshal, laughing, "so much the
+better: as those think with reason that see no farther into things than I
+do."
+
+"But, sir," said the verger, still more solemnly, "this is no laughing
+matter, nor time for laughing, begging your pardon. Why, sir, the night
+of that there diabolical ball our Hereford Cathedral, sir, would have
+been blown up--blown up from the foundation, if it had not been for me,
+sir!"
+
+"Indeed, Mr. Verger! And pray how, and by whom, was the cathedral to be
+blown up? and what was there diabolical in this ball?"
+
+Here Mr. Hill let Mr. Marshal into the whole history of his early dislike
+to O'Neill, and his shrewd suspicions of him the first moment he saw him
+in Hereford: related in the most prolix manner all that the reader knows
+already, and concluded by saying that, as he was now certain of his
+facts, he was come to swear examinations against this villanous Irishman,
+who, he hoped, would be speedily brought to justice, as he deserved.
+
+"To justice he shall be brought, as he deserves," said Mr. Marshal; "but
+before I write, and before you swear, will you have the goodness to
+inform me how you have made yourself as certain, as you evidently are, of
+what you call your facts?"
+
+"Sir, that is a secret," replied our wise man, "which I shall trust to
+you alone;" and he whispered into Mr. Marshal's ear that, his information
+came from Bampfylde the Second, king of the gipsies.
+
+Mr. Marshal instantly burst into laughter; then composing himself, said:
+"My good sir, I am really glad that you have proceeded no farther in this
+business; and that no one in Hereford, beside myself, knows that you were
+on the point of swearing examinations against a man on the evidence of
+Bampfylde the Second, king of the gipsies. My dear sir, it would be a
+standing joke against you to the end of your days. A grave man like Mr.
+Hill! and a verger too! Why you would be the laughing-stock of
+Hereford!"
+
+Now Mr. Marshal well knew the character of the man to whom he was
+talking, who, above all things on earth, dreaded to be laughed at. Mr.
+Hill coloured all over his face, and, pushing back his wig by way of
+settling it, showed that he blushed not only all over his face, but all
+over his head.
+
+"Why, Mr. Marshal, sir," said he, "as to my being laughed at, it is what
+I did not look for, being, as there are, some men in Hereford to whom I
+have mentioned that hole in the cathedral, who have thought it no
+laughing matter, and who have been precisely of my own opinion
+thereupon."
+
+"But did you tell these gentlemen that you had been consulting the king
+of the gipsies?"
+
+"No, sir, no: I can't say that I did."
+
+"Then I advise you, keep your own counsel, as I will."
+
+Mr. Hill, whose imagination wavered between the hole in the cathedral and
+his rick of bark on one side, and between his rick of bark and his dog
+Jowler on the other, now began to talk of the dog, and now of the rick of
+bark; and when he had exhausted all he had to say upon these subjects,
+Mr. Marshal gently pulled him towards the window, and putting a spy-glass
+into his hand, bade him look towards his own tan-yard, and tell him what
+he saw. To his great surprise, Mr. Hill saw his rick of bark re-built.
+"Why, it was not there last night," exclaimed he, rubbing his eyes. "Why,
+some conjuror must have done this."
+
+"No," replied Mr. Marshal, "no conjuror did it: but your friend Bampfylde
+the Second, king of the gipsies, was the cause of its being re-built; and
+here is the man who actually pulled it down, and who actually re-built
+it."
+
+As he said these words Mr. Marshal opened the door of an adjoining room
+and beckoned to the Irish haymaker, who had been taken into custody about
+an hour before this time. The watch who took Paddy had called at Mr.
+Hill's house to tell him what had happened, but Mr. Hill was not then at
+home.
+
+It was with much surprise that the verger heard the simple truth from
+this poor fellow; but no sooner was he convinced that O'Neill was
+innocent as to this affair, than he recurred to his other ground of
+suspicion, the loss of his dog.
+
+The Irish haymaker now stepped forward, and, with a peculiar twist of the
+hips and shoulders, which those only who have seen it can picture to
+themselves, said, "Plase your honour's honour, I have a little word to
+say too about the dog."
+
+"Say it, then," said Mr. Marshal.
+
+"Plase your honour, if I might expect to be forgiven, and let off for
+pulling down the jontleman's stack, I might be able to tell him what I
+know about the dog."
+
+"If you can tell me anything about my dog," said the tanner, "I will
+freely forgive you for pulling down the rick: especially as you have
+built it up again. Speak the truth, now: did not O'Neill make away with
+the dog?"
+
+"Not at all, at all, plase your honour," replied the haymaker: "and the
+truth of the matter is, I know nothing of the dog, good or bad; but I
+know something of his collar, if your name, plase your honour, is Hill,
+as I take it to be."
+
+"My name is Hill: proceed," said the tanner, with great eagerness. "You
+know something about the collar of my dog Jowler?"
+
+"Plase your honour, this much I know, any way, that it is now, or was the
+night before last, at the pawnbroker's there, below in town; for, plase
+your honour, I was sent late at night (that night that Mr. O'Neill, long
+life to him! was arrested) to the pawnbroker's for a Jew by Mrs. O'Neill,
+poor creature! She was in great trouble that same time."
+
+"Very likely," interrupted Mr. Hill: "but go on to the collar; what of
+the collar?"
+
+"She sent me--I'll tell you the story, plase your honour, _out of the
+face_--she sent me to the pawnbroker's for the Jew; and, it being so late
+at night, the shop was shut, and it was with all the trouble in life that
+I got into the house any way: and, when I got in, there was none but a
+slip of a boy up; and he set down the light that he had in his hand, and
+ran up the stairs to waken his master: and, whilst he was gone, I just
+made bold to look round at what sort of a place I was in, and at the old
+clothes and rags and scraps; there was a sort of a frieze trusty."
+
+"A trusty!" said Mr. Hill; "what is that, pray?"
+
+"A big coat, sure, plase your honour: there was a frieze big coat lying
+in a corner, which I had my eye upon, to trate myself to: I having, as I
+then thought, money in my little purse enough for it. Well, I won't
+trouble your honour's honour with telling of you now how I lost my purse
+in the field, as I found after; but about the big coat--as I was saying,
+I just lifted it off the ground to see would it fit me; and, as I swung
+it round, something, plase your honour, hit me a great knock on the
+shins: it was in the pocket of the coat, whatever it was, I knew; so I
+looks into the pocket to see what was it, plase your honour, and out I
+pulls a hammer and a dog-collar: it was a wonder, both together, they did
+not break my shins entirely: but it's no matter for my shins now; so,
+before the boy came down, I just out of idleness spelt out to myself the
+name that was upon the collar: there were two names, plase your honour,
+and out of the first there were so many letters hammered out I could make
+nothing of it at all, at all; but the other name was plain enough to
+read, any way, and it was Hill, plase your honour's honour, as sure as
+life: Hill, now."
+
+This story was related in tones and gestures which were so new and
+strange to English ears and eyes, that even the solemnity of our verger
+gave way to laughter.
+
+Mr. Marshal sent a summons for the pawnbroker, that he might learn from
+him how he came by the dog-collar. The pawnbroker, when he found from
+Mr. Marshal that he could by no other means save himself from being
+committed to prison, confessed that the collar had been sold to him by
+Bampfylde the Second, king of the gipsies.
+
+A warrant was immediately despatched for his majesty; and Mr. Hill was a
+good deal alarmed by the fear of its being known in Hereford that he was
+on the point of swearing examinations against an innocent man upon the
+evidence of a dog-stealer and a gipsy.
+
+Bampfylde the Second made no sublime appearance when he was brought
+before Mr. Marshal, nor could all his astrology avail upon this occasion.
+The evidence of the pawnbroker was so positive as to the fact of his
+having sold to him the dog-collar, that there was no resource left for
+Bampfylde but an appeal to Mr. Hill's mercy. He fell on his knees, and
+confessed that it was he who stole the dog, which used to bark at him at
+night so furiously, that he could not commit certain petty depredations
+by which, as much as by telling fortunes, he made his livelihood.
+
+"And so," said Mr. Marshal, with a sternness of manner which till now he
+had never shown, "to screen yourself, you accused an innocent man; and by
+your vile arts would have driven him from Hereford, and have set two
+families for ever at variance, to conceal that you had stolen a dog."
+
+The king of the gipsies was, without further ceremony, committed to the
+house of correction. We should not omit to mention that, on searching
+his hat, the Irish haymaker's purse was found, which some of his
+majesty's train had emptied. The whole set of gipsies decamped upon the
+news of the apprehension of their monarch.
+
+Mr. Hill stood in profound silence, leaning upon his walking-stick,
+whilst the committal was making out for Bampfylde the Second. The fear
+of ridicule was struggling with the natural positiveness of his temper.
+He was dreadfully afraid that the story of his being taken in by the king
+of the gipsies would get abroad; and, at the same time, he was unwilling
+to give up his prejudice against the Irish glover.
+
+"But, Mr. Marshal," cried he, after a long silence, "the hole under the
+foundation of the cathedral has never been accounted for--that is, was,
+and ever will be, an ugly mystery to me; and I never can have a good
+opinion of this Irishman till it is cleared up, nor can I think the
+cathedral in safety."
+
+"What!" said Mr. Marshal, with an arch smile, "I suppose the verses of
+the oracle still work upon your imagination, Mr. Hill. They are
+excellent in their kind. I must have them by heart, that when I am asked
+the reason why Mr. Hill has taken an aversion to an Irish glover, I may
+be able to repeat them:--
+
+  "Now, take my word,
+  Wise men of Hereford,
+  None in safety may be,
+  Till the bad man doth flee."
+
+"You'll oblige me, sir," said the verger, "if you would never repeat
+those verses, sir, nor mention, in any company, the affair of the king of
+the gipsies."
+
+"I will oblige you," replied Mr. Marshal, "if you will oblige me. Will
+you tell me honestly whether, now that you find this Mr. O'Neill is
+neither a dog-killer nor a puller-down of bark-ricks, you feel that you
+could forgive him for being an Irishman, if the mystery, as you call it,
+of the hole under the cathedral was cleared up?"
+
+"But that is not cleared up, I say, sir," cried Mr. Hill, striking his
+walking-stick forcibly upon the ground with both his hands. "As to the
+matter of his being an Irishman, I have nothing to say to it; I am not
+saying anything about that, for I know we all are born where it pleases
+God, and an Irishman may be as good as another. I know that much, Mr.
+Marshal, and I am not one of those illiberal-minded, ignorant people that
+cannot abide a man that was not born in England. Ireland is now in his
+majesty's dominions. I know very well, Mr. Marshal; and I have no manner
+of doubt, as I said before, that an Irishman born may be as good, almost,
+as an Englishman born."
+
+"I am glad," said Mr. Marshal, "to hear you speak--almost as reasonably
+as an Englishman born and every man ought to speak; and I am convinced
+that you have too much English hospitality to persecute an inoffensive
+stranger, who comes amongst us trusting to our justice and good nature."
+
+"I would not persecute a stranger, God forbid!" replied the verger, "if
+he was, as you say, inoffensive."
+
+"And if he was not only inoffensive, but ready to do every service in his
+power to those who are in want of his assistance, we should not return
+evil for good, should we?"
+
+"That would be uncharitable, to be sure; and, moreover, a scandal," said
+the verger.
+
+"Then," said Mr. Marshal, "will you walk with me as far as the Widow
+Smith's, the poor woman whose house was burnt last winter? This
+haymaker, who lodged near her, can show us the way to her present abode."
+
+During his examination of Paddy M'Cormack, who would tell his whole
+history, as he called it, _out of the face_, Mr. Marshal heard several
+instances of the humanity and goodness of O'Neill, which Paddy related to
+excuse himself for that warmth of attachment to his cause that had been
+manifested so injudiciously by pulling down the rick of bark in revenge
+for the rest. Amongst other things, Paddy mentioned his countryman's
+goodness to the Widow Smith. Mr. Marshal was determined, therefore, to
+see whether he had, in this instance, spoken the truth; and he took Hill
+with him, in hopes of being able to show him the favourable side of
+O'Neill's character.
+
+Things turned out just as Mr. Marshal expected. The poor widow and her
+family, in the most simple and affecting manner, described the distress
+from which they had been relieved by the good gentleman; and lady--the
+lady was Phœbe Hill; and the praises that were bestowed upon Phœbe were
+delightful to her father's ear, whose angry passions had now all
+subsided.
+
+The benevolent Mr. Marshal seized the moment when he saw Mr. Hill's heart
+was touched, and exclaimed, "I must be acquainted with this Mr. O'Neill.
+I am sure we people of Hereford ought to show some hospitality to a
+stranger who has so much humanity. Mr. Hill, will you dine with him to-
+morrow at my house?"
+
+Mr. Hill was just going to accept of this invitation, when the
+recollection of all he had said to his club about the hole under the
+cathedral came across him, and, drawing Mr. Marshal aside, he whispered,
+"But, sir, sir, that affair of the hole under the cathedral has not been
+cleared up yet."
+
+At this instant the Widow Smith exclaimed, "Oh! here comes my little
+Mary" (one of her children, who came running in); "this is the little
+girl, sir, to whom the lady has been so good. Make your curtsey, child.
+Where have you been all this while?"
+
+"Mammy," said the child, "I've been showing the lady my rat."
+
+"Lord bless her! Gentlemen, the child has been wanting me this many a
+day to go to see this tame rat of hers; but I could never get time,
+never--and I wondered, too, at the child's liking such a creature. Tell
+the gentlemen, dear, about your rat. All I know is that, let her have
+but never such a tiny bit of bread for breakfast or supper, she saves a
+little of that little for this rat of hers; she and her brothers have
+found it out somewhere by the cathedral."
+
+"It comes out of a hole under the wall of the cathedral," said one of the
+older boys; "and we have diverted ourselves watching it, and sometimes we
+have put victuals for it--so it has grown, in a manner, tame-like."
+
+Mr. Hill and Mr. Marshal looked at one another during this speech; and
+the dread of ridicule again seized on Mr. Hill, when he apprehended that,
+after all he had said, the mountain might at last bring forth--a rat. Mr.
+Marshal, who instantly saw what passed in the verger's mind, relieved him
+from this fear by refraining even from a smile on this occasion. He only
+said to the child, in a grave manner, "I am afraid, my dear, we shall be
+obliged to spoil your diversion. Mr. Verger, here, cannot suffer rat-
+holes in the cathedral; but, to make you amends for the loss of your
+favourite, I will give you a very pretty little dog, if you have a mind."
+
+The child was well pleased with this promise; and, at Mr. Marshal's
+desire, she then went along with him and Mr. Hill to the cathedral, and
+they placed themselves at a little distance from that hole which had
+created so much disturbance. The child soon brought the dreadful enemy
+to light; and Mr. Hill, with a faint laugh, said, "I'm glad it's no
+worse, but there were many in our club who were of my opinion; and, if
+they had not suspected O'Neill too, I am sure I should never have given
+you so much trouble, sir, as I have done this morning. But I hope, as
+the club know nothing about that vagabond, that king of the gipsies, you
+will not let any one know anything about the prophecy, and all that? I
+am sure I am very sorry to have given you so much trouble, Mr. Marshal."
+
+Mr. Marshal assured him that he did not regret the time which he had
+spent in endeavouring to clear up all those mysteries and suspicions; and
+Mr. Hill gladly accepted his invitation to meet O'Neill at his house the
+next day. No sooner had Mr. Marshal brought one of the parties to reason
+and good humour than he went to prepare the other for a reconciliation.
+O'Neill and his mother were both people of warm but forgiving tempers--the
+arrest was fresh in their minds; but when Mr. Marshal represented to them
+the whole affair, and the verger's prejudices, in a humorous light, they
+joined in the good-natured laugh; and O'Neill declared that, for his
+part, he was ready to forgive and to forget everything if he could but
+see Miss Phœbe in the Limerick gloves.
