her for a moment.' Where are they now?' | two minutes during the whole evening. This conduct was so unusual, that it was plain to me he suspected something; besides, I saw it in his countenance, though I did not know whether his suspicions had been roused by my paleness and agitation, or whether any thing else had awakened them; but I felt certain afterwards that he had seen the poor young man when the carriage passed him; or, at least, been sufficiently struck with the resemblance to put the true interpretation on my confusion. Well, madame, you may imagine what an evening I spent. I saw clearly that he was determined not to leave me alone with his wife; but this was not of so much consequence, since I had resolved not to give her a hint of what had happened till the count had taken leave of her for the night, because I knew that her agitation would have betrayed the secret. In the mean while she suspected no mischief; for although she observed something was wrong with me, she supposed I was suffering in my mind about a young man I was engaged to marry, called Philippe, who had been lately ill of a fever, and was now said to be threatened with consumption. he asked. 'Out driving,' said I. In a dark-blue carriage? Yes; and I expect them every minute. Go, go, for the Lord's sake, go to my mother's!' 'I saw the carriage,' said he, with a bitter smile. It passed me just this side of Noirmoutier. Little I thought' and his lip quivered for a moment, and his features were convulsed with agony. I will, I must see her,' continued he; and you had better help me to do it, or it will be the worse for us all. Hide me in her room; he does not sleep there, I suppose?' 'No,' I replied; 'but he goes there often to talk to her when she is dressing.' 'Put me in the closet,' said he; there's room enough for me to crouch down under the book-shelves. You can then tell her; and when he has left her for the night, you can let me out.' 'My God!' I cried, my knees beginning to shake under me, I hear the carriage; they'll be here in an instant!' 'Do as you like!' said he, seeing the advantage this gave him: 'if you won't help me to see her, I'll see her without you. I shall stay where I am!' and he struck his cane into the ground with a violence that showed his resolution to do what he threatened. Come away, for the Lord's sake!' cried I, for the carriage was close at hand, and there was not a moment to spare; and seizing him by the arm, I dragged him into the house; for even now he was half inclined to wait for them, and I saw he was burning to quarrel with the count. Well, I had just time to lock him into the closet, and put the key in my pocket, before they had alighted and were walking up the garden. "You may conceive, madame, the state I was in when I met the count and my lady; and my confusion was not diminished by finding that he observed it. What is the matter, Rosina?' said he; 'has any thing unusual happened?' and as he spoke he fixed his dark, piercing eyes upon me in such a way that I felt as if he was reading my very thoughts. I affected to be busy about my mistress, keeping my face away from him; but I knew he was watching me for all that. Generally, when they came home, he used to retire to his own apart ment, and leave his wife with me; but now he came into the salon, took off his hat, and sat himself down; nor did he leave her for "Whilst I pretended to be busying myself in my lady's room, they went out to take a stroll in the garden; and when I saw them safe at the other end, I put my lips to the keyhole, and conjured Eugène, for the sake of all that was good, to be still; for that I was certain it would not only be his death, but my mistress's too, if he were discovered; and he promised me he would. I had scarcely got upon my feet again, and turned to open a drawer, when I heard the count's foot in the salon. The countess is oppressed with the heat,' said he, 'and wants the large green fan; she says you'll find it on one of the shelves in the closet.' "Only think, madame! only think !" said Rosina, turning her wrinkled face towards me, and actually shaking all over with the recollection of her terror. "I thought I should have sunk into the earth! I stood for a moment aghast, and then I began to fumble in my pocket. "Where can the key be?" said I, pretending to search for it; but my countenance betrayed me, and my voice shook so, that he read me like a book. I am sure he knew the truth from that moment. He looked hard at me, whilst his face became quite livid; and then he said in a calm, deep voice: 'For the fan, no | the count wished to leave the house, which, matter; I'll take another; but I see you under the circumstances, I could not wonder are ill you have caught Philippe's fever; at. He has spared Eugène for her sake, you must go to bed directly. Come with thought I. And this belief was strengthme, and I'll lead you to your room.' I ened by my master's entering my room am not ill, Monsieur le Comte,' I stammered presently afterwards, and saying, 'Your out; but taking no notice of what I said, mistress is gone away; I am afraid of her he grasped my arm with his powerful hand, taking this fever. When I think it proper, and dragged me away up stairs; I say you shall be removed; till then, remember dragged, for I had scarcely strength to move that your life depends on your remaining my feet, and it was rather dragging than quiet!' He placed a loaf of bread and a leading. As soon as he had thrust me into carafe of water on the table, and went away, the room, he said in a significant tone: locking the door as before. I confess now 'Remember you are in danger! Unless that much as I felt for M. Eugène, I could you are very prudent, this fever will be not help pitying the count also. What ravfatal. Go to bed, and keep quite still till I ages the sufferings of that night had made come to see you again, or you may not sur on him! His cheeks looked hollow, his vive till morning!' With that he closed eyes sunken, his features all drawn and disthe door, and locked it; and I heard him torted, and his complexion like that of a take out the key, and descend the stairs. corpse. It was a dreadful blow to him cerThen I suppose I swooned; for when I came