verily thou art sore tired and wet, oh, I'll e'en do such sewing as needs by the bedchamber fire. So good-night to thee, Sal, woman !" The good parson, being as wax in Whereupon, much to worthy Mistress his lady's right capable hands, forth- Trussbit's surprise, and somewhat to with sought his bedchamber, where the detriment of her second-best cap, was ready lit a bright fire, most com- some great wave of feeling did incontiforting to his tired and chilled limbs. nently sweep Sally away with it, and in Having washed him, untied his points, a moment her arms were round her and said his prayers, he was soon be- mistress's neck, and she was sobbing tween the homespun sheets, blinking "Good-bye" in lieu of "Good-night." at the twinkling of the fire on the pol- The clatter of plates, as his wife set ished oak panelling of the room, and down the supper-tray, did straightway already nodding unto slumber. awaken the parson out of his doze. And, in sooth, while Mistress Trussbit was superintending Simple Sally's preparation of his supper, the worthy man did, for a brief season, visit the land of dreams, as will be seen anon. But meanwhile, reader, I would fain introduce this same Sally to thee, as playing no slight part in my narrative of what befell. A short, squab wench it was, with a broad face and high cheek-bones; somewhat underhung withal. Flaxen hair of a bleached appearance had Sally, and big, pathetic eyes of light blue. Not quite as other wenches was poor Sal. If haply accosted by a stranger, or suddenly questioned by whomsoever, as a covey of partridges is scattered by an unbroken pointer pup, so were poor Sally's wits put to the wing. He sat up in his bed, with wild eyes gleaming from beneath his nightcapped brows. "Alice what meaneth this ringing of the church-bell?" "Bell, Ezekiel! Why, what aileth the man?" "I tell thee, Alice, I heard it clearly but now." For all answer Mistress Trussbit stepped to the window and drew aside the curtain. The gale was at its height. It was yelping and tearing at the casement, like unto a beast of prey, and anon, failing to rend it, was sobbing and moaning an' 'twere a lost spirit. What with this and the creaking of boughs as the gust did strain them, to say nought of the deep undertone of the surf's sullen roar on the distant beach, small chance was there of hearing the sound of a bell, even had it been hard by. But the church was on the leeward side of the house, half a mile away, and the bell thereof, being of weakly, not to say cracked, tone, was barely audiYet was Sal a right excellent hand-ble at the parsonage on the calmest of maid, and thrifty withal. Some years summer days. before there had fallen unto her a small bequest from an aunt, and this she had carefully hoarded, as likewise had she the greater part of her earnings. Mischievous boys (myself, to my shame be it said, among them) were wont to fire off absurd questions at her of set purpose to see the hopeless, vacant look spread, like a curtain, over the foolish, kindly face. "There, Sally, lass," said her mistress, "I will myself take thy master his supper. And do thou see the little ones abed and lock the doors, and, that done, go thou thyself to roost, girl, for 'twas a heavy washing. As for me, The parson drew the spindle-legged table nearer the bedside and said his grace before meat. "What hath come over our Sally gladly would I give my best salting of pork to know," said his wife as she settled to her sewing, having trimmed the waning fire. Mr. Trussbit paused in his meal with mute inquiry. 'Twas all the spur Mistress Trussbit needed, and forthwith "Ezekiel, what if that wicked knave, Deadly Dick, hath been here again and seen the maiden ?" she plunged into the tale of Sally's | feathers, like a gamecock, and out with strange emotion. And even in the ribald and scurrilous abuse fit to shock very telling thereof did a sudden the boatswain of a man-o'-war, let thought flash upon her. alone a quiet country clergyman. But, when he proceeded to shake his fists and threaten violence, then did the parson, being a man of inches and shoulder-width and as brave as a lion, summarily take the scoundrel by the scruff of the neck and administer unto him so tough a hiding that the bully roared for mercy, and, on Mr. Trussbit's relaxing his grip, did take himself forthwith out of the parish, to the joy of all therein. And the little woman flushed with indignation. Now the parson that day, in his long tramp to visit the wild fisher-folk at the uttermost extremity of his parish, had heard rumors of Dick being in the neighborhood. But he said nought of this, nor of the rustling in the bushes which now, he felt assured, was caused by Dick's sneaking off the premises - being loth to alarm his wife. As for Mistress Trussbit, she became thoughtful and silent, and moreover wished her husband to betake himself to the sleep he so sorely did need, which presently, much to her content, he did. But about ten of the clock he awoke with a start. "Alice! Hark to that bell! 