+
+Phœbe appeared the next day, at Mr. Marshal's, in the Limerick gloves;
+and no perfume ever was so delightful to her lover as the smell of the
+rose-leaves in which they had been kept.
+
+Mr. Marshal had the benevolent pleasure of reconciling the two families.
+The tanner and the glover of Hereford became, from bitter enemies, useful
+friends to each other; and they were convinced by experience that nothing
+could be more for their mutual advantage than to live in union.
+
+
+
+
+MADAME DE FLEURY
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+  "There oft are heard the notes of infant woe,
+  The short thick sob, loud scream, and shriller squall--
+  How can you, mothers, vex your infants so?"--POPE
+
+"D'abord, madame, c'est impossible!--Madame ne descendra pas ici?" said
+Francois, the footman of Madame de Fleury, with a half expostulatory,
+half indignant look, as he let down the step of her carriage at the
+entrance of a dirty passage, that led to one of the most
+miserable-looking houses in Paris.
+
+"But what can be the cause of the cries which I hear in this house?" said
+Madame de Fleury.
+
+"'Tis only some child who is crying," replied Francois; and he would have
+put up the step, but his lady was not satisfied.
+
+"'Tis nothing in the world," continued he, with a look of appeal to the
+coachman, "it _can_ be nothing, but some children who are locked up there
+above. The mother, the workwoman my lady wants, is not at home: that's
+certain."
+
+"I must know the cause of these cries; I must see these children" said
+Madame de Fleury, getting out of her carriage.
+
+Francois held his arm for his lady as she got out.
+
+"Bon!" cried he, with an air of vexation. "Si madame la vent absolument,
+a la bonne heure!--Mais madame sera abimee. Madame verra que j'ai
+raison. Madame ne montera jamais ce vilain escalier. D'ailleurs c'est
+au cinquieme. Mais, madame, c'est impossible."
+
+Notwithstanding the impossibility, Madame de Fleury proceeded; and
+bidding her talkative footman wait in the entry, made her way up the
+dark, dirty, broken staircase, the sound of the cries increasing every
+instant, till, as she reached the fifth storey, she heard the shrieks of
+one in violent pain. She hastened to the door of the room from which the
+cries proceeded; the door was fastened, and the noise was so great that,
+though she knocked as loud as she was able, she could not immediately
+make herself heard. At last the voice of a child from within answered,
+"The door is locked--mamma has the key in her pocket, and won't be home
+till night; and here's Victoire has tumbled from the top of the big
+press, and it is she that is shrieking so."
+
+Madame de Fleury ran down the stairs which she had ascended with so much
+difficulty, called to her footman, who was waiting in the entry,
+despatched him for a surgeon, and then she returned to obtain from some
+people who lodged in the house assistance to force open the door of the
+room in which the children were confined.
+
+On the next floor there was a smith at work, filing so earnestly that he
+did not hear the screams of the children. When his door was pushed open,
+and the bright vision of Madame de Fleury appeared to him, his
+astonishment was so great that he seemed incapable of comprehending what
+she said. In a strong provincial accent he repeated, "_Plait-il_?" and
+stood aghast till she had explained herself three times; then suddenly
+exclaiming, "Ah! c'est ca;"--he collected his tools precipitately, and
+followed to obey her orders. The door of the room was at last forced
+half open, for a press that had been overturned prevented its opening
+entirely. The horrible smells that issued did not overcome Madame de
+Fleury's humanity: she squeezed her way into the room, and behind the
+fallen press saw three little children: the youngest, almost an infant,
+ceased roaring, and ran to a corner; the eldest, a boy of about eight
+years old, whose face and clothes were covered with blood, held on his
+knee a girl younger than himself, whom he was trying to pacify, but who
+struggled most violently and screamed incessantly, regardless of Madame
+de Fleury, to whose questions she made no answer.
+
+"Where are you hurt, my dear?" repeated Madame de Fleury in a soothing
+voice. "Only tell me where you feel pain?"
+
+The boy, showing his sister's arm, said, in a surly tone--"It is this
+that is hurt--but it was not I did it."
+
+"It was, it _was_!" cried the girl as loud as she could vociferate: "it
+was Maurice threw me down from the top of the press."
+
+"No--it was you that were pushing me, Victoire, and you fell
+backwards.--Have done screeching, and show your arm to the lady."
+
+"I can't," said the girl.
+
+"She won't," said the boy.
+
+"She cannot," said Madame de Fleury, kneeling down to examine it. "She
+cannot move it; I am afraid that it is broken."
+
+"Don't touch it! don't touch it!" cried the girl, screaming more
+violently.
+
+"Ma'am, she screams that way for nothing often," said the boy. "Her arm
+is no more broke than mine, I'm sure; she'll move it well enough when
+she's not cross."
+
+"I am afraid," said Madame de Fleury, "that her arm is broken."
+
+"Is it indeed?" said the boy, with a look of terror.
+
+"Oh! don't touch it--you'll kill me; you are killing me," screamed the
+poor girl, whilst Madame de Fleury with the greatest care endeavoured to
+join the bones in their proper place, and resolved to hold the arm till
+the arrival of the surgeon.
+
+From the feminine appearance of this lady, no stranger would have
+expected such resolution; but with all the natural sensibility and
+graceful delicacy of her sex, she had none of that weakness or affection
+which incapacitates from being useful in real distress. In most sudden
+accidents, and in all domestic misfortunes, female resolution and
+presence of mind are indispensably requisite: safety, health, and life
+often depend upon the fortitude of women. Happy they who, like Madame de
+Fleury, possess strength of mind united with the utmost gentleness of
+manner and tenderness of disposition!
+
+Soothed by this lady's sweet voice, the child's rage subsided; and no
+longer struggling, the poor little girl sat quietly on her lap, sometimes
+writhing and moaning with pain.
+
+The surgeon at length arrived: her arm was set: and he said "that she had
+probably been saved much future pain by Madame de Fleury's presence of
+mind."
+
+"Sir,--will it soon be well?" said Maurice to the surgeon.
+
+"Oh yes, very soon, I dare say," said the little girl. "To-morrow,
+perhaps; for now that it is tied up it does not hurt me to signify--and
+after all, I do believe, Maurice, it was not you threw me down."
+
+As she spoke, she held up her face to kiss her brother.--"That is right,"
+said Madame de Fleury; "there is a good sister."
+
+The little girl put out her lips, offering a second kiss, but the boy
+turned hastily away to rub the tears from his eyes with the back of his
+hand.
+
+"I am not cross now: am I, Maurice?"
+
+"No, Victoire; I was cross myself when I said _that_."
+
+As Victoire was going to speak again, the surgeon imposed silence,
+observing that she must be put to bed, and should be kept quiet. Madame
+de Fleury laid her upon the bed, as soon as Maurice had cleared it of the
+things with which it was covered; and as they were spreading the ragged
+blanket over the little girl, she whispered a request to Madame de Fleury
+that she would "stay till her mamma came home, to beg Maurice off from
+being whipped, if mamma should be angry."
+
+Touched by this instance of goodness, and compassionating the desolate
+condition of these children, Madame de Fleury complied with Victoire's
+request; resolving to remonstrate with their mother for leaving them
+locked up in this manner. They did not know to what part of the town
+their mother was gone; they could tell only "that she was to go to a
+great many different places to carry back work, and to bring home more,
+and that she expected to be in by five." It was now half after four.
+
+Whilst Madame de Fleury waited, she asked the boy to give her a full
+account of the manner in which the accident had happened.
+
+"Why, ma'am," said Maurice, twisting and untwisting a ragged handkerchief
+as he spoke, "the first beginning of all the mischief was, we had nothing
+to do, so we went to the ashes to make dirt pies; but Babet would go so
+close that she burnt her petticoat, and threw about all our ashes, and
+plagued us, and we whipped her. But all would not do, she would not be
+quiet; so to get out of her reach, we climbed up by this chair on the
+table to the top of the press, and there we were well enough for a little
+while, till somehow we began to quarrel about the old scissors, and we
+struggled hard for them till I got this cut."
+
+Here he unwound the handkerchief, and for the first time showed the
+wound, which he had never mentioned before.
+
+"Then," continued he, "when I got the cut, I shoved Victoire, and she
+pushed at me again, and I was keeping her off, and her foot slipped, and
+down she fell, and caught by the press-door, and pulled it and me after
+her, and that's all I know."
+
+"It is well that you were not both killed," said Madame de Fleury. "Are
+you often left locked up in this manner by yourselves, and without
+anything to do?"
+
+"Yes, always, when mamma is abroad, except sometimes we are let out upon
+the stairs or in the street; but mamma says we get into mischief there."
+
+This dialogue was interrupted by the return of the mother. She came
+upstairs slowly, much fatigued, and with a heavy bundle under her arm.
+
+"How now! Maurice, how comes my door open? What's all this?" cried she,
+in an angry voice; but seeing a lady sitting upon her child's bed, she
+stopped short in great astonishment. Madame de Fleury related what had
+happened, and averted her anger from Maurice by gently expostulating upon
+the hardship and hazard of leaving her young children in this manner
+during so many hours of the day.
+
+"Why, my lady," replied the poor woman, wiping her forehead, "every hard-
+working woman in Paris does the same with her children; and what can I do
+else? I must earn bread for these helpless ones, and to do that I must
+be out backwards and forwards, and to the furthest parts of the town,
+often from morning till night, with those that employ me; and I cannot
+afford to send the children to school, or to keep any kind of a servant
+to look after them; and when I'm away, if I let them run about these
+stairs and entries, or go into the streets, they do get a little exercise
+and air, to be sure, such as it is on which account I do let them out
+sometimes; but then a deal of mischief comes of that, too: they learn all
+kinds of wickedness, and would grow up to be no better than pickpockets,
+if they were let often to consort with the little vagabonds they find in
+the streets. So what to do better for them I don't know."
+
+The poor mother sat down upon the fallen press, looked at Victoire, and
+wept bitterly. Madame de Fleury was struck with compassion; but she did
+not satisfy her feelings merely by words or comfort or by the easy
+donation of some money--she resolved to do something more, and something
+better.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+  "Come often, then; for haply in my bower
+  Amusement, knowledge, wisdom, thou may'st gain:
+  If I one soul improve, I have not lived in vain."--BEATTIE.
+
+It is not so easy to do good as those who have never attempted it may
+imagine; and they who without consideration follow the mere instinct of
+pity, often by their imprudent generosity create evils more pernicious to
+society than any which they partially remedy. "Warm Charity, the general
+friend," may become the general enemy, unless she consults her head as
+well as her heart. Whilst she pleases herself with the idea that she
+daily feeds hundreds of the poor, she is perhaps preparing want and
+famine for thousands. Whilst she delights herself with the anticipation
+of gratitude for her bounties, she is often exciting only unreasonable
+expectations, inducing habits of dependence and submission to slavery.
+
+Those who wish to do good should attend to experience, from whom they may
+receive lessons upon the largest scale that time and numbers can afford.
+
+Madame de Fleury was aware that neither a benevolent disposition nor a
+large fortune were sufficient to enable her to be of real service,
+without the constant exercise of her judgment. She had, therefore,
+listened with deference to the conversation of well-informed men upon
+those subjects on which ladies have not always the means or the wish to
+acquire extensive and accurate knowledge. Though a Parisian belle, she
+had read with attention some of those books which are generally thought
+too dry or too deep for her sex. Consequently, her benevolence was
+neither wild in theory nor precipitate nor ostentatious in practice.
+
+Touched with compassion for a little girl whose arm had been accidentally
+broken, and shocked by the discovery of the confinement and the dangers
+to which numbers of children in Paris were doomed, she did not make a
+parade of her sensibility. She did not talk of her feelings in fine
+sentences to a circle of opulent admirers, nor did she project for the
+relief of the little sufferers some magnificent establishment which she
+could not execute or superintend. She was contented with attempting only
+what she had reasonable hopes of accomplishing.
+
+The gift of education she believed to be more advantageous than the gift
+of money to the poor, as it ensures the means both of future subsistence
+and happiness. But the application even of this incontrovertible
+principle requires caution and judgment. To crowd numbers of children
+into a place called a school, to abandon them to the management of any
+person called a schoolmaster or a schoolmistress, is not sufficient to
+secure the blessings of a good education. Madame de Fleury was sensible
+that the greatest care is necessary in the choice of the person to whom
+young children are to be entrusted; she knew that only a certain number
+can be properly directed by one superintendent, and that, by attempting
+to do too much, she might do nothing, or worse than nothing. Her school
+was formed, therefore, on a small scale, which she could enlarge to any
+extent, if it should be found to succeed. From some of the families of
+poor people, who, in earning their bread, are obliged to spend most of
+the day from home, she selected twelve little girls, of whom Victoire was
+the eldest, and she was between six and seven.
+
+The person under whose care Madame de Fleury wished to place these
+children was a nun of the _Soeurs de la Charite_, with whose simplicity
+of character, benevolence, and mild, steady temper she was thoroughly
+acquainted. Sister Frances was delighted with the plan. Any scheme that
+promised to be of service to her follow-creatures was sure of meeting
+with her approbation; but this suited her taste peculiarly, because she
+was extremely fond of children. No young person had ever boarded six
+months at her convent without becoming attached to good Sister Frances.
+
+The period of which we are writing was some years before convents were
+abolished; but the strictness of their rules had in many instances been
+considerably relaxed. Without much difficulty, permission was obtained
+from the abbess for our nun to devote her time during the day to the care
+of these poor children, upon condition that she should regularly return
+to her convent every night before evening prayers. The house which
+Madame de Fleury chose for her little school was in an airy part of the
+town; it did not face the street, but was separated from other buildings
+at the back of a court, retired from noise and bustle. The two rooms
+intended for the occupation of the children were neat and clean, but
+perfectly simple, with whitewashed walls, furnished only with wooden
+stools and benches, and plain deal tables. The kitchen was well lighted
+(for light is essential to cleanliness), and it was provided with
+utensils; and for these appropriate places were allotted, to give the
+habit and the taste of order. The schoolroom opened into a garden larger
+than is usually seen in towns. The nun, who had been accustomed to
+purchase provisions for her convent, undertook to prepare daily for the
+children breakfast and dinner; they were to sup and sleep at their
+respective homes. Their parents were to take them to Sister Frances
+every morning when they went out to work, and to call for them upon their
+return home every evening. By this arrangement, the natural ties of
+affection and intimacy between the children and their parents would not
+be loosened; they would be separate only at the time when their absence
+must be inevitable. Madame de Fleury thought that any education which
+estranges children entirely from their parents must be fundamentally
+erroneous; that such a separation must tend to destroy that sense of
+filial affection and duty, and those principles of domestic
+subordination, on which so many of the interests and much of the virtue
+and happiness of society depend. The parents of these poor children were
+eager to trust them to her care, and they strenuously endeavoured to
+promote what they perceived to be entirely to their advantage. They
+promised to take their daughters to school punctually every morning--a
+promise which was likely to be kept, as a good breakfast was to be ready
+at a certain hour, and not to wait for anybody. The parents looked
+forward with pleasure, also, to the idea of calling for their little
+girls at the end of their day's labour, and of taking them home to their
+family supper. During the intermediate hours the children were
+constantly to be employed, or in exercise. It was difficult to provide
+suitable employments for their early age; but even the youngest of those
+admitted could be taught to wind balls of cotton, thread, and silk for
+haberdashers; or they could shell peas and beans, &c., for a neighbouring
+_traiteur_; or they could weed in a garden. The next in age could learn
+knitting and plain work, reading, writing, and arithmetic. As the girls
+should grow up, they were to be made useful in the care of the house.