tainly, for I knew that he loved my mistress to myself it was nearly dark; I was lying to madness. on the floor, and could not at first remember what had happened. When my recollection returned, I crawled to the bed, and burying my face in the pillows, I gave vent to my anguish in sobs and tears; for I loved my mistress, madame, and I loved M. Eugène, and I knew there would be deadly mischief amongst them. I expected that the count would break open the closet, and that one or both would be killed; and considering the state she was in, I did not doubt that the grief and fright would kill the countess also. You may judge, madame, what a night I passed! sometimes weeping, sometimes listening: but I could hear nothing unusual; and at length I began to fancy that the conflict had occurred whilst I was lying in the swoon. But how had it terminated? I would have given worlds to know; but there I was, a prisoner, and I feared that if I tried to give any alarm, I might only make bad worse. "Well, madame, I thought the morning would never break; but at length the sun rose, and I heard people stirring. It seemed, indeed, that there was an unusual bustle and running about; and by and by I heard the sound of wheels and horses' feet in the court, and I knew they were bringing out the carriage. Where could they be going? I could not imagine; but, on the whole, I was relieved, for I fancied that the meeting and explanation were over, and that now "Well, madame, I passed the day more peacefully than I could have hoped; but my mind being somewhat relieved about my lady, I began to think a little of myself, and to wonder what the count meant to do with me. I felt certain he would never let me see her again if he could help it, and that alone was a heart-breaking grief to me; and then it came into my head that perhaps he would confine me somewhere for lifeshut me up in a convent perhaps, or a madhouse! As soon as this idea possessed me, it grew and grew till I felt as if I really was going mad with the horror of it; and I resolved, though it was at the risk of breaking my neck, to try and make my escape by the window during the night. It looked to the side of the house, and was not very high up; besides, there were soft flower-beds underneath to break my fall; so I thought by tying the sheets together, and fastening them to an iron bar that divided the lattice, I might reach the ground in safety. I was a little creature, and though the space was not large, it sufficed for me to get through; and when all was quiet, and I thought every body was in bed, I made the attempt, and succeeded. I had to jump the last few feet, and I was over my ankles in the soft mould; but that did not signify-I was free; and taking to my heels, I ran off to my mother's, who lived then in a cottage hard by, where we are now sitting; and after telling her what had happened, it was | I, sitting up in my bed and staring at agreed that I should go to bed, and that if any body came to inquire for me she should say I was ill of the fever, and could not be seen. I knew when morning came I should be missed, for doubtless the count would go to my room; and besides that, I had left the sheets hanging out of the window. "For two days, however, to my great surprise, we heard nothing; but on the third, Philippe (the young man I was engaged to) hearing I was not at the Beaugency house, came to our cottage to inquire about me. We had not met for some time, the countess having forbidden all communication between us, as she had a horrible dread of the fever, so that he could only hear of me through my mother. Rosina is here, and unwell,' said my mother: 'we think she's got the fever for though we might have trusted Philippe with our lives, we thought it would be safer for him to be ignorant of what had happened. Upon this he begged leave to see me; and she brought him into my chamber. After asking about himself, and telling him I was very poorly, and so forth, he said: This is a sad thing for the countess !' 'What is?' I asked. 'You're being ill at this time,' said he, when she must want you so much.' What do you mean?' said I; the countess is not at the house?' 'Don't you know she's come back,' said he, 'and that she's ill! The doctor has been sent for, and they say she's very bad.' 'Gracious heavens! I exclaimed; is it possible? My poor dear mistress ill, and I not with her !' Robert, the footman, says,' continued Philippe-- but he bade me not mention it to any body-that when they stopped at the inn at Montlouis, Rateau the landlord came to the carriage-door, and asked if she had seen M. Eugène de Beaugency; and that when the countess turned quite pale and said, 'Are you not aware my cousin was killed in battle, M. Rateau? he assured her it was no such thing; for that M. Eugène had called there shortly before on his way to her house. Rateau must have taken somebody else for him of course; but I suppose she believed it, for she returned directly.' 'Rateau told her that he had seen M. Eugène ?' said L. 'So Robert says; but Didier the mason says she was ill before she went, and that it was the rats in the closet that frightened her.' Rats!' said him wildly. 'What rats what closet l' 'Some closet in her bedroom,' said he. 'The count sent for Didier to wall it up directly. To wall it up?