THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY

ASTOR, LEXOX, AND TILDEN FOUNDATIONS

R

"Good day, Jeanne."

The other, astonished to be familiarly addressed by this plain housewife, did not recognize her at all, and stammered :"But-madame! I do not know

made a mistake."

"No. I am Mathilde Loisel."

Her friend uttered a cry.

You must have

"Oh, my poor Mathilde! How you are changed!"

66

Yes, I have had hard enough days since I saw you last, wretched enough days- and all because of you!

"Of me!

How so?"

"Do you remember that diamond necklace which you lent me to wear at the ministerial ball?"

"Yes. Well?"

"Well, I lost it."

"What do you mean? You brought it back."

"I brought you back another just like it. And we have been ten years paying for this. You can understand that it was not easy for us, for we had nothing. At last it is ended, and I am very glad."

Mme. Forestier had stopped.

"You say that you bought a diamond necklace to replace mine?"

"Yes.

like."

You never noticed it, then! They were very

And she smiled with a joy that was at once proud and innocent.

Mme. Forestier, strongly moved, took her two hands.

"Oh, my poor Mathilde! Why, my necklace was paste. It was not worth five hundred francs!"

THE PRISONER OF CHILLON.

BY LORD BYRON.

[LORD GEORGE NOEL GORDON BYRON: A famous English poet; born in London, January 22, 1788. At the age of ten he succeeded to the estate and title of his granduncle William, fifth Lord Byron. He was educated at Harrow and Cambridge, and in 1807 published his first volume of poems, "Hours of Idleness." After a tour through eastern Europe he brought out two cantos of "Childe Harold," which met with instantaneous success, and soon after he married the

heiress Miss Millbanke. The union proving unfortunate, Byron left England, and passed several years in Italy. In 1823 he joined the Greek insurgents in Cephalonia, and later at Missolonghi, where he died of a fever April 19, 1824. His chief poetical works are: "Childe Harold," "Don Juan," "Manfred," "Cain," ," "Marino Faliero," "Sardanapalus," "The Giaour," "Bride of Abydos," "The Corsair," "Lara,” and “ Mazeppa."]

I.

My hair is gray, but not with years,
Nor grew it white

In a single night,

As men's have grown from sudden fears.
My limbs are bowed, though not with toil,
But rusted with a vile repose,
For they have been a dungeon's spoil,
And mine has been the fate of those
To whom the goodly earth and air
Are banned, and barred - forbidden fare;
But this was for my father's faith
I suffered chains and courted death;
That father perished at the stake
For tenets he would not forsake;
And for the same his lineal race
In darkness found a dwelling place;
We were seven- who now are one,
Six in youth and one in age,
Finished as they had begun,

Proud of Persecution's rage;

One in fire, and two in field,

Their belief with blood have sealed:
Dying as their father died,

For the God their foes denied;

Three were in a dungeon cast,

Of whom this wreck is left the last.

II.

There are seven pillars of Gothic mold,
In Chillon's dungeons deep and old,
There are seven columns massy and gray,
Dim with a dull imprisoned ray,

A sunbeam which hath lost its way,
And through the crevice and the cleft
Of the thick wall is fallen and left:
Creeping o'er the floor so damp,
Like a marsh's meteor lamp:

And in each pillar there is a ring,

And in each ring there is a chain;
That iron is a cankering thing,

For in these limbs its teeth remain,
With marks that will not wear away,
Till I have done with this new day,
Which now is painful to these eyes,
Which have not seen the sun so rise
For years
I cannot count them o'er,

I lost their long and heavy score

When my last brother drooped and died, And I lay living by his side.

III.

They chained us each to a column stone,
And we were three-yet, each alone:
We could not move a single pace,
We could not see each other's face,
But with that pale and livid light
That made us strangers in our sight:
And thus together-yet apart,
Fettered in hand, but joined in heart;
'Twas still some solace, in the dearth
Of the pure elements of earth,
To hearken to each other's speech,
And each turn comforter to each
With some new hope or legend old,
Or song heroically bold;

But even these at length grew cold.
Our voices took a dreary tone,
An echo of the dungeon stone,

A grating sound-not full and free
As they of yore were wont to be;
It might be fancy-but to me
They never sounded like our own.