+Sister Frances said she could teach them to wash and iron, and that she
+would make them as skilful in cookery as she was herself. This last was
+doubtless a rash promise; for in most of the mysteries of the culinary
+art, especially in the medical branches of it, in making savoury messes
+palatable to the sick, few could hope to equal the neat-handed Sister
+Frances. She had a variety of other accomplishments; but her humility
+and good sense forbade her upon the present occasion to mention these.
+She said nothing of embroidery, or of painting, or of cutting out paper,
+or of carving in ivory, though in all these she excelled: her cuttings-
+out in paper were exquisite as the finest lace; her embroidered
+housewives, and her painted boxes, and her fan-mounts, and her curiously-
+wrought ivory toys, had obtained for her the highest reputation in the
+convent amongst the best judges in the world. Those only who have
+philosophically studied and thoroughly understand the nature of fame and
+vanity can justly appreciate the self-denial or magnanimity of Sister
+Frances, in forbearing to enumerate or boast of these things. She
+alluded to them but once, and in the slightest and most humble manner.
+
+"These little creatures are too young for us to think of teaching them
+anything but plain work at present; but if hereafter any of them should
+show a superior genius we can cultivate it properly. Heaven has been
+pleased to endow me with the means--at least, our convent says so."
+
+The actions of Sister Frances showed as much moderation as her words; for
+though she was strongly tempted to adorn her new dwelling with those
+specimens of her skill which had long been the glory of her apartment in
+the convent, yet she resisted the impulse, and contented herself with
+hanging over the chimney-piece of her schoolroom a Madonna of her own
+painting.
+
+The day arrived when she was to receive her pupils in their new
+habitation. When the children entered the room for the first time, they
+paid the Madonna the homage of their unfeigned admiration. Involuntarily
+the little crowd stopped short at the sight of the picture. Some dormant
+emotions of human vanity were now awakened--played for a moment about the
+heart of Sister Frances--and may be forgiven. Her vanity was innocent
+and transient, her benevolence permanent and useful. Repressing the vain-
+glory of an artist, as she fixed her eyes upon the Madonna, her thoughts
+rose to higher objects, and she seized this happy moment to impress upon
+the minds of her young pupils their first religious ideas and feelings.
+There was such unaffected piety in her manner, such goodness in her
+countenance, such persuasion in her voice, and simplicity in her words,
+that the impression she made was at once serious, pleasing, and not to be
+effaced. Much depends upon the moment and the manner in which the first
+notions of religion are communicated to children; if these ideas be
+connected with terror, and produced when the mind is sullen or in a state
+of dejection, the future religious feelings are sometimes of a gloomy,
+dispiriting sort; but if the first impression be made when the heart is
+expanded by hope or touched by affection, these emotions are happily and
+permanently associated with religion. This should be particularly
+attended to by those who undertake the instruction of the children of the
+poor, who must lead a life of labour, and can seldom have leisure or
+inclination, when arrived at years of discretion, to re-examine the
+principles early infused into their minds. They cannot in their riper
+age conquer by reason those superstitions terrors, or bigoted prejudices,
+which render their victims miserable, or perhaps criminal. To attempt to
+rectify any errors in the foundation after an edifice has been
+constructed is dangerous: the foundation, therefore, should be laid with
+care. The religious opinions of Sister Frances were strictly united with
+just rules of morality, strongly enforcing, as the essential means of
+obtaining present and future happiness, the practice of the social
+virtues, so that no good or wise persons, however they might differ from
+her in modes of faith, could doubt the beneficial influence of her
+general principles, or disapprove of the manner in which they were
+inculcated.
+
+Detached from every other worldly interest, this benevolent nun devoted
+all her earthly thoughts to the children of whom she had undertaken the
+charge. She watched over them with unceasing vigilance, whilst
+diffidence of her own abilities was happily supported by her high opinion
+of Madame de Fleury's judgment. This lady constantly visited her pupils
+every week; not in the hasty, negligent manner in which fine ladies
+sometimes visit charitable institutions, imagining that the honour of
+their presence is to work miracles, and that everything will go on
+rightly when they have said, "_Let it be so_," or, "_I must have it so_."
+Madame de Fleury's visits were not of this dictatorial or cursory nature.
+Not minutes, but hours, she devoted to these children--she who could
+charm by the grace of her manners, and delight by the elegance of her
+conversation, the most polished circles and the best-informed societies
+of Paris, preferred to the glory of being admired the pleasure of being
+useful:--
+
+  "Her life, as lovely as her face,
+  Each duty mark'd with every grace;
+  Her native sense improved by reading,
+  Her native sweetness by good breeding."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+  "Ah me! how much I fear lest pride it be;
+  But if that pride it be which thus inspires,
+  Beware, ye dames! with nice discernment see
+  Ye quench not too the sparks of nobler fires."
+
+  SHENSTONE.
+
+By repeated observation, and by attending to the minute reports of Sister
+Frances, Madame de Fleury soon became acquainted with the habits and
+temper of each individual in this little society. The most intelligent
+and the most amiable of these children was Victoire. Whence her
+superiority arose, whether her abilities were naturally more vivacious
+than those of her companions, or whether they had been more early
+developed by accidental excitation, we cannot pretend to determine, lest
+we should involve ourselves in the intricate question respecting natural
+genius--a metaphysical point, which we shall not in this place stop to
+discuss. Till the world has an accurate philosophical dictionary (a work
+not to be expected in less than half a dozen centuries), this question
+will never be decided to general satisfaction. In the meantime we may
+proceed with our story.
+
+Deep was the impression made on Victoire's heart by the kindness that
+Madame de Fleury showed her at the time her arm was broken; and her
+gratitude was expressed with all the enthusiastic fondness of childhood.
+Whenever she spoke or heard of Madame de Fleury her countenance became
+interested and animated in a degree that would have astonished a cool
+English spectator. Every morning her first question to Sister Frances
+was: "Will _she_ come to-day?" If Madame de Fleury was expected, the
+hours and the minutes were counted, and the sand in the hour-glass that
+stood on the schoolroom table was frequently shaken. The moment she
+appeared Victoire ran to her, and was silent; satisfied with standing
+close beside her, holding her gown when unperceived, and watching, as she
+spoke and moved, every turn of her countenance. Delighted by these marks
+of sensibility, Sister Frances would have praised the child, but was
+warned by Madame de Fleury to refrain from injudicious eulogiums, lest
+she should teach her affectation.
+
+"If I must not praise, you will permit me at least to love her," said
+Sister Frances.
+
+Her affection for Victoire was increased by compassion: during two months
+the poor child's arm hung in a sling, so that she could not venture to
+play with her companions. At their hours of recreation she used to sit
+on the schoolroom steps, looking down into the garden at the scene of
+merriment in which she could not partake.
+
+For those who know how to find it, there is good in everything. Sister
+Frances used to take her seat on the steps, sometimes with her work and
+sometimes with a book; and Victoire, tired of being quite idle, listened
+with eagerness to the stories which Sister Frances read, or watched with
+interest the progress of her work; soon she longed to imitate what she
+saw done with so much pleasure, and begged to be taught to work and read.
+By degrees she learned her alphabet, and could soon, to the amazement of
+her schoolfellows, read the names of all the animals in Sister Frances'
+picture-book. No matter how trifling the thing done, or the knowledge
+acquired, a great point is gained by giving the desire for employment.
+Children frequently become industrious from impatience of the pains and
+penalties of idleness. Count Rumford showed that he understood childish
+nature perfectly well when, in his House of Industry at Munich, he
+compelled the young children to sit for some time idle in a gallery round
+the hall, where others a little older than themselves were busied at
+work. During Victoire's state of idle convalescence she acquired the
+desire to be employed, and she consequently soon became more industrious
+than her neighbours. Succeeding in her first efforts, she was
+praised--was pleased, and persevered till she became an example of
+activity to her companions. But Victoire, though now nearly seven years
+old, was not quite perfect. Naturally, or accidentally, she was very
+passionate, and not a little self-willed.
+
+One day being mounted, horsemanlike, with whip in hand, upon the banister
+of the flight of stairs leading from the schoolroom to the garden, she
+called in a tone of triumph to her playfellows, desiring them to stand
+out of the way, and see her slide from top to bottom. At this moment
+Sister Frances came to the schoolroom door and forbade the feat; but
+Victoire, regardless of all prohibition, slid down instantly, and
+moreover was going to repeat the glorious operation, when Sister Frances,
+catching hold of her arm, pointed to a heap of sharp stones that lay on
+the ground upon the other side of the banisters.
+
+"I am not afraid," said Victoire.
+
+"But if you fall there, you may break your arm again."
+
+"And if I do, I can bear it," said Victoire. "Let me go, pray let me go:
+I must do it."
+
+"No; I forbid you, Victoire, to slide down again. Babet and all the
+little ones would follow your example, and perhaps break their necks."
+
+The nun, as she spoke, attempted to compel Victoire to dismount; but she
+was so much of a heroine, that she would do nothing upon compulsion.
+Clinging fast to the banisters, she resisted with all her might; she
+kicked and screamed, and screamed and kicked, but at last her feet were
+taken prisoners; then grasping the railway with one hand, with the other
+she brandished high the little whip.
+
+"What!" said the mild nun, "would you strike me with that _arm_?"
+
+The arm dropped instantly--Victoire recollected Madame de Fleury's
+kindness the day when the arm was broken; dismounting immediately, she
+threw herself upon her knees in the midst of the crowd of young
+spectators, and begged pardon of Sister Frances. For the rest of the day
+she was as gentle as a lamb; nay, some assert that the effects of her
+contrition were visible during the remainder of the week.
+
+Having thus found the secret of reducing the little rebel to obedience by
+touching her on the tender point of gratitude, the nun had recourse to
+this expedient in all perilous cases; but one day, when she was boasting
+of the infallible operation of her charm, Madame de Fleury advised her to
+forbear recurring to it frequently, lest she should wear out the
+sensibility she so much loved. In consequence of this counsel,
+Victoire's violence of temper was sometimes reduced by force and
+sometimes corrected by reason; but the principle and the feeling of
+gratitude were not exhausted or weakened in the struggle. The hope of
+reward operated upon her generous mind more powerfully than the fear of
+punishment; and Madame de Fleury devised rewards with as much ability as
+some legislators invent punishments.
+
+Victoire's brother Maurice, who was now of an age to earn his own bread,
+had a strong desire to be bound apprentice to the smith who worked in the
+house where his mother lodged. This most ardent wish of his soul he had
+imparted to his sister; and she consulted her benefactress, whom she
+considered as all-powerful in this, as in every other affair.
+
+"Your brother's wish shall be gratified," replied Madame de Fleury, "if
+you can keep your temper one month. If you are never in a passion for a
+whole month, I will undertake that your brother shall be bound apprentice
+to his friend the smith. To your companions, to Sister Frances, and
+above all to yourself, I trust, to make me a just report this day month."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+  "You she preferred to all the gay resorts,
+  Where female vanity might wish to shine,
+  The pomp of cities, and the pride of courts."
+
+  LYTTELTON.
+
+At the end of the time prescribed, the judges, including Victoire
+herself, who was the most severe of them all, agreed she had justly
+deserved her reward. Maurice obtained his wish; and Victoire's temper
+never relapsed into its former bad habits--so powerful is the effect of a
+well-chosen motive! Perhaps the historian may be blamed for dwelling on
+such trivial anecdotes; yet a lady, who was accustomed to the
+conversation of deep philosophers and polished courtiers, listened
+without disdain to these simple annals. Nothing appeared to her a trifle
+that could tend to form the habits of temper, truth, honesty, order, and
+industry: habits which are to be early induced, not by solemn precepts,
+but by practical lessons. A few more examples of these shall be
+recorded, notwithstanding the fear of being tiresome.
+
+One day little Babet, who was now five years old, saw, as she was coming
+to school, an old woman sitting at a corner of the street beside a large
+black brazier full of roasted chestnuts. Babet thought that the
+chestnuts looked and smelled very good; the old woman was talking
+earnestly to some people, who were on her other side; Babet filled her
+work-bag with chestnuts, and then ran after her mother and sister, who,
+having turned the corner of the street, had not seen what passed. When
+Babet came to the schoolroom, she opened her bag with triumph, displayed
+her treasure, and offered to divide it with her companions. "Here,
+Victoire," said she, "here is the largest chestnut for you."
+
+But Victoire would not take it; for she said that Babet had no money,
+and that she could not have come honestly by these chestnuts. She spoke
+so forcibly upon this point that even those who had the tempting morsel
+actually at their lips forbore to bite; those who had bitten laid down
+their half-eaten prize; and those who had their hands full of chestnuts
+rolled them back again towards the bag. Babet cried with vexation.
+
+"I burned my fingers in getting them for you, and now you won't eat
+them!--And I must not eat them!" said she: then curbing her passion, she
+added, "But at any rate, I won't be a thief. I am sure I did not think
+it was being a thief just to take a few chestnuts from an old woman who
+had such heaps and heaps; but Victoire says it is wrong, and I would not
+be a thief for all the chestnuts in the world--I'll throw them all into
+the fire this minute!"
+
+"No; give them back again to the old woman," said Victoire.
+
+"But, may be, she would scold me for having taken them," said Babet; "or
+who knows but she might whip me?"
+
+"And if she did, could you not bear it?" said Victoire. "I am sure I
+would rather bear twenty whippings than be a thief."
+
+"Twenty, whippings! that's a great many," said Babet; "and I am so
+little, consider--and that woman has such a monstrous arm!--Now, if it
+was Sister Frances, it would be another thing. But come! if you will go
+with me, Victoire, you shall see how I will behave."
+
+"We will all go with you," said Victoire.
+
+"Yes, all!" said the children; "And Sister Frances, I dare say, would go,
+if you asked her."
+
+Babet ran and told her, and she readily consented to accompany the little
+penitent to make restitution. The chestnut woman did not whip Babet, nor
+even scold her, but said she was sure that since the child was so honest
+as to return what she had taken, she would never steal again. This was
+the most glorious day of Babet's life, and the happiest. When the
+circumstance was told to Madame de Fleury, she gave the little girl a bag
+of the best chestnuts the old women could select, and Babet with great
+delight shared her reward with her companions.
+
+"But, alas! these chestnuts are not roasted. Oh, if we could but roast
+them!" said the children.
+
+Sister Frances placed in the middle of the table on which the chestnuts
+were spread a small earthenware furnace--a delightful toy, commonly used
+by children in Paris to cook their little feasts.
+
+"This can be bought for sixpence," said she: "and if each of you twelve
+earn one halfpenny apiece to-day, you can purchase it to-night, and I
+will put a little fire into it, and you will then be able to roast your
+chestnuts."
+
+The children ran eagerly to their work--some to wind worsted for a woman
+who paid them a _liard_ for each ball, others to shell peas for a
+neighbouring _traiteur_--all rejoicing that they were able to earn
+something. The older girls, under the directions and with the assistance
+of Sister Frances, completed making, washing, and ironing, half a dozen
+little caps, to supply a baby-linen warehouse. At the end of the day,
+when the sum of the produce of their labours was added together, they
+were surprised to find that, instead of one, they could purchase two
+furnaces. They received and enjoyed the reward of their united industry.
+The success of their first efforts was fixed in their memory: for they
+were very happy roasting the chestnuts, and they were all (Sister Frances
+inclusive) unanimous in opinion that no chestnuts ever were so good, or
+so well roasted. Sister Frances always partook in their little innocent
+amusements; and it was her great delight to be the dispenser of rewards
+which at once conferred present pleasure and cherished future virtue.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+  "To virtue wake the pulses of the heart,
+  And bid the tear of emulation start."
+
+  ROGERS.
+
+Victoire, who gave constant exercise to the benevolent feelings of the
+amiable nun, became every day more dear to her. Far from having the
+selfishness of a favourite, Victoire loved to bring into public notice
+the good actions of her companions. "Stoop down your ear to me, Sister
+Frances," said she, "and I will tell you a secret--I will tell you why my
+friend Annette is growing so thin--I found it out this morning--she does
+not eat above half her soup every day. Look, there's her porringer
+covered up in the corner--she carries it home to her mother, who is sick,
+and who has not bread to eat."