'Tis a-ringing lustily!" But again did his good wife with gentle persuasion allure him, being drowsy and heavy of the eyelids, into as sound a slumber as ever. Yet did the thought keep knocking at her heart's door, as she plied her needle, "What if shipwrecked mariners had in sooth, got into the church and were ringing the bell to summon aid!" But she resolutely put the fancy from her, as being nought but a figment of an anxious brain, and her meditations did again gather, as they had done oft that night, round her domestic's strange demeanor. Deadly Dick was the terror of that country-side. The tale ran that he was a murderer and a pirate; certes he was both poacher and smuggler, and the ill-repute of many foul and cruel acts did besmirch his ill-omened name. Once Parson Trussbit had interfered when this gallows-bird was for striking a woman, to wit, Dame Porcot, in one of his frenzied fits of sudden anger. Whereupon the knave did ruffle his Mistress Trussbit was about gathering up her work, the kitchen-clock having long gone eleven, when the parson, for the third time, awoke. "Alice, love! It boots not talking. 'Tis a matter I must see to." "Hast heard the bell again?” 66 Ay, that have I. And unravel this coil will I without more ado." And, with the word, he set about attiring himself with all speed, his wife the while, far from offering hindrance, finding him all such garments as he would require. Nor made she any sign till just as he was sallying forth of the door, when, raising herself on tiptoe, she kissed his lips with a "God bless and keep thee, husband!" and so back quietly to pray in her chamber, and, that done, to get ready a hot cup of coffee and a bright fire for Mr. Trussbit's home-coming. By this, the storm having worn itself out, the night was calm and clear. Like a sleeping infant lay the quiet earth, kissed by the moonlight. Only from the shore there came to the ear the thud of the rollers as they thrashed the shingle. Underfoot 'twas seething wet, and the parson had to pick him a way among the puddles left by the rain. At length, after tedious and slippery walking, he fetched Deadman's Lane, winding up the side of the hill to the churchyard. Of a sudden the parson halted, and he heard his own lips saying, "What's that yonder ?" with the strange feeling that it was not himself that spake the the bank till he got abreast of a gnarled words. The question thrilled through every nerve of his body, and loudly did his heart thump it at the gate of his ribs. A female figure, closely veiled and dressed in white, was coming towards him down the lane. This at dead of night in full sheen of the moon! Mr. Trussbit stood as though rooted to the spot. Do what would he, his tongue did refuse utterance. The spectre was the first who did break the dread silence. "Master dear! 'Tis good o' thee to come to my marrying. But I've clean forgot my money. "Tis sewed into t'other gown. And Dick, he was terrible angered and sent me back for ut. But I'll be back ere thou count twenty, and 'twill be a bonny bridal.” Poor Sal's eyes shone with unwonted excitement as she prattled on. At the very first tones of her voice the parson was himself again and able to give keen attention to her words, which did in sooth reveal unto him the peril wherein she stood, as a flash of lightning, on a darksome night, maketh clear the edge of a precipice. He answered her very quiet and as one speaketh to a child, "I'm thinking, Sally, 'twill be over late, by the Act of the Parliament, for thee to get wed to-night, seeing 'tis gone midnight. I'll on and explain the law to Dick, and do thou hie thee home, lass, and warm some supper for thy sweetheart and thee. And tomorrow he shall wed thee in light of day for all the folks to see. 'Twere pity this brave finery o' thine were wasted." Sally's assent was hearty. "That will I, measter. 