+
+Madame de Fleury came in whilst Sister Frances was yet bending down to
+hear this secret; it was repeated to her, and she immediately ordered
+that a certain allowance of bread should be given to Annette every day to
+carry to her mother during her illness.
+
+"I give it in charge to you, Victoire, to remember this, and I am sure it
+will never be forgotten. Here is an order for you upon my baker: run and
+show it to Annette. This is a pleasure you deserve; I am glad that you
+have chosen for your friend a girl who is so good a daughter. Good
+daughters make good friends."
+
+By similar instances of goodness Victoire obtained the love and
+confidence of her companions, notwithstanding her manifest superiority.
+In their turn, they were eager to proclaim her merits; and, as Sister
+Frances and Madame de Fleury administered justice with invariable
+impartiality, the hateful passions of envy and jealousy were never
+excited in this little society. No servile sycophant, no malicious
+detractor, could rob or defraud their little virtues of their due reward.
+
+"Whom shall I trust to take this to Madame de Fleury?" said Sister
+Frances, carrying into the garden where the children were playing a pot
+of fine jonquils, which she had brought from her convent.--"These are the
+first jonquils I have seen this year, and finer I never beheld! Whom
+shall I trust to take them to Madame de Fleury this evening?--It must be
+some one who will not stop to stare about on the way, but who will be
+very, very careful--some one in whom I can place perfect dependence."
+
+"It must be Victoire, then," cried every voice.
+
+"Yes, she deserves it to-day particularly," said Annette eagerly;
+"because she was not angry with Babet when she did what was enough to put
+anybody in a passion. Sister Frances, you know this cherry-tree which
+you grafted for Victoire last year, and that was yesterday so full of
+blossoms--now you see, there is not a blossom left!--Babet plucked them
+all this morning to make a nosegay."
+
+"But she did not know," said Victoire, "that pulling off the blossoms
+would prevent my having any cherries."
+
+"Oh, I am very sorry I was so foolish," said Babet; "Victoire did not
+even say a cross word to me."
+
+"Though she was excessively anxious about the cherries," pursued Annette,
+"because she intended to have given the first she had to Madame de
+Fleury."
+
+"Victoire, take the jonquils--it is but just," said Sister Frances. "How
+I do love to hear them all praise her!--I knew what she would be from the
+first."
+
+With a joyful heart Victoire took the jonquils, promised to carry them
+with the utmost care, and not to stop to stare on the way. She set out
+to Madame de Fleury's hotel, which was in _La Place de Louis Quinze_. It
+was late in the evening, the lamps were lighting, and as Victoire crossed
+the Pont de Louis Seize, she stopped to look at the reflection of the
+lamps in the water, which appeared in succession, as they were lighted,
+spreading as if by magic along the river. While Victoire leaned over the
+battlements of the bridge, watching the rising of these stars of fire, a
+sudden push from the elbow of some rude passenger precipitated her pot of
+jonquils into the Seine. The sound it made in the water was thunder to
+the ear of Victoire; she stood for an instant vainly hoping it would rise
+again, but the waters had closed over it for ever.
+
+  "Dans cet etat affreux, que faire?
+  . . . Mon devoir."
+
+Victoire courageously proceeded to Madame de Fleury's, and desired to see
+her.
+
+"D'abord c'est impossible--madame is dressing to go to a concert," said
+Francois. "Cannot you leave your message?"
+
+"Oh no," said Victoire; "it is of great consequence--I must see her
+myself; and she is so good, and you too, Monsieur Francois, that I am
+sure you will not refuse."
+
+"Well, I remember one day you found the seal of my watch, which I dropped
+at your schoolroom door--one good turn deserves another. If it is
+possible it shall be done--I will inquire of madame's woman."--"Follow me
+upstairs," said he, returning in a few minutes; "madame will see you."
+
+She followed him up the large staircase, and through a suite of
+apartments sufficiently grand to intimidate her young imagination.
+
+"Madame est dans son cabinet. Entrez--mais entrez donc, entrez
+toujours."
+
+Madame de Fleury was more richly dressed than usual; and her image was
+reflected in the large looking-glass, so that at the first moment
+Victoire thought she saw many fine ladies, but not one of them the lady
+she wanted.
+
+"Well, Victoire, my child, what is the matter?"
+
+"Oh, it is her voice!--I know you now, madame, and I am not afraid--not
+afraid even to tell you how foolish I have been. Sister Frances trusted
+me to carry for you, madame, a beautiful pot of jonquils, and she desired
+me not to stop on the way to stare; but I did stop to look at the lamps
+on the bridge, and I forgot the jonquils, and somebody brushed by me and
+threw them into the river--and I am very sorry I was so foolish."
+
+"And I am very glad that you are so wise as to tell the truth, without
+attempting to make any paltry excuses. Go home to Sister Frances, and
+assure her that I am more obliged to her for making you such an honest
+girl than I could be for a whole bed of jonquils."
+
+Victoire's heart was so full that she could not speak--she kissed Madame
+de Fleury's hand in silence, and then seemed to be lost in contemplation
+of her bracelet.
+
+"Are you thinking, Victoire, that you should be much happier if you had
+such bracelets as these? Believe me, you are mistaken if you think so;
+many people are unhappy who wear fine bracelets; so, my child, content
+yourself."
+
+"Myself! Oh, madame, I was not thinking of myself--I was not wishing for
+bracelets; I was only thinking that--"
+
+"That what?"
+
+"That it is a pity you are so very rich; you have everything in this
+world that you want, and I can never be of the least use to _you_--all my
+life I shall never be able to do _you_ any good--and what," said
+Victoire, turning away to hide her tears, "what signifies the gratitude
+of such a poor little creature as I am?"
+
+"Did you never hear the fable of the lion and the mouse, Victoire?"
+
+"No, madame--never!"
+
+"Then I will tell it to you."
+
+Victoire looked up with eyes of eager expectation--Francois opened the
+door to announce that the Marquis de M--- and the Comte de S--- were in
+the saloon; but Madame de Fleury stayed to tell Victoire her fable--she
+would not lose the opportunity of making an impression upon this child's
+heart.
+
+It is whilst the mind is warm that the deepest impressions can be made.
+Seizing the happy moment sometimes decides the character and the fate of
+a child. In this respect, what advantages have the rich and great in
+educating the children of the poor! they have the power which their rank
+and all its decorations obtain over the imagination. Their smiles are
+favours; their words are listened to as oracular; they are looked up to
+as beings of a superior order. Their powers of working good are almost
+as great, though not quite so wonderful, as those formerly attributed to
+beneficent fairies.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+  "Knowledge for them unlocks her _useful_ page,
+  And virtue blossoms for a better age."--BARBAULD.
+
+A few days after Madame de Fleury had told Victoire the fable of the lion
+and the mouse, she was informed by Sister Frances that Victoire had put
+the fable into verse. It was wonderfully well done for a child of nine
+years old, and Madame de Fleury was tempted to praise the lines; but,
+checking the enthusiasm of the moment, she considered whether it would be
+advantageous to cultivate her pupil's talent for poetry. Excellence in
+the poetic art cannot be obtained without a degree of application for
+which a girl in her situation could not have leisure. To encourage her
+to become a mere rhyming scribbler, without any chance of obtaining
+celebrity or securing subsistence, would be folly and cruelty. Early
+prodigies in the lower ranks of life are seldom permanently successful;
+they are cried up one day, and cried down the next. Their productions
+rarely have that superiority which secures a fair preference in the great
+literary market. Their performances are, perhaps, said to be _wonderful,
+all things considered_, &c. Charitable allowances are made; the books
+are purchased by associations of complaisant friends or opulent patrons;
+a kind of forced demand is raised, but this can be only temporary and
+delusive. In spite of bounties and of all the arts of protection,
+nothing but what is intrinsically good will long be preferred, when it
+must be purchased. But granting that positive excellence is attained,
+there is always danger that for works of fancy the taste of the public
+may suddenly vary: there is a fashion in these things; and when the mode
+changes, the mere literary manufacturer is thrown out of employment; he
+is unable to turn his hand to another trade, or to any but his own
+peculiar branch of the business. The powers of the mind are often
+partially cultivated in these self-taught geniuses. We often see that
+one part of their understanding is nourished to the prejudice of the
+rest--the imagination, for instance, at the expense of the judgment: so
+that whilst they have acquired talents for show they have none for use.
+In the affairs of common life they are utterly ignorant and imbecile--or
+worse than imbecile. Early called into public notice, probably before
+their moral habits are formed, they are extolled for some play of fancy
+or of wit, as Bacon calls it, some juggler's trick of the intellect; they
+immediately take an aversion to plodding labour, they feel raised above
+their situation; possessed by the notion that genius exempts them not
+only from labour, but from vulgar rules of prudence, they soon disgrace
+themselves by their conduct, are deserted by their patrons, and sink into
+despair or plunge into profligacy.
+
+Convinced of these melancholy truths, Madame de Fleury was determined not
+to add to the number of those imprudent or ostentatious patrons, who
+sacrifice to their own amusement and vanity the future happiness of their
+favourites. Victoire's verses were not handed about in fashionable
+circles, nor was she called upon to recite them before a brilliant
+audience, nor was she produced in public as a prodigy; she was educated
+in private, and by slow and sure degrees, to be a good, useful, and happy
+member of society. Upon the same principles which decided Madame de
+Fleury against encouraging Victoire to be a poetess, she refrained from
+giving any of her little pupils accomplishments unsuited to their
+situation. Some had a fine ear for music, others showed powers of
+dancing; but they were taught neither dancing nor music--talents which in
+their station were more likely to be dangerous than serviceable. They
+were not intended for actresses or opera-girls, but for shop-girls,
+mantua-makers, work-women, and servants of different sorts; consequently
+they were instructed in things which would be most necessary and useful
+to young women in their rank of life. Before they were ten years old
+they could do all kinds of plain needlework, they could read and write
+well, and they were mistresses of the common rules of arithmetic. After
+this age they were practised by a writing-master in drawing out bills
+neatly, keeping accounts, and applying to every-day use their knowledge
+of arithmetic. Some were taught by a laundress to wash and get up fine
+linen and lace; others were instructed by a neighbouring traiteur in
+those culinary mysteries with which Sister Frances was unacquainted. In
+sweetmeats and confectioneries she yielded to no one; and she made her
+pupils as expert as herself. Those who were intended for ladies' maids
+were taught mantua-making, and had lessons from Madame de Fleury's own
+woman in hairdressing.
+
+Amongst her numerous friends and acquaintances, and amongst the
+shopkeepers whom she was in the habit of employing, Madame de Fleury had
+means of placing and establishing her pupils suitably and advantageously:
+of this, both they and their parents were aware, so that there was a
+constant and great motive operating continually to induce them to exert
+themselves, and to behave well. This reasonable hope of reaping the
+fruits of their education, and of being immediately rewarded for their
+good conduct; this perception of the connection between what they are
+taught and what they are to become, is necessary to make young people
+assiduous; for want of attending to these principles many splendid
+establishments have failed to produce pupils answerable to the
+expectations which had been formed of them.
+
+During seven years that Madame de Fleury persevered uniformly on the same
+plan, only one girl forfeited her protection--a girl of the name of
+Manon; she was Victoire's cousin, but totally unlike her in character.
+
+When very young, her beautiful eyes and hair caught the fancy of a rich
+lady, who took her into her family as a sort of humble playfellow for her
+children. She was taught to dance and to sing: she soon excelled in
+these accomplishments, and was admired, and produced as a prodigy of
+talent. The lady of the house gave herself great credit for having
+discerned, and having brought forward, such talents. Manon's moral
+character was in the meantime neglected. In this house, where there was
+a constant scene of hurry and dissipation, the child had frequent
+opportunities and temptations to be dishonest. For some time she was not
+detected; her caressing manners pleased her patroness, and servile
+compliance with the humours of the children of the family secured their
+goodwill. Encouraged by daily petty successes in the art of deceit, she
+became a complete hypocrite. With culpable negligence, her mistress
+trusted implicitly to appearances; and without examining whether she were
+really honest, she suffered her to have free access to unlocked drawers
+and valuable cabinets. Several articles of dress were missed from time
+to time; but Manon managed so artfully, that she averted from herself all
+suspicion. Emboldened by this fatal impunity, she at last attempted
+depredations of more importance. She purloined a valuable snuff-box--was
+detected in disposing of the broken parts of it at a pawnbroker's, and
+was immediately discarded in disgrace; but by her tears and vehement
+expressions of remorse she so far worked upon the weakness of the lady of
+the house as to prevail upon her to conceal the circumstance that
+occasioned her dismissal. Some months afterwards, Manon, pleading that
+she was thoroughly reformed, obtained from this lady a recommendation to
+Madame de Fleury's school. It is wonderful that, people, who in other
+respects profess and practise integrity, can be so culpably weak as to
+give good characters to those who do not deserve them: this is really one
+of the worst species of forgery. Imposed upon by this treacherous
+recommendation, Madame de Fleury received into the midst of her innocent
+young pupils one who might have corrupted their minds secretly and
+irrecoverably. Fortunately a discovery was made in time of Manon's real
+disposition. A mere trifle led to the detection of her habits of
+falsehood. As she could not do any kind of needlework, she was employed
+in winding cotton; she was negligent, and did not in the course of the
+week wind the same number of balls as her companions; and to conceal
+this, she pretended that she had delivered the proper number to the
+woman, who regularly called at the end of the week for the cotton. The
+woman persisted in her account, and the children in theirs; and Manon
+would not retract her assertion. The poor woman gave up the point; but
+she declared that she would the next time send her brother to make up the
+account, because he was sharper than herself, and would not be imposed
+upon so easily. The ensuing week the brother came, and he proved to be
+the very pawnbroker to whom Manon formerly offered the stolen box: he
+knew her immediately; it was in vain that she attempted to puzzle him,
+and to persuade him that she was not the same person. The man was clear
+and firm. Sister Frances could scarcely believe what she heard. Struck
+with horror, the children shrank back from Manon, and stood in silence.
+Madame de Fleury immediately wrote to the lady who had recommended this
+girl, and inquired into the truth of the pawnbroker's assertions. The
+lady, who had given Manon a false character, could not deny the facts,
+and could apologise for herself only by saying that "she believed the
+girl to be partly reformed, and that she hoped, under Madame de Fleury's
+judicious care, she would become an amiable and respectable woman."
+
+Madame de Fleury, however, wisely judged that the hazard of corrupting
+all her pupils should not be incurred for the slight chance of correcting
+one, whose bad habits were of such long standing. Manon was expelled
+from this happy little community--even Sister Frances, the most mild of
+human beings, could never think of the danger to which they had been
+exposed without expressing indignation against the lady who recommended
+such a girl as a fit companion for her blameless and beloved pupils.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+
+  "Alas! regardless of their doom,
+  The little victims play:
+  No sense have they of ills to come,
+  No care beyond to-day."--GRAY.
+
+Good legislators always attend to the habits, and what is called the
+genius, of the people they have to govern. From youth to age, the taste
+for whatever is called _une fete_ pervades the whole French nation.
+Madame de Fleury availed herself judiciously of this powerful motive, and
+connected it with the feelings of affection more than with the passion
+for show. For instance, when any of her little people had done anything
+particularly worthy of reward, she gave them leave to invite their
+parents to a _fete_ prepared for them by their children, assisted by the
+kindness of Sister Frances.
+
+One day--it was a holiday obtained by Victoire's good conduct--all the
+children prepared in their garden a little feast for their parents.
+Sister Frances spread the table with a bountiful hand, the happy fathers
+and mothers were waited upon by their children, and each in their turn
+heard with delight from the benevolent nun some instance of their
+daughter's improvement. Full of hope for the future and of gratitude for
+the past, these honest people ate and talked, whilst in imagination they
+saw their children all prosperously and usefully settled in the world.
+They blessed Madame de Fleury in her absence, and they wished ardently
+for her presence.
+
+"The sun is setting, and Madame de Fleury is not yet come," cried
+Victoire; "she said she would be here this evening--What can be the
+matter?"
+
+"Nothing is the matter, you may be sure," said Babet; "but that she has
+forgotten us--she has so many things to think of."
+
+"Yes; but I know she never forgets us," said Victoire; "and she loves so
+much to see us all happy together, that I am sure it must be something
+very extraordinary that detains her."
+
+Babet laughed at Victoire's fears; but presently even she began to grow
+impatient; for they waited long after sunset, expecting every moment that
+Madame de Fleury would arrive. At last she appeared, but with a dejected
+countenance, which seemed to justify Victoire's foreboding. When she saw
+this festive company, each child sitting between her parents, and all at
+her entrance looking up with affectionate pleasure, a faint smile
+enlivened her countenance for a moment; but she did not speak to them
+with her usual ease. Her mind seemed preoccupied by some disagreeable
+business of importance. It appeared that it had some connection with
+them; for as she walked round the table with Sister Frances, she said,
+with a voice and look of great tenderness, "Poor children! how happy they
+are at this moment!--Heaven only knows how soon they may be rendered, or
+may render themselves, miserable!"
+
+None of the children could imagine what this meant; but their parents
+guessed that it had some allusion to the state of public affairs. About
+this time some of those discontents had broken out which preceded the
+terrible days of the Revolution. As yet, most of the common people, who
+were honestly employed in earning their own living, neither understood
+what was going on nor foresaw what was to happen. Many of their
+superiors were not in such happy ignorance--they had information of the
+intrigues that were forming; and the more penetration they possessed, the
+more they feared the consequences of events which they could not control.
+At the house of a great man, with whom she had dined this day, Madame de
+Fleury had heard alarming news. Dreadful public disturbances, she saw,
+were inevitable; and whilst she trembled for the fate of all who were
+dear to her, these poor children had a share in her anxiety. She foresaw
+the temptations, the dangers, to which they must be exposed, whether they
+abandoned, or whether they abided by the principles their education had
+instilled. She feared that the labour of years would perhaps be lost in
+an instant, or that her innocent pupils would fall victims even to their
+virtues.
+
+Many of these young people were now of an age to understand and to govern
+themselves by reason; and with these she determined to use those
+preventive measures which reason affords. Without meddling with
+politics, in which no amiable or sensible woman can wish to interfere,
+the influence of ladies in the higher ranks of life may always be exerted
+with perfect propriety, and with essential advantage to the public, in
+conciliating the inferior classes of society, explaining to them their
+duties and their interests, and impressing upon the minds of the children
+of the poor sentiments of just subordination and honest independence. How
+happy would it have been for France if women of fortune and abilities had
+always exerted their talents and activity in this manner, instead of
+wasting their powers in futile declamations, or in the intrigues of
+party!
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+  "E'en now the devastation is begun,
+  And half the business of destruction done."
+
+  GOLDSMITH.
+
+Madame de Fleury was not disappointed in her pupils. When the public
+disturbances began, these children were shocked by the horrible actions
+they saw. Instead of being seduced by bad example, they only showed
+anxiety to avoid companions of their own age who were dishonest, idle, or
+profligate. Victoire's cousin Manon ridiculed these absurd principles,
+as she called them, and endeavoured to persuade Victoire that she would
+be much happier if she followed the fashion.
+
+"What! Victoire, still with your work-bag on your arm, and still going
+to school with your little sister, though you are but a year younger than
+I am, I believe!--thirteen last birthday, were not you?--Mon Dieu! Why,
+how long do you intend to be a child? and why don't you leave that old
+nun, who keeps you in leading-strings?--I assure you, nuns, and school-
+mistresses, and schools, and all that sort of thing, are out of fashion
+now--we have abolished all that--we are to live a life of reason now--and
+all soon to be equal, I can tell you; let your Madame de Fleury look to
+that, and look to it yourself; for with all your wisdom, you might find
+yourself in the wrong box by sticking to her, and that side of the
+question.--Disengage yourself from her, I advise you, as soon as you
+can.--My dear Victoire! believe me, you may spell very well--but you know
+nothing of the rights of man, or the rights of woman."
+
+"I do not pretend to know anything of the rights of men, or the rights of
+women," cried Victoire; "but this I know: that I never can or will be
+ungrateful to Madame de Fleury. Disengage myself from her! I am bound
+to her for ever, and I will abide by her till the last hour I breathe."
+
+"Well, well! there is no occasion to be in a passion--I only speak as a
+friend, and I have no more time to reason with you; for I must go home,
+and get ready my dress for the ball to-night."
+
+"Manon, how can you afford to buy a dress for a ball?"
+
+"As you might, if you had common sense, Victoire--only by being a good
+citizen. I and a party of us denounced a milliner and a confectioner in
+our neighbourhood, who were horrible aristocrats; and of their goods
+forfeited to the nation we had, as was our just share, such delicious
+_marangues_ and charming ribands!--Oh, Victoire, believe me, you will
+never get such things by going to school, or saying your prayers either.
+You may look with as much scorn and indignation as you please, but I
+advise you to let it alone, for all that is out of fashion, and may,
+moreover, bring you into difficulties. Believe me, my dear Victoire,
+your head is not deep enough to understand these things--you know nothing
+of politics."
+
+"But I know the difference between right and wrong, Manon: politics can
+never alter that, you know."
+
+"Never alter that! there you are quite mistaken," said Manon. "I cannot
+stay to convince you now--but this I can tell you: that I know secrets
+that you don't suspect."
+
+"I do not wish to know any of your secrets, Manon," said Victoire,
+proudly.
+
+"Your pride may be humbled, Citoyenne Victoire, sooner than you expect,"
+exclaimed Manon, who was now so provoked by her cousin's contempt that
+she could not refrain from boasting of her political knowledge. "I can
+tell you that your fine friends will in a few days not be able to protect
+you. The Abbe Tracassier is in love with a dear friend of mine, and I
+know all the secrets of state from her--and I know what I know. Be as
+incredulous as you please, but you will see that, before this week is at
+end, Monsieur de Fleury will be guillotined, and then what will become of
+you? Good morning, my proud cousin."
+
+Shocked by what she had just heard, Victoire could scarcely believe that
+Manon was in earnest; she resolved, however, to go immediately and
+communicate this intelligence, whether true or false, to Madame de
+Fleury. It agreed but too well with other circumstances, which alarmed
+this lady for the safety of her husband. A man of his abilities,
+integrity, and fortune, could not in such times hope to escape
+persecution. He was inclined to brave the danger; but his lady
+represented that it would not be courage, but rashness and folly, to
+sacrifice his life to the villainy of others, without probability or
+possibility of serving his country by his fall.
+
+Monsieur de Fleury, in consequence of these representations, and of
+Victoire's intelligence, made his escape from Paris; and the very next
+day placards were put up in every street, offering a price for the head
+of Citoyen Fleury, _suspected of incivisme_.
+
+Struck with terror and astonishment at the sight of these placards, the
+children read them as they returned in the evening from school; and
+little Babet in the vehemence of her indignation mounted a lamplighter's
+ladder, and tore down one of the papers. This imprudent action did not
+pass unobserved: it was seen by one of the spies of Citoyen Tracassier, a
+man who, under the pretence of zeal _pour la chose publique_, gratified
+without scruple his private resentments and his malevolent passions. In
+his former character of an abbe, and a man of wit, he had gained
+admittance into Madame de Fleury's society. There he attempted to
+dictate both as a literary and religious despot. Accidentally
+discovering that Madame de Fleury had a little school for poor children,
+he thought proper to be offended, because he had not been consulted
+respecting the regulations, and because he was not permitted, as he said,
+to take the charge of this little flock. He made many objections to
+Sister Frances, as being an improper person to have the spiritual
+guidance of these young people; but as he was unable to give any just
+reason for his dislike, Madame de Fleury persisted in her choice, and was
+at last obliged to assert, in opposition to the domineering abbe, her
+right to judge and decide in her own affairs. With seeming politeness,
+he begged ten thousand pardons for his conscientious interference. No
+more was said upon the subject; and as he did not totally withdraw from
+her society till the revolution broke out, she did not suspect that she
+had anything to fear from his resentment. His manners and opinions
+changed suddenly with the times; the mask of religion was thrown off; and
+now, instead of objecting to Sister Frances as not being sufficiently
+strict and orthodox in her tenets, he boldly declared that a nun was not
+a fit person to be intrusted with the education of any of the young
+citizens--they should all be _des eleves de la patrie_. The abbe, become
+a member of the Committee of Public Safety, denounced Madame de Fleury,
+in the strange jargon of the day, as "_the fosterer of a swarm of bad
+citizens, who were nourished in the anticivic prejudices_ de l'ancien
+regime, _and fostered in the most detestable superstitions, in defiance
+of the law_." He further observed, that he had good reason to believe
+that some of these little enemies to the constitution had contrived and
+abetted Monsieur de Fleury's escape. Of their having rejoiced at it in a
+most indecent manner, he said he could produce irrefragable proof. The
+boy who saw Babet tear down the placard was produced and solemnly
+examined; and the thoughtless action of this poor little girl was
+construed into a state crime of the most horrible nature. In a
+declamatory tone, Tracassier reminded his fellow-citizens, that in the
+ancient Grecian times of virtuous republicanism (times of which France
+ought to show herself emulous), an Athenian child was condemned to death
+for having made a plaything of a fragment of the gilding that had fallen
+from a public statue. The orator, for the reward of his eloquence,
+obtained an order to seize everything in Madame de Fleury's school-house,
+and to throw the nun into prison.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+
+  "Who now will guard bewildered youth
+  Safe from the fierce assault of hostile rage?--
+  Such war can Virtue wage?"
+
+At the very moment when this order was going to be put in execution,
+Madame de Fleury was sitting in the midst of the children, listening to
+Babet, who was reading AEsop's fable of _The old man and his sons_.
+Whilst her sister was reading, Victoire collected a number of twigs from
+the garden: she had just tied them together; and was going, by Sister
+Frances' desire, to let her companions try if they could break the
+bundle, when the attention to the moral of the fable was interrupted by
+the entrance of an old woman, whose countenance expressed the utmost
+terror and haste, to tell what she had not breath to utter. To Madame de
+Fleury she was a stranger; but the children immediately recollected her
+to be the chestnut woman to whom Babet had some years ago restored
+certain purloined chestnuts.
+
+"Fly!" said she, the moment she had breath to speak: "Fly!--they are
+coming to seize everything here--carry off what you can--make haste--make
+haste!--I came through a by-street. A man was eating chestnuts at my
+stall, and I saw him show one that was with him the order from Citoyen
+Tracassier. They'll be here in five minutes--quick!--quick!--You, in
+particular," continued she, turning to the nun, "else you'll be in
+prison."
+
+At these words, the children, who had clung round Sister Frances, loosed
+their hold, exclaiming, "Go! go quick: but where? where?--we will go with
+her."
+
+"No, no!" said Madame de Fleury, "she shall come home with me--my
+carriage is at the door."
+
+"Ma belle dame!" cried the chestnut woman, "your house is the worst place
+she can go to--let her come to my cellar--the poorest cellar in these
+days is safer than the grandest palace."
+
+So saying, she seized the nun with honest roughness, and hurried her
+away. As soon as she was gone, the children ran different ways, each to
+collect some favourite thing, which they thought they could not leave
+behind. Victoire alone stood motionless beside Madame de Fleury; her
+whole thoughts absorbed by the fear that her benefactress would be
+imprisoned. "Oh, madame! dear, dear Madame de Fleury, don't stay! don't
+stay!"
+
+"Oh, children, never mind these things."
+
+"Don't stay, madame, don't stay! I will stay with them--I will stay--do
+you go."
+
+The children hearing these words, and recollecting Madame de Fleury's
+danger, abandoned all their little property, and instantly obeyed her
+orders to go home to their parents. Victoire at last saw Madame de
+Fleury safe in her carriage. The coachman drove off at a great rate; and
+a few minutes afterwards Tracassier's myrmidons arrived at the school-
+house. Great was their surprise when they found only the poor children's
+little books, unfinished samplers, and half-hemmed handkerchiefs. They
+ran into the garden to search for the nun. They were men of brutal
+habits, yet as they looked at everything round them, which bespoke peace,
+innocence, and childish happiness, they could not help thinking it was a
+pity to destroy what could do the nation no great harm after all. They
+were even glad that the nun had made her escape, since they were not
+answerable for it; and they returned to their employer satisfied for once
+without doing any mischief; but Citizen Tracassier was of too vindictive
+a temper to suffer the objects of his hatred thus to elude his vengeance.
+The next day Madame de Fleury was summoned before his tribunal and
+ordered to give up the nun, against whom, as a suspected person, a decree
+of the law had been obtained.
+
+Madame de Fleury refused to betray the innocent woman; the gentle
+firmness of this lady's answers to a brutal interrogatory was termed
+insolence--she was pronounced a refractory aristocrat, dangerous to the
+state; and an order was made out to seal up her goods, and to keep her a
+prisoner in her own house.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+
+  "Alas! full oft on Guilt's victorious car
+  The spoils of Virtue are in triumph borne,
+  While the fair captive, marked with many a scar,
+  In lone obscurity, oppressed, forlorn,
+  Resigns to tears her angel form."--BEATTIE.
+
+A close prisoner in her own house, Madame de Fleury was now guarded by
+men suddenly become soldiers, and sprung from the dregs of the people;
+men of brutal manners, ferocious countenances, and more ferocious minds.
+They seemed to delight in the insolent display of their newly-acquired
+power. One of those men had formerly been convicted of some horrible
+crime, and had been sent to the galleys by M. de Fleury. Revenge
+actuated this wretch under the mask of patriotism, and he rejoiced in
+seeing the wife of the man he hated a prisoner in his custody. Ignorant
+of the facts, his associates were ready to believe him in the right, and
+to join in the senseless cry against all who were their superiors in
+fortune, birth, and education. This unfortunate lady was forbidden all
+intercourse with her friends, and it was in vain she attempted to obtain
+from her gaolers intelligence of what was passing in Paris.
+
+"Tu verras--Tout va bien--Ca ira," were the only answers they deigned to
+make; frequently they continued smoking their pipes in obdurate silence.
+She occupied the back rooms of her house, because her guards apprehended
+that she might from the front windows receive intelligence from her
+friends. One morning she was awakened by an unusual noise in the
+streets; and, upon her inquiring the occasion of it, her guards told her
+she was welcome to go to the front windows and satisfy her curiosity. She
+went, and saw an immense crowd of people surrounding a guillotine that
+had been erected the preceding night. Madame de Fleury started back with
+horror--her guards burst into an inhuman laugh, and asked whether her
+curiosity was satisfied. She would have left the room; but it was now
+their pleasure to detain her, and to force her to continue the whole day
+in this apartment. When the guillotine began its work, they had even the
+barbarity to drag her to the window, repeating, "It is there you ought to
+be!--It is there your husband ought to be!--You are too happy, that your
+husband is not there this moment. But he will be there--the law will
+overtake him--he will be there in time--and you too!"
+
+The mild fortitude of this innocent, benevolent woman made no impression
+upon these cruel men. When at night they saw her kneeling at her
+prayers, they taunted her with gross and impious mockery; and when she
+sank to sleep, they would waken her by their loud and drunken orgies--if
+she remonstrated, they answered, "The enemies of the constitution should
+have no rest."