'Tis what I've always said to Dick. But he's a masterful man. And, for all my brave duds, I be a shiver o' the cold." and stunted elder-bush which sprawled along the top of the hedge, not unlike in shape to an unskilful rider crouching on his steed and clutching its mane. Here he halted, and, warily peering through the twisted boughs, spied, lurking in the porch, the form of a sailor man. More he could not discern, and that but dimly, for the porch was in shadow. Now a more valiant man than Mr. Trussbit never trod neat's leather. Moreover, his heart did burn within him for ire, at the dastard act of beguiling a poor, witless maid into so lonesome a spot, doubtless with some felon purpose, at such an hour of night. So, without counting the danger if haply, as afterwards proved to be the case, the other man were equipped with firearms, he was over the hedge and for the porch at speed. Whereupon Dick, for it was he, out with his pistol and fired. But, by the mercy of God, the wretch's aim being uncertain for the suddenness of the unexpected encounter, the bullet did whistle harmless past the parson's ear. Stop and face me like a man!” roared Mr. Trussbit, like unto a bull of Bashan. Last thought of Dick's was that. In lieu thereof, with a malediction on his pistol, he was off, doubling round the west corner of the church with the agility of a wild cat, and the parson after him hot-foot. Not without purpose took Dick that course, as Mr. Trussbit found when he plumped head forward into something of the nature of a trench, and so lay stunned for a space, while the sailor, with a mocking laugh, vanished into the night. When the parson came to he did perceive that what he had stumbled And off she went, crooning to herself into was, to his horror, a new-made fragments of a sea-song which had grave. There, on the wet grass nigh caught her fancy, while the parson, to it, lay pick and spade. pulling his hat over his brows and grasping his good stick tightly, made for the church. Not, howbeit, without caution, for he crept under shadow of 'Twas dug under an old yew-tree, on the north side of the church, where the good folk of the parish prayed never to be buried among the nameless drowned. Never more was Deadly Dick seen in those regions. Never more was Sally teased, as of yore. None told her (for reverent pity) the true story of that night, which ever died into whispers if she happened by. From Temple Bar. "MADAME." "MADAME"-the name by which best mused Mr. Trussbit, who did forthwith unlock the church door (having brought the key with him), and in the dim for nearly fifty years she was moonlight did kneel in the giving of known by her contemporaries — Charthanks, 'neath the great east window, lotte Elizabeth, Princess Palatine, for that he had escaped the assassin's Duchess of Orleans, mother of the too bullet, and had been the humble in- notorious Regent, and ancestress of the strument, through a God-sent warning, numerous branches of the Orleans of saving a fellow-creature from an family-tree, was born at Heidelberg, awesome fate. September 7th, 1652. Her father, Charles Louis, the son of Elizabeth Stuart, the luckless "Queen of Hearts,” succeeded to his father's palatinate, and married Charlotte of Hesse-Cassel. The union was a very unhappy one, and eventually the elector procured a divorce and married again morganatically. Charlotte Elizabeth and one brother, who died without issue, were his only legitimate children, but by his morganatic spouse he had a large family, with whom Madame was on most affectionate terms. "It is not your fault," she writes to one, "that we did not have the same mother." She was chiefly brought up by her aunt, the Electress Sophia, the mother of our reigning house, for whom she had an almost daughterly love, writing twice every week to her during the whole of her life, and always speaking of her with respect and affection. Only she knew that Dick returned not to redeem his troth, and into the great blue eyes, often turned seawards, there crept the wistful look of one who waits expectant. A matter of two years had passed away. One spring morning there sounded in the little bay below the parsonage the plash of oars. 