+
+Madame de Fleury was not an enemy to any human being; she had never
+interfered in politics; her life had been passed in domestic pleasures,
+or employed for the good of her fellow-creatures. Even in this hour of
+personal danger she thought of others more than of herself: she thought
+of her husband, an exile in a foreign country, who might be reduced to
+the utmost distress now that she was deprived of all means of remitting
+him money. She thought of her friends, who, she knew, would exert
+themselves to obtain her liberty, and whose zeal in her cause might
+involve them and their families in distress. She thought of the good
+Sister Frances, who had been exposed by her means to the unrelenting
+persecution of the malignant and powerful Tracassier. She thought of her
+poor little pupils, now thrown upon the world without a protector. Whilst
+these ideas were revolving in her mind one night as she lay awake, she
+heard the door of her chamber open softly, and a soldier, one of her
+guards, with a light in his hand, entered; he came to the foot of her
+bed, and, as she started up, laid his finger upon his lips.
+
+"Don't make the least noise," said he in a whisper; "those without are
+drunk, and asleep. Don't you know me?--don't you remember my face?"
+
+"Not in the least; yet I have some recollection of your voice."
+
+The man took off the bonnet-rouge--still she could not guess who he was.
+"You never saw me in a uniform before nor without a black face."
+
+She looked again, and recollected the smith to whom Maurice was bound
+apprentice, and remembered his _patois_ accent.
+
+"I remember you," said he, "at any rate; and your goodness to that poor
+girl the day her arm was broken, and all your goodness to Maurice. But
+I've no time for talking of that now--get up, wrap this great coat round
+you--don't be in a hurry, but make no noise--and follow me."
+
+She followed him; and he led her past the sleeping sentinels, opened a
+back door into the garden, hurried her (almost carried her) across the
+garden to a door at the furthest end of it, which opened into Les Champs
+Elysees--"La voila!" cried he, pushing her through the half-opened door.
+"God be praised!" answered a voice, which Madame de Fleury knew to be
+Victoire's, whose arms were thrown round her with a transport of joy.
+
+"Softly; she is not safe yet--wait till we get her home, Victoire," said
+another voice, which she knew to be that of Maurice. He produced a dark
+lantern, and guided Madame de Fleury across the Champs Elysees, and
+across the bridge, and then through various by-streets, in perfect
+silence, till they arrived safely at the house where Victoire's mother
+lodged, and went up those very stairs which she had ascended in such
+different circumstances several years before. The mother, who was
+sitting up waiting most anxiously for the return of her children, clasped
+her hands in an ecstasy when she saw them return with Madame de Fleury.
+
+"Welcome, madame! Welcome, dear madame! but who would have thought of
+seeing you here in such a way? Let her rest herself--let her rest; she
+is quite overcome. Here, madame, can you sleep on this poor bed?"
+
+"The very same bed you laid me upon the day my arm was broken," said
+Victoire.
+
+"Ay, Lord bless her!" said the mother; "and though it's seven good years
+ago, it seemed but yesterday that I saw her sitting on that bed beside my
+poor child looking like an angel. But let her rest, let her rest--we'll
+not say a word more, only God bless her; thank Heaven, she's safe with us
+at last!"
+
+Madame de Fleury expressed unwillingness to stay with these good people,
+lest she should expose them to danger; but they begged most earnestly
+that she would remain with them without scruple.
+
+"Surely, madame," said the mother, "you must think that we have some
+remembrance of all you have done for us, and some touch of gratitude."
+
+"And surely, madame, you can trust us, I hope," said Maurice.
+
+"And surely you are not too proud to let us do something for you. The
+lion was not too proud to be served by the poor little mouse," said
+Victoire. "As to danger for us," continued she, "there can be none; for
+Maurice and I have contrived a hiding-place for you, madame, that can
+never be found out--let them come spying here as often as they please,
+they will never find her out, will they, Maurice? Look, madame, into
+this lumber-room; you see it seems to be quite full of wood for firing;
+well, if you creep in behind, you can hide yourself quite snug in the
+loft above, and here's a trap-door into the loft that nobody ever would
+think of, for we have hung these old things from the top of it, and who
+could guess it was a trap-door? So you see, dear madame, you may sleep
+in peace here, and never fear for us."
+
+Though but a girl of fourteen, Victoire showed at this time all the sense
+and prudence of a woman of thirty. Gratitude seemed at once to develop
+all the powers of her mind. It was she and Maurice who had prevailed
+upon the smith to effect Madame de Fleury's escape from her own house.
+She had invented, she had foreseen, she had arranged everything; she had
+scarcely rested night or day since the imprisonment of her benefactress,
+and now that her exertions had fully succeeded, her joy seemed to raise
+her above all feeling of fatigue; she looked as fresh and moved as
+briskly, her mother said, as if she were preparing to go to a ball.
+
+"Ah! my child," said she, "your cousin Manon, who goes to those balls
+every night, was never so happy as you are this minute."
+
+But Victoire's happiness was not of long continuance; for the next day
+they were alarmed by intelligence that Tracassier was enraged beyond
+measure at Madame de Fleury's escape, that all his emissaries were at
+work to discover her present hiding-place, that the houses of all the
+parents and relations of her pupils were to be searched, and that the
+most severe denunciations were issued against all by whom she should be
+harboured. Manon was the person who gave this intelligence, but not with
+any benevolent design; she first came to Victoire, to display her own
+consequence; and to terrify her, she related all she knew from a
+soldier's wife, who was M. Tracassier's mistress. Victoire had
+sufficient command over herself to conceal from the inquisitive eyes of
+Manon the agitation of her heart; she had also the prudence not to let
+any one of her companions into her secret, though, when she saw their
+anxiety, she was much tempted to relieve them, by the assurance that
+Madame de Fleury was in safety. All the day was passed in apprehension.
+Madame de Fleury never stirred from her place of concealment: as the
+evening and the hour of the domiciliary visits approached, Victoire and
+Maurice were alarmed by an unforeseen difficulty. Their mother, whose
+health had been broken by hard work, in vain endeavoured to suppress her
+terror at the thoughts of this domiciliary visit; she repeated
+incessantly that she knew they should all be discovered, and that her
+children would be dragged to the guillotine before her face. She was in
+such a distracted state, that they dreaded she would, the moment she saw
+the soldiers, reveal all she knew.
+
+"If they question me, I shall not know what to answer," cried the
+terrified woman. "What can I say?--What can I do?"
+
+Reasoning, entreaties, all were vain; she was not in a condition to
+understand, or even to listen to, anything that was said. In this
+situation they were when the domiciliary visitors arrived--they heard the
+noise of the soldiers' feet on the stairs--the poor woman sprang from the
+arms of her children; but at the moment the door was opened, and she saw
+the glittering of the bayonets, she fell at full length in a swoon on the
+floor--fortunately before she had power to utter a syllable. The people
+of the house knew, and said, that she was subject to fits on any sudden
+alarm; so that her being affected in this manner did not appear
+surprising. They threw her on a bed, whilst they proceeded to search the
+house: her children stayed with her; and, wholly occupied in attending to
+her, they were not exposed to the danger of betraying their anxiety about
+Madame de Fleury. They trembled, however, from head to foot when they
+heard one of the soldiers swear that all the wood in the lumber-room must
+be pulled out, and that he would not leave the house till every stick was
+moved; the sound of each log, as it was thrown out, was heard by
+Victoire; her brother was now summoned to assist. How great was his
+terror when one of the searchers looked up to the roof, as if expecting
+to find a trap door; fortunately, however, he did not discover it.
+Maurice, who had seized the light, contrived to throw the shadows so as
+to deceive the eye. The soldiers at length retreated; and with
+inexpressible satisfaction Maurice lighted them down stairs, and saw them
+fairly out of the house. For some minutes after they were in safety, the
+terrified mother, who had recovered her senses, could scarcely believe
+that the danger was over. She embraced her children by turns with wild
+transport; and with tears begged Madame de Fleury to forgive her
+cowardice, and not to attribute it to ingratitude, or to suspect that she
+had a bad heart. She protested that she was now become so courageous,
+since she found that she had gone through this trial successfully, and
+since she was sure that the hiding-place was really so secure, that she
+should never be alarmed at any domiciliary visit in future. Madame de
+Fleury, however, did not think it either just or expedient to put her
+resolution to the trial. She determined to leave Paris; and, if
+possible, to make her escape from France. The master of one of the Paris
+diligences was brother to Francois, her footman: he was ready to assist
+her at all hazards, and to convey her safely to Bourdeaux, if she could
+disguise herself properly; and if she could obtain a pass from any friend
+under a feigned name.
+
+Victoire--the indefatigable Victoire--recollected that her friend Annette
+had an aunt, who was nearly of Madame de Fleury's size, and who had just
+obtained a pass to go to Bourdeaux, to visit some of her relations. The
+pass was willingly given up to Madame de Fleury; and upon reading it over
+it was found to answer tolerably well--the colour of the eyes and hair at
+least would do; though the words _un nez gros_ were not precisely
+descriptive of this lady's. Annette's mother, who had always worn the
+provincial dress of Auvergne, furnished the high _cornette_, stiff stays,
+bodice, &c.; and equipped in these, Madame de Fleury was so admirably
+well disguised, that even Victoire declared she should scarcely have
+known her. Money, that most necessary passport in all countries, was
+still wanting: as seals had been put upon all Madame de Fleury's effects
+the day she had been first imprisoned in her own house, she could not
+save even her jewels. She had, however, one ring on her finger of some
+value. How to dispose of it without exciting suspicion was the
+difficulty. Babet, who was resolved to have her share in assisting her
+benefactress, proposed to carry the ring to a _colporteur_--a pedlar, or
+sort of travelling jeweller--who had come to lay in a stock of hardware
+at Paris: he was related to one of Madame de Fleury's little pupils, and
+readily disposed of the ring for her: she obtained at least two-thirds of
+its value--a great deal in those times.
+
+The proofs of integrity, attachment, and gratitude which she received in
+these days of peril, from those whom she had obliged in her prosperity,
+touched her generous heart so much, that she has often since declared she
+could not regret having been reduced to distress. Before she quitted
+Paris she wrote letters to her friends, recommending her pupils to their
+protection; she left these letters in the care of Victoire, who to the
+last moment followed her with anxious affection. She would have followed
+her benefactress into exile, but that she was prevented by duty and
+affection from leaving her mother, who was in declining health.
+
+Madame de Fleury successfully made her escape from Paris. Some of the
+municipal officers in the towns through which she passed on her road were
+as severe as their ignorance would permit in scrutinising her passport.
+It seldom happened that more than one of these petty committees of public
+safety could read. One usually spelled out the passport as well as he
+could, whilst the others smoked their pipes, and from time to time held a
+light up to the lady's face to examine whether it agreed with the
+description.
+
+"Mais toi! tu n'as pas le nez gros!" said one of her judges to her. "Son
+nez est assez gros, et c'est moi qui le dit," said another. The question
+was put to the vote; and the man who had asserted what was contrary to
+the evidence of his senses was so vehement in supporting his opinion,
+that it was carried in spite of all that could be said against it. Madame
+de Fleury was suffered to proceed on her journey. She reached Bordeaux
+in safety. Her husband's friends--the good have always friends in
+adversity--her husband's friends exerted themselves for her with the most
+prudent zeal. She was soon provided with a sum of money sufficient for
+her support for some time in England; and she safely reached that free
+and happy country, which has been the refuge of so many illustrious
+exiles.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+
+  "Cosi rozzo diamante appena splende
+  Dalla rupe natia quand' esce fuora,
+  E a poco a poco lucido se rende
+  Sotto l'attenta che lo lavora."
+
+Madame de Fleury joined her husband, who was in London, and they both
+lived in the most retired and frugal manner. They had too much of the
+pride of independence to become burthensome to their generous English
+friends. Notwithstanding the variety of difficulties they had to
+encounter, and the number of daily privations to which they were forced
+to submit, yet they were happy--in a tranquil conscience, in their mutual
+affection, and the attachment of many poor but grateful friends. A few
+months after she came to England, Madame de Fleury received, by a private
+hand, a packet of letters from her little pupils. Each of them, even the
+youngest, who had but just begun to learn joining-hand, would write a few
+lines in this packet.
+
+In various hands, of various sizes, the changes were rung upon these
+simple words:--
+
+  "MY DEAR MADAME DE FLEURY,
+
+  "I love you--I wish you were here again--I will be _very very_ good
+  whilst you are away. If you stay away ever so long, I shall never
+  forget you, nor your goodness; but I hope you will soon be able to
+  come back, and this is what I pray for every night. Sister Frances
+  says I may tell you that I am very good, and Victoire thinks so too."
+
+This was the substance of several of their little letters. Victoire's
+contained rather more information:--
+
+  "You will be glad to learn that dear Sister Frances is safe, and that
+  the good chestnut-woman, in whose cellar she took refuge, did not get
+  into any difficulty. After you were gone, M. T--- said that he did
+  not think it worth while to pursue her, as it was only you he wanted
+  to humble. Manon, who has, I do not know how, means of knowing, told
+  me this. Sister Frances is now with her abbess, who, as well as
+  everybody else that knows her, is very fond of her. What was a
+  convent is no longer a convent--the nuns are turned out of it. Sister
+  Frances' health is not so good as it used to be, though she never
+  complains. I am sure she suffers much; she has never been the same
+  person since that day when we were driven from our happy schoolroom.
+  It is all destroyed--the garden and everything. It is now a dismal
+  sight. Your absence also afflicts Sister Frances much, and she is in
+  great anxiety about all of us. She has the six little ones with her
+  every day in her own apartment, and goes on teaching them as she used
+  to do. We six eldest go to see her as often as we can. I should have
+  begun, my dear Madame de Fleury, by telling you, that, the day after
+  you left Paris, I went to deliver all the letters you were so very
+  kind to write for us in the midst of your hurry. Your friends have
+  been exceedingly good to us, and have got places for us all. Rose is
+  with Madame la Grace, your mantua-maker, who says she is more handy
+  and more expert at cutting out than girls she has had these three
+  years. Marianne is in the service of Madame de V---, who has lost a
+  great part of her large fortune, and cannot afford to keep her former
+  waiting-maid. Madame de V--- is well pleased with Marianne, and bids
+  me tell you that she thanks you for her. Indeed, Marianne, though she
+  is only fourteen, can do everything her lady wants. Susanne is with a
+  confectioner. She gave Sister Frances a box of _bonbons_ of her own
+  making this morning; and Sister Frances, who is a judge, says they are
+  excellent--she only wishes you could taste them. Annette and I
+  (thanks to your kindness!) are in the same service with Madame
+  Feuillot, the _brodeuse_, to whom you recommended us. She is not
+  discontented with our work, and, indeed, sent a very civil message
+  yesterday to Sister Frances on this subject; but believe it is too
+  flattering for me to repeat in this letter. We shall do our best to
+  give her satisfaction. She is glad to find that we can write
+  tolerably, and that we can make out bills and keep accounts, this
+  being particularly convenient to her at present, as the young man she
+  had in the shop is become an orator, and good for nothing but _la
+  chose publique_; her son, who could have supplied his place, is ill;
+  and Madame Feuillot herself, not having had, as she says, the
+  advantage of such a good education as we have been blessed with,
+  writes but badly, and knows nothing of arithmetic. Dear Madame de
+  Fleury, how much, how very much we are obliged to you! We feel it
+  every day more and more; in these times what would have become of us
+  if we could do nothing useful? Who would, who could be burdened with
+  us? Dear madame, we owe everything to you--and we can do nothing, not
+  the least thing for you! My mother is still in bad health, and I fear
+  will never recover; Babet is with her always, and Sister Frances is
+  very good to her. My brother Maurice is now so good a workman that he
+  earns a louis a week. He is very steady to his business, and never
+  goes to the revolutionary meetings, though once he had a great mind to
+  be an orator of the people, but never since the day that you explained
+  to him that he knew nothing about equality and the rights of men, &c.
+  How could I forget to tell you, that his master the smith, who was one
+  of your guards, and who assisted you to escape, has returned without
+  suspicion to his former trade? and he declares that he will never more
+  meddle with public affairs. I gave him the money you left with me for
+  him. He is very kind to my brother. Yesterday Maurice mended for
+  Annette's mistress the lock of an English writing-desk, and he mended
+  it so astonishingly well, that an English gentleman, who saw it, could
+  not believe the work was done by a Frenchman; so my brother was sent
+  for, to prove it, and they were forced to believe it. To-day he has
+  more work than he can finish this twelve-month--all this we owe to
+  you. I shall never forget the day when you promised that you would
+  grant my brother's wish to be apprenticed to the smith, if I was not
+  in a passion for a month; that cured me of being so passionate.
+
+  "Dear Madame de Fleury, I have written you too long a letter, and not
+  so well as I can write when I am not in a hurry; but I wanted to tell
+  you everything at once, because, may be, I shall not for a long time
+  have so safe an opportunity of sending a letter to you.
+
+  "VICTOIRE."
+
+Several months elapsed before Madame do Fleury received another letter
+from Victoire; it was short and evidently written in great distress of
+mind. It contained an account of her mother's death. She was now left
+at the early age of sixteen an orphan. Madame Feuillot, the _brodeuse_,
+with whom she lived, added few lines to her letter, penned with
+difficulty and strangely spelled, but, expressive of her being highly
+pleased with both the girls recommended to her by Madame de Fleury,
+especially Victoire, who she said was such a treasure to her, that she
+would not part with her on any account, and should consider her as a
+daughter. "I tell her not to grieve so much; for though she has lost one
+mother she has gained another for herself, who will always love her; and
+besides she is so useful, and in so many ways, with her pen and her
+needle, in accounts, and everything that is wanted in a family or a shop;
+she can never want employment or friends in the worst times, and none can
+be worse than these, especially for such pretty girls as she is, who have
+all their heads turned, and are taught to consider nothing a sin that
+used to be sins. Many gentlemen, who come to our shop, have found out
+that Victoire is very handsome, and tell her so; but she is so modest and
+prudent that I am not afraid for her. I could tell you, madame, a good
+anecdote on this subject, but my paper will not allow, and, besides, my
+writing is so difficult."
+
+Above a year elapsed before Madame de Fleury received another letter from
+Victoire: this was in a parcel, of which an emigrant took charge; it
+contained a variety of little offerings from her pupils, instances of
+their ingenuity, their industry, and their affection; the last thing in
+the packet was a small purse labelled in this manner--
+
+"_Savings from our wages and earnings for her who taught us all we
+know_."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+
+  "Dans sa pompe elegante, admirez Chantilly,
+  De heros en heros, d'age en age, embelli."--DE LILLE.
+
+The health of the good Sister Frances, which had suffered much from the
+shock her mind received at the commencement of the revolution, declined
+so rapidly in the course of the two succeeding years, that she was
+obliged to leave Paris, and she retired to a little village in the
+neighbourhood of Chantilly. She chose this situation because here she
+was within a morning's walk of Madame de Fleury's country-seat. The
+Chateau de Fleury had not yet been seized as national property, nor had
+it suffered from the attacks of the mob, though it was in a perilous
+situation, within view of the high road to Paris. The Parisian populace
+had not yet extended their outrages to this distance from the city, and
+the poor people who lived on the estate of Fleury, attached from habit,
+principle, and gratitude, to their lord, were not disposed to take
+advantage of the disorder of the times, to injure the property of those
+from whom they had all their lives received favours and protection. A
+faithful old steward had the care of the castle and the grounds. Sister
+Frances was impatient to talk to him and to visit the chateau, which she
+had never seen; but for some days after her arrival in the village she
+was so much fatigued and so weak that she could not attempt so long a
+walk. Victoire had obtained permission from her mistress to accompany
+the nun for a few days to the country, as Annette undertook to do all the
+business of the shop during the absence of her companion. Victoire was
+fully as eager as Sister Frances to see the faithful steward and the
+Chateau de Fleury, and the morning was now fixed for their walk; but in
+the middle of the night they were awakened by the shouts of a mob, who
+had just entered the village fresh from the destruction of a neighbouring
+castle. The nun and Victoire listened; but in the midst of the horrid
+yells of joy no human voice, no intelligible word could be distinguished;
+they looked through a chink in the window-shutter and they saw the street
+below filled with a crowd of men, whose countenances were by turns
+illuminated by the glare of the torches which they brandished.
+
+"Good Heavens!" whispered the nun to Victoire: "I should know the face of
+that man who is loading his musket--the very man whom I nursed ten years
+ago when he was ill with a gaol fever!"
+
+This man, who stood in the midst of the crowd, taller by the head than
+the others, seemed to be the leader of the party; they were disputing
+whether they should proceed further, spend the remainder of the night in
+the village ale-house, or return to Paris. Their leader ordered spirits
+to be distributed to his associates, and exhorted them in a loud voice to
+proceed in their glorious work. Tossing his firebrand over his head he
+declared that he would never return to Paris till he had razed to the
+ground the Chateau de Fleury. At these words, Victoire, forgetful of all
+personal danger, ran out into the midst of the mob, pressed her way up to
+the leader of these ruffians, caught him by the arm, exclaiming, "You
+will not touch a stone in the Chateau de Fleury--I have my reasons--I say
+you will not suffer a stone in the Chateau de Fleury to be touched."
+
+"And why not?" cried the man, turning astonished; "and who are you that I
+should listen to you?"
+
+"No matter who I am," said Victoire; "follow me and I will show you one
+to whom you will not refuse to listen. Here!--here she is," continued
+Victoire, pointing to the nun, who had followed her in amazement; "here
+is one to whom you will listen--yes, look at her well: hold the light to
+her face."
+
+The nun, in a supplicating attitude, stood in speechless expectation.
+
+"Ay, I see you have gratitude, I know you will have mercy," cried
+Victoire, watching the workings in the countenance of the man; "you will
+save the Chateau de Fleury for her sake--who saved your life."
+
+"I will," cried this astonished chief of a mob, fired with sudden
+generosity. "By my faith you are a brave girl, and a fine girl, and know
+how to speak to the heart, and in the right moment. Friends, citizens,
+this nun, though she is a nun, is good for something. When I lay ill
+with a fever, and not a soul else to help me, she came and gave me
+medicines and food--in short, I owe my life to her. 'Tis ten years ago,
+but I remember it well, and now it is our turn to rule, and she shall be
+paid as she deserves. Not a stone of the Chateau de Fleury shall be
+touched!"
+
+With loud acclamations the mob joined in the generous enthusiasm of the
+moment and followed their leader peaceably out of the village. All this
+passed with such rapidity as scarcely to leave the impression of reality
+upon the mind. As soon as the sun rose in the morning Victoire looked
+out for the turrets of the Chateau de Fleury, and she saw that they were
+safe--safe in the midst of the surrounding devastation. Nothing remained
+of the superb palace of Chantilly but the white arches of its foundation.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+
+  "When thy last breath, ere Nature sank to rest
+  Thy meek submission to thy God expressed;
+  When thy last look, ere thought and feeling fled,
+  A mingled gleam of hope and triumph shed;
+  What to thy soul its glad assurance gave--
+  Its hope in death, its triumph o'er the grave?
+  The sweet remembrance of unblemished youth,
+  Th' inspiring voice of innocence and truth!"--ROGERS.
+
+The good Sister Frances, though she had scarcely recovered from the shock
+of the preceding night, accompanied Victoire to the Chateau de Fleury.
+The gates were opened for them by the old steward and his son Basile, who
+welcomed them with all the eagerness with which people welcome friends in
+time of adversity. The old man showed them the place; and through every
+apartment of the castle went on talking of former times, and with
+narrative fondness told anecdotes of his dear master and mistress. Here
+his lady used to sit and read--here was the table at which she wrote--this
+was the sofa on which she and the ladies sat the very last day she was at
+the castle, at the open windows of the hall, whilst all the tenants and
+people of the village were dancing on the green.
+
+"Ay, those were happy times," said the old man; "but they will never
+return."
+
+"Never! Oh do not say so," cried Victoire.
+
+"Never during my life, at least," said the nun in a low voice, and with a
+look of resignation.
+
+Basile, as he wiped the tears from his eyes, happened to strike his arm
+against the chord of Madame de Fleury's harp, and the sound echoed
+through the room.
+
+"Before this year is at an end," cried Victoire, "perhaps that harp will
+be struck again in this Chateau by Madame de Fleury herself. Last night
+we could hardly have hoped to see these walls standing this morning, and
+yet it is safe--not a stone touched! Oh, we shall all live, I hope, to
+see better times!"
+
+Sister Frances smiled, for she would not depress Victoire's enthusiastic
+hope: to please her, the good nun added, that she felt better this
+morning than she had felt for months, and Victoire was happier than she
+had been since Madame de Fleury left France. But, alas! it was only a
+transient gleam. Sister Frances relapsed and declined so rapidly, that
+even Victoire, whose mind was almost always disposed to hope, despaired
+of her recovery. With placid resignation, or rather with mild
+confidence, this innocent and benevolent creature met the approach of
+death. She seemed attached to earth only by affection for those whom she
+was to leave in this world. Two of the youngest of the children who had
+formerly been placed under her care, and who were not yet able to earn
+their own subsistence, she kept with her, and in the last days of her
+life she continued her instructions to them with the fond solicitude of a
+parent. Her father confessor, an excellent man, who never even in these
+dangerous times shrank from his duty, came to Sister Frances in her last
+moments, and relieved her mind from all anxiety, by promising to place
+the two little children with the lady who had been abbess of her convent,
+who would to the utmost of her power protect and provide for them
+suitably. Satisfied by this promise, the good Sister Frances smiled upon
+Victoire, who stood beside her bed, and with that smile upon her
+countenance expired.--It was some time before the little children seemed
+to comprehend, or to believe, that Sister Frances was dead: they had
+never before seen any one die; they had no idea what it was to die, and
+their first feeling was astonishment; they did not seem to understand why
+Victoire wept. But the next day when no Sister Frances spoke to them,
+when every hour they missed some accustomed kindness from her,--when
+presently they saw the preparations for her funeral,--when they heard
+that she was to be buried in the earth, and that they should never see
+her more,--they could neither play nor eat, but sat in a corner holding
+each other's hands, and watching everything that was done for the dead by
+Victoire.
+
+In those times, the funeral of a nun, with a priest attending, would not
+have been permitted by the populace. It was therefore performed as
+secretly as possible: in the middle of the night the coffin was carried
+to the burial-place of the Fleury family; the old steward, his son
+Basile, Victoire, and the good father confessor, were the only persons
+present. It is necessary to mention this, because the facts were
+afterwards misrepresented.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+
+  "The character is lost!
+  Her head adorned with lappets, pinned aloft,
+  And ribands streaming gay, superbly raised,
+  Indebted to some smart wig-weaver's hand
+  For more than half the tresses it sustains."--COWPER.
+
+Upon her return to Paris, Victoire felt melancholy; but she exerted
+herself as much as possible in her usual occupation; finding that
+employment and the consciousness of doing her duty were the best remedies
+for sorrow.
+
+One day as she was busy settling Madame Feuillot's accounts a servant
+came into the shop and inquired for Mademoiselle Victoire: he presented
+her a note, which she found rather difficult to decipher. It was signed
+by her cousin Manon, who desired to see Victoire at her hotel. "_Her
+hotel_!" repeated Victoire with astonishment. The servant assured her
+that one of the finest hotels in Paris belonged to his lady, and that he
+was commissioned to show her the way to it. Victoire found her cousin in
+a magnificent house, which had formerly belonged to the Prince de Salms.
+Manon, dressed in the disgusting, indecent extreme of the mode, was
+seated under a richly-fringed canopy. She burst into a loud laugh as
+Victoire entered.
+
+"You look just as much astonished as I expected," cried she. "Great
+changes have happened since I saw you last--I always told you, Victoire,
+I knew the world better than you did. What has come of all your
+schooling, and your mighty goodness, and your gratitude truly? Your
+patroness is banished and a beggar, and you a drudge in the shop of a
+_brodeuse_, who makes you work your fingers to the bone, no doubt. Now
+you shall see the difference. Let me show you my house; you know it was
+formerly the hotel of the Prince de Salms, he that was guillotined the
+other day; but you know nothing, for you have been out of Paris this
+month, I understand. Then I must tell you that my friend Villeneuf has
+acquired an immense fortune! by assignats made in the course of a
+fortnight. I say an immense fortune! and has bought this fine house. Now
+do you begin to understand?"
+
+"I do not clearly know whom you mean by 'your friend Villeneuf,'" said
+Victoire.
+
+"The hairdresser who lived in our street," said Manon; "he became a great
+patriot, you know, and orator; and, what with his eloquence and his luck
+in dealing in assignats, he has made his fortune and mine."
+
+"And yours! then he is your husband?"
+
+"That does not follow--that is not necessary--but do not look so
+shocked--everybody goes on the sane way now; besides, I had no other
+resource--I must have starved--I could not earn my bread as you do.
+Besides, I was too delicate for hard work of any sort--and besides--but
+come, let me show you my house--you have no idea how fine it is."
+
+With anxious ostentation Manon displayed all her riches to excite
+Victoire's envy.
+
+"Confess, Victoire," said she at last, "that you think me the happiest
+person you have ever known.--You do not answer; whom did you ever know
+that was happier?"
+
+"Sister Frances, who died last week, appeared to be much happier," said
+Victoire.
+
+"The poor nun!" said Manon, disdainfully. "Well, and whom do you think
+the next happiest?"
+
+"Madame de Fleury."
+
+"An exile and a beggar!--Oh, you are jesting now, Victoire--or--envious.
+With that sanctified face, citoyenne--perhaps I should say
+Mademoiselle--Victoire you would be delighted to change places with me
+this instant. Come, you shall stay with me a week to try how you like
+it."
+
+"Excuse me," said Victoire, firmly; "I cannot stay with you, Manon; you
+have chosen one way of life and I another--quite another. I do not
+repent my choice--may you never repent yours!--Farewell!"
+
+"Bless me! what airs! and with what dignity she looks! Repent of my
+choice!--a likely thing, truly. Am not I at the top of the wheel?"
+
+"And may not the wheel turn?" said Victoire.
+
+"Perhaps it may," said Manon; "but till it does I will enjoy myself.
+Since you are of a different humour, return to Madame Feuillot, and
+figure upon cambric and muslin, and make out bills, and nurse old nuns
+all the days of your life. You will never persuade me, however, that you
+would not change places with me if you could. Stay till you are tried,
+Mademoiselle Victoire. Who was ever in love with you or your
+virtues?--Stay till you are tried."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+
+  "But beauty, like the fair Hesperian tree,
+  Laden with blooming gold, had need the guard
+  Of dragon watch with unenchanted eye
+  To save her blossoms, or defend her fruit."--MILTON.
+
+The trial was nearer than either Manon or Victoire expected. Manon had
+scarcely pronounced the last words when the ci-devant hairdresser burst
+into the room, accompanied by several of his political associates, who
+met to consult measures for the good of the nation. Among these patriots
+was the Abbe Tracassier.
+
+"Who is that pretty girl who is with you, Manon?" whispered he; "a friend
+of yours, I hope?"