'Twas the chaplain of a man-o'-war in the offing, who had come in one of the ship's boats to smoke a pipe with his old schoolmate, Parson Trussbit. From him did the parson learn that Dick had died repentant in foreign parts, with Sally's name upon his dying lips. Even as he told the tale a moan of mortal anguish smote upon the ears of narrator and listener, and there stood Sally behind them, white as driven snow! She had come in unobserved, sent by her mistress on some household errand. From that day she pined away, and gradually betook her to a sick-bed. One stormy night (such an one as that memorable by Mr. Trussbit's dream) the cloud which had so long floated o'er her dimmed intellect did lift, as a sea fog rolls away from the surface of the deep, and there flashed into the gladdening eyes a look of recognition, "Dick!" And with the word passed the gentle spirit. R. PARDEPP. Marie Antoinette, she was the link in a | rather for it was a pure mariage de line of fair women; but she herself convenance, in which so unpractical a fairly belied the tradition of her race-matter as affection played no part — to "frightfully ugly," says M. Walck-"Monsieur" Philippe d'Orleans, only enaër. Quite as outspoken about her- brother of Louis XIV. His first wife self as about any one else, she candidly had been Henrietta Stuart, the lovely acknowledges her want of beauty. In her utter carelessness as to her personal appearance, she probably contrasted as sharply with her contemporaries as she did in her embarrassing habit of stating with startling directness the truth and the whole truth on every subject and occasion. daughter of Charles I., Charlotte Elizabeth's " Welsh aunt." The two wives of the lazy, rotund, jewel-bedizened Monsieur might have sat for studies of poetry and prose. Never lived a Stuart who was not at least picturesque, and Henrietta's youth, beauty, and tragic death by "All my life," she writes, " and from poison made her story pitifully paearly youth, I knew myself to be so thetic; but the second "Madame ugly that I never took much trouble was made of very pronounced and about dress. Jewels and fine clothes prosaic reality. "They are killing her draw attention on those who wear with worry, ," she writes, in 1690, of them. It was fortunate that I felt the dying dauphine. "Everything was this indifference about my attire, other- once done to reduce me to a like wise the late Monsieur" [her hus- state; but I am a harder nut to crack band], "who was extremely fond of than the dauphine, and before they jewellery, would have been perpetually have come to the end of me, the old quarrelling with me as to which of us women will break some of their teeth." should wear the best diamonds." Henrietta Stuart left two little daughters, afterwards Queen of Spain and Duchess of Savoy, to whom Charlotte Elizabeth was both a kind and wise "I send you a flask of white balm," she writes to her half-sister, the Margravine Louise. "I know many ladies here who put it on their faces. Mon- stepmother. Her husband she made sieur once wished to try some on mine, but I would not have it; I prefer wrinkles to having grease on my countenance. I detest every kind of skin lotion, and cannot bear rouge.' "Since I have had the small-pox I have not cared to be painted," she remarks with refreshing candor; "just now I am uglier than ever." the best of. The best was not very brilliant, to be sure, but her attitude towards him seems to have been one of half-contemptuous but good-humored tolerance. She had three children of her own: a son, who died in infancy, to her intense sorrow ("I do not think that grief can kill," she says; "were it so I should certainly have died before now "), the notorious Regent, and Charlotte Elizabeth, afterwards Duchess of Lorraine. Though her French was execrable, and she had neither beauty nor charm, Madame speedily became a power. A person possessed of such vigor of phrase and such fine breadth of denunciation, and who was, moreover, absolutely indifferent to the censure or satire of any one, was a lusus naturæ in the French court. True, gossip could not be more rife, or slander more virulent than it was at In an age when dressing well was a science, and clothes were one of the most weighty facts of life, Madame, the second lady in the kingdom, pronounced: "I do not understand why people require So many different dresses; my only costumes consist of my grand state robe, and my ridinghabit when I hunt on horseback, nothing else. I never in my life wore a dressing-gown or wrapper, and in my wardrobe there is but one bed-gown, in which I get in and out of bed.' No wonder she and the court dames had Versailles; but cleverly veiled innubut little in common ! endoes and graceful insinuations did was married, the work of destroying reputations. |