+
+Victoire left the room immediately, but not before the profligate abbe
+had seen enough to make him wish to see more. The next day he went to
+Madame Feuillot's under pretence of buying some embroidered
+handkerchiefs; he paid Victoire a profusion of extravagant compliments,
+which made no impression upon her innocent heart, and which appeared
+ridiculous to her plain good sense. She did not know who he was, nor did
+Madame Feuillot; for though she had often heard of the abbe, yet she had
+never seen him. Several succeeding days he returned, and addressed
+himself to Victoire, each time with increasing freedom. Madame Feuillot,
+who had the greatest confidence in her, left her entirely to her own
+discretion. Victoire begged her friend Annette to do the business of the
+shop, and stayed at work in the back parlour. Tracassier was much
+disappointed by her absence; but as he thought no great ceremony
+necessary in his proceedings, he made his name known in a haughty manner
+to Madame de Feuillot, and desired that he might be admitted into the
+back parlour, as he had something of consequence to say to Mademoiselle
+Victoire in private. Our readers will not require to have a detailed
+account of this _tete-a-tete_; it is sufficient to say that the
+disappointed and exasperated abbe left the house muttering imprecations.
+The next morning a note came to Victoire apparently from Manon: it was
+directed by her, but the inside was written by an unknown hand, and
+continued these words:--
+
+"You are a charming, but incomprehensible girl--since you do not like
+compliments, you shall not be addressed with empty flattery. It is in
+the power of the person who dictates this, not only to make you as rich
+and great as your cousin Manon, but also to restore to fortune and to
+their country the friends for whom, you are most interested. Their fate
+as well as your own is in your power: if you send a favourable answer to
+this note, the persons alluded to will, to-morrow, be struck from the
+list of emigrants, and reinstated in their former possessions. If your
+answer is decidedly unfavourable, the return of your friends to France
+will be thenceforward impracticable, and their chateau, as well as their
+house in Paris, will be declared national property, and sold without
+delay to the highest bidder. To you, who have as much understanding as
+beauty, it is unnecessary to say more. Consult your heart, charming
+Victoire! be happy, and make others happy. This moment is decisive of
+your fate and of theirs, for you have to answer a man of a most decided
+character."
+
+Victoire's answer was as follows:--
+
+"My friends would not, I am sure, accept of their fortune, or consent to
+return to their country, upon the conditions proposed; therefore I have
+no merit in rejecting them."
+
+Victoire had early acquired good principles, and that plain steady good
+sense, which goes straight to its object, without being dazzled or
+imposed upon by sophistry. She was unacquainted with the refinements of
+sentiment, but she distinctly knew right from wrong, and had sufficient
+resolution to abide by the right. Perhaps many romantic heroines might
+have thought it a generous self-devotion to have become in similar
+circumstances the mistress of Tracassier; and those who are skilled "to
+make the worst appear the better cause" might have made such an act of
+heroism the foundation of an interesting, or at least a fashionable
+novel. Poor Victoire had not received an education sufficiently refined
+to enable her to understand these mysteries of sentiment. She was even
+simple enough to flatter herself that this libertine patriot would not
+fulfil his threats, and that these had been made only with a view to
+terrify her into compliance. In this opinion, however, she found herself
+mistaken. M. Tracassier was indeed a man of the most decided character,
+if this form may properly be applied to those who act uniformly in
+consequence of their ruling passion. The Chateau de Fleury was seized as
+national property. Victoire heard this bad news from the old steward,
+who was turned out of the castle, along with his son, the very day after
+her rejection of the proposed conditions.
+
+"I could not have believed that any human creature could be so wicked!"
+exclaimed Victoire, glowing with indignation: but indignation gave way to
+sorrow.
+
+"And the Chateau de Fleury is really seized?--and you, good old man, are
+turned out of the place where you were born?--and you too, Basile?--and
+Madame de Fleury will never come back again!--and perhaps she may be put
+into prison in a foreign country, and may die for want--and I might have
+prevented all this!"
+
+Unable to shed a tear, Victoire stood in silent consternation, whilst
+Annette explained to the good steward and his son the whole transaction.
+Basile, who was naturally of an impetuous temper, was so transported with
+indignation, that he would have gone instantly with the note from
+Tracassier to denounce him before the whole National Convention, if he
+had not been restrained by his more prudent father. The old steward
+represented to him, that as the note was neither signed nor written by
+the hand of Tracassier, no proof could be brought home to him, and the
+attempt to convict one of so powerful a party would only bring certain
+destruction upon the accusers. Besides, such was at this time the
+general depravity of manners, that numbers would keep the guilty in
+countenance. There was no crime which the mask of patriotism could not
+cover. "There is one comfort we have in our misfortunes, which these men
+can never have," said the old man; "when their downfall comes, and come
+it will most certainly, they will not feel as we do, INNOCENT. Victoire,
+look up! and do not give way to despair--all will yet be well."
+
+"At all events, you have done what is right--so do not reproach
+yourself," said Basile. "Everybody--I mean everybody who is good for
+anything--must respect, admire, and love you, Victoire."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+
+  "Ne mal cio che v'annoja,
+  Quello e vero gioire
+  Che nasce da virtude dopo il soffrire."
+
+Basile had not seen without emotion the various instances of goodness
+which Victoire showed during the illness of Sister Frances. Her conduct
+towards M. Tracassier increased his esteem and attachment; but he forbore
+to declare his affection, because he could not, consistently with
+prudence, or with gratitude to his father, think of marrying, now that he
+was not able to maintain a wife and family. The honest earnings of many
+years of service had been wrested from the old steward at the time the
+Chateau de Fleury was seized, and he now depended on the industry of his
+son for the daily support of his age. His dependence was just, and not
+likely to be disappointed; for he had given his son an education suitable
+to his condition in life. Basile was an exact arithmetician, could write
+an excellent hand, and was a ready draughtsman and surveyor. To bring
+these useful talents into action, and to find employment for them with
+men by whom they would be honestly rewarded, was the only difficulty--a
+difficulty which Victoire's brother Maurice soon removed. His reputation
+as a smith had introduced him, among his many customers, to a gentleman
+of worth and scientific knowledge, who was at this time employed to make
+models and plans of all the fortified places in Europe; he was in want of
+a good clerk and draughtsman, of whose integrity he could be secure.
+Maurice mentioned his friend Basile; and upon inquiry into his character,
+and upon trial of his abilities, he was found suited to the place, and
+was accepted. By his well-earned salary he supported himself and his
+father; and began, with the sanguine hopes of a young man, to flatter
+himself that he should soon be rich enough to marry, and that then he
+might declare his attachment to Victoire. Notwithstanding all his
+boasted prudence, he had betrayed sufficient symptoms of his passion to
+have rendered a declaration unnecessary to any clear-sighted observer:
+but Victoire was not thinking of conquests; she was wholly occupied with
+a scheme of earning a certain sum of money for her benefactress, who was
+now, as she feared, in want. All Madame de Fleury's former pupils
+contributed their share to the common stock; and the mantua-maker, the
+confectioner, the servants of different sorts, who had been educated at
+her school, had laid by, during the years of her banishment, an annual
+portion of their wages and savings: with the sum which Victoire now added
+to the fund, it amounted to ten thousand livres. The person who
+undertook to carry this money to Madame de Fleury, was Francois, her
+former footman, who had procured a pass to go to England as a
+hairdresser. The night before he set out was a happy night for Victoire,
+as all her companions met, by Madame Feuillot's invitation, at her house;
+and after tea they had the pleasure of packing up the little box, in
+which each, besides the money, sent some token their gratitude, and some
+proof of their ingenuity. They would with all their hearts have sent
+twice as many _souvenirs_ as Francois could carry.
+
+"D'abord c'est impossible!" cried he, when he saw the box that was
+prepared for him to carry to England: but his good nature was unable to
+resist the entreaties of each to have her offering carried, "which would
+take up no room."
+
+He departed--arrived safe in England--found out Madame de Fleury, who was
+in real distress, in obscure lodgings at Richmond. He delivered the
+money, and all the presents of which he had taken charge: but the person
+to whom she entrusted a letter, in answer to Victoire, was not so
+punctual, or was more unlucky: for the letter never reached her, and she
+and her companions were long uncertain whether their little treasure had
+been received. They still continued, however, with indefatigable
+gratitude, to lay by a portion of their earnings for their benefactress;
+and the pleasure they had in this perseverance made them more than amends
+for the loss of some little amusements, and for privations to which they
+submitted in consequence of their resolution.
+
+In the meantime, Basile, going on steadily with his employments, advanced
+every day in the favour of his master, and his salary was increased in
+proportion to his abilities and industry; so that he thought he could
+now, without any imprudence, marry. He consulted his father, who
+approved of his choice; he consulted Maurice as to the probability of his
+being accepted by Victoire; and encouraged by both his father and his
+friend, he was upon the eve of addressing himself to Victoire, when he
+was prevented by a new and unforeseen misfortune. His father was taken
+up, by an emissary of Tracassier's, and brought before one of their
+revolutionary committees, where he was accused of various acts of
+_incivisme_. Among other things equally criminal, it was proved that one
+Sunday, when he went to see Le Petit Trianon, then a public-house, he
+exclaimed, "C'est ici que le canaille danse, et que les honnetes gens
+pleurent!"
+
+Basile was present at this mock examination of his father--he saw him on
+the point of being dragged to prison--when a hint was given that he might
+save his father by enlisting immediately, and going with the army out of
+France. Victoire was full in Basile's recollection; but there was no
+other means of saving his father. He enlisted, and in twenty-four hours
+left Paris.
+
+What appear to be the most unfortunate circumstances of life often prove
+ultimately the most advantageous--indeed, those who have knowledge,
+activity, and integrity, can convert the apparent blanks in the lottery
+of fortune into prizes. Basile was recommended to his commanding officer
+by the gentleman who had lately employed him as a clerk; his skill in
+drawing plans, and in taking rapid surveys of the country through which
+they passed, was extremely useful to his general, and his integrity made
+it safe to trust him as a secretary. His commanding officer, though a
+brave man, was illiterate, and a secretary was to him a necessary of
+life. Basile was not only useful, but agreeable; without any mean arts,
+or servile adulation, he pleased by simply showing the desire to oblige
+and the ability to serve.
+
+"Diable!" exclaimed the general one day, as he looked at Basile's plan of
+a town which the army was besieging. "How comes it that you are able to
+do all these things? But you have a genius for this sort of work,
+apparently."
+
+"No, sir," said Basile, "these things were taught to me when I was a
+child by a good friend."
+
+"A good friend he was, indeed! he did more for you than if he had given
+you a fortune; for, in these times, that might have been soon taken from
+you; but now you have the means of making a fortune for yourself."
+
+This observation of the general's, obvious as it may seem, is deserving
+of the serious consideration of those who have children of their own to
+educate, or who have the disposal of money for public charities. In
+these times no sensible person will venture to pronounce that a change of
+fortune and station may not await the highest and the lowest; whether we
+rise or fall in the scale of society, personal qualities and knowledge
+will be valuable. Those who fall cannot be destitute, and those who rise
+cannot be ridiculous or contemptible, if they have been prepared for
+their fortune by proper education. In shipwreck those who carry their
+all in their minds are the most secure.
+
+But to return to Basile. He had sense enough not to make his general
+jealous of him by any unseasonable display of his talents, or any
+officious intrusion of advice, even upon subjects which he best
+understood.
+
+The talents of the warrior and the secretary were in such different
+lines, that there was no danger of competition; and the general, finding
+in his secretary the soul of all the arts, good sense, gradually acquired
+the habit of asking his opinion on every subject that came within his
+department. It happened that the general received orders from the
+Directory at Paris to take a certain town, let it cost what it would,
+within a given time: in his perplexity he exclaimed before Basile against
+the unreasonableness of these orders, and declared his belief that it was
+impossible he should succeed, and that this was only a scheme of his
+enemies to prepare his ruin. Basile had attended to the operations of
+the engineer who acted under the general, and perfectly recollected the
+model of the mines of this town, which he had seen when he was employed
+as draughtsman by his Parisian friend. He remembered that there was
+formerly an old mine that had been stopped up somewhere near the place
+where the engineer was at work; he mentioned in private his suspicions to
+the general, who gave orders in consequence. The old mine was
+discovered, cleared out, and by these means the town was taken the day
+before the time appointed. Basile did not arrogate to himself any of the
+glory of this success; he kept his general's secret and his confidence.
+Upon their return to Paris, after a fortunate campaign, the general was
+more grateful than some others have been, perhaps because more room was
+given by Basile's prudence for the exercise of this virtue.
+
+"My friend," said he to Basile, "you have done me a great service by your
+counsel, and a greater still by holding your tongue. Speak now, and tell
+me freely if there is anything I can do for you. You see, as a
+victorious general, I have the upper hand amongst these
+fellows--Tracassier's scheme to ruin me missed--whatever I ask will at
+this moment be granted; speak freely, therefore."
+
+Basile asked what he knew Victoire most desired--that Monsieur and Madame
+de Fleury should be struck from the list of emigrants, and that their
+property now in the hands of the nation should be restored to them. The
+general promised that this should be done. A warm contest ensued upon
+the subject between him and Tracassier, but the general stood firm; and
+Tracassier, enraged, forgot his usual cunning, and quarrelling
+irrevocably with a party now more powerful than his own, he and his
+adherents were driven from that station in which they had so long
+tyrannised. From being the rulers of France, they in a few hours became
+banished men, or, in the phrase of the times, _des deportes_.
+
+We must not omit to mention the wretched end of Manon. The man with whom
+she lived perished by the guillotine. From his splendid house she went
+upon the stage, did not succeed, sank from one degree of profligacy to
+another, and at last died in an hospital.
+
+In the meantime, the order for the restoration of the Fleury property,
+and for permission for the Fleury family to return to France, was made
+out in due form, and Maurice begged to be the messenger of these good
+tidings--he set out for England with the order.
+
+Victoire immediately went down to the Chateau de Fleury, to get
+everything in readiness for the reception of the family.
+
+Exiles are expeditious in their return to their native country. Victoire
+had but just time to complete her preparations, when Monsieur and Madame
+de Fleury arrived at Calais. Victoire had assembled all her companions,
+all Madame de Fleury's former pupils; and the hour when she was expected
+home, they, with the peasants of the neighbourhood, were all in their
+holiday clothes, and, according to the custom of the country, singing and
+dancing. Without music and dancing there is no perfect joy in France.
+Never was _fete du village_ or _fete du Seigneur_ more joyful than this.
+
+The old steward opened the gate, the carriage drove in. Madame de Fleury
+saw that home which she had little expected evermore to behold, but all
+other thoughts were lost in the pleasure of meeting her beloved pupils.
+
+"My children!" cried she, as they crowded round her the moment she got
+out of her carriage--"my dear, _good_ children!"
+
+It was all she could say. She leaned on Victoire's arm as she went into
+the house, and by degrees recovering from the almost painful excess of
+pleasure, began to enjoy what she yet only confusedly felt.
+
+Several of her pupils were so much grown and altered in their external
+appearance, that she could scarcely recollect them till they spoke, and
+then their voices and the expression of their countenances brought their
+childhood fully to her memory. Victoire, she thought, was changed the
+least, and at this she rejoiced.
+
+The feeling and intelligent reader will imagine all the pleasure that
+Madame de Fleury enjoyed this day; nor was it merely the pleasure of a
+day. She heard from all her friends, with prolonged satisfaction,
+repeated accounts of the good conduct of these young people during her
+absence. She learned with delight how her restoration to her country and
+her fortune had been effected; and is it necessary to add, that Victoire
+consented to marry Basile, and that she was suitably portioned, and, what
+is better still, that she was perfectly happy? Monsieur de Fleury
+rewarded the attachment and good conduct of Maurice by taking him into
+his service, and making him his manager under the old steward at the
+Chateau de Fleury.
+
+On Victoire's wedding-day Madame de Fleury produced all the little
+offerings of gratitude which she had received from her and her companions
+during her exile. It was now her turn to confer favours, and she knew
+how to confer them both with grace and judgment.
+
+"No gratitude in human nature! No gratitude in the lower classes of the
+people!" cried she; "how much those are mistaken who think so! I wish
+they could know my history, and the history of these my children, and
+they would acknowledge their error."
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE UNLUCKY AND OTHER TALES ***
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