-wall up the closet?' I gasped out. Yes, build and plaster it up. But what's the matter, Rosina? Oh, I shouldn't have told you the countess was ill!' he cried out, terrified at the agitation I was in. Leave me in the name of God!' I screamed, and send my mother to me!' “I remember nothing after this, madame, for a long, long time. When my mother came, she found me in my night-clothes, tying the sheets together in order to get out of the window, though the door was wide open; but I was quite delirious. Weeks passed before I was in a state to remember or comprehend any thing. Before I recov ered my senses, my poor mistress and her baby were in the grave, my master gone away, nobody knew whither, the servants all discharged, and the accursed house shut up. Not long afterwards the news came that the count had died in Paris." "But, Rosina,” said I, "are you sure that M. de Beaugency was in that closet? How do you know the count had not first released him?" 66 Ah, madame," she replied, ominously shaking her palsied head, "you would not ask that question if you had known Ruy Gonzalez as I did. The moment the words were out of Philippe's mouth I saw it all It was just like him-just the revenge for that stern and inflexible spirit to take. Besides, madame, when all was over, and he durst speak, Didier the mason told me that nothing should ever convince him that there was not some living thing in that closet at the time he walled it up, though who or what it could be he never could imagine.” "And do you think, Rosina," said I, “do you think the countess ever suspected the secret of that dreadful closet?" "Ay did she, madame," answered she; "and it was that which killed her; for when my mistress came back so unexpect edly, the count was closeted up stairs with his agent, making arrangements for quitting the place for ever, and had given orders not to be disturbed. He had locked up her apartments, and had the key in his pocket; but he had forgotten that there was a spare key for every room in the house which the housekeeper had the charge of; so my lady sent for her to open the doors. Now, though from putting this and that together the count's agitation, my sudden disappearance, her own removal, and the innkeeper's story -she felt sure there was some mischief in the wind, she had no suspicion of what had really occurred; as indeed how should she, till her eyes fell upon the door of the closet. Then she comprehended it all. You may imagine the rest, madame! Words couldn't paint it! When they came into the room, she was battering madly at the walls with the poker. But a few hours terminated her sufferings. She was already dead when Philippe was telling me of her return." "It's a fearful tragedy to have lived through!" said I. "And Philippe: what became of him?" "He died like the rest, madame, about six months after these sad events had occurred. When I recovered my health, I went into service, and for the last forty years I have been housekeeper to M. le curé here." And he is the only person that ever enters that melancholy house?" Yes, madame. I went there once-just once to look at that fatal chamber, and the bed where my poor mistress died. When the place was let, those apartments were locked up; but"-and she shook her head mournfully-"the tenants were glad to leave it." "And for what purpose does M. le curé go there so often?" I asked. "To pray for the souls of the unfortunates!" said the old woman devoutly crossing herself. Deeply affected with her story, I took leave of this sole surviving witness of these long-buried sorrows; and I, too, accompanied by the curé, once more visited the awful chamber. “Ah, madame!” said he, "poor human nature! with its passions, and its follies, and its mad revenges! Is it not sad to think that so much love should prove the foundation of so much woe?" From the "Literary Gazette." LETTRES DE LONDRES. COURRIERS DE LONDRES, ETC. THE " own correspondents" of the principal Paris newspapers, who have been sent over to give an account of the Exhibition, are still among us, and still continue to comment most amusingly on our manners and customs. In the "fourth letter" to the Patrie of M. Jules de Prémary, we find the following: In coming to London, I was in hopes of being able to say the contrary of all that has been said about the English people: with what joy I thought I should declare that, contrary to the general belief, the English people are the merriest and most polite of the universe, that the spleen is a fantastic malady, and that the fogs of the The gayety of the English makes one shudThames do not exist. But que voulez-vous? der; their spleen creeps over one; their houses are confined within iron rails like the tombs of Père la Chaise; a veil of black crape arises every morning from the Thames, spreads over the town, and at times allows itself to be pierced by a red bullet, which I am assured is the sun; all of which proves that the English have not been misrepresented. "After all, however, London is still Lonthe most curious, and the most uninhabitadon-that is, the largest, the most bizarre, ble town in the world. And so uninhabitable is it that nobody lives in it, not even the English. People pass through it, transact business, or eat and drink in it, but as soon air at Greenwich or Richmond. Only the as they can they escape to breathe the pure dead inhabit London, and I wager that at night they leave Westminster and St. Paul's to stretch their legs in the adjacent parks. "At this moment the rain is rattling of what I have written; but this wet against my windows as if it approved rain is nothing; we have it at Paris, only in smaller quantities; for at London, as every body knows, the year is divided into eight months of winter and four months of bad weather. What, however, we do not possess is dry rain. In London, all day long, you are covered with a fine black powder, which sticks to the clothes, the gloves, and the hands, and forms a mark on the face. When it becomes mixed with the wet rain, this powder forms ink; and at London we may say it rains ink. I fill my inkstand with drops from the spout at my window; it is economical. Having remarked that in Paris the English in spring wear white hats, I brought one to London; but nobody wears any, and at present it is as black as Erebus, though I have only worn it a week. Talking of hats -one word on English politeness, or rather on what replaces it, for there is no politeness in England-there is either cordiality or insolence. Cordiality is charming on the part of ladies of good society-they offer you their hands with infinite grace, and a very seducing air. In general the English | know-not-what mysterious instinct the wars approach ladies without bowing, with the which during centuries cost so many soldiers hat thrust on the back of the head, almost to both countries. In presence of the English down to the neck-and they unceremoniously pride of the great, and the vulgar mockery offer their hand. This constitutes cordiality, of the small, there are moments at which one and replaces our French politeness. On the is on the point of crying, 'No! it is not the part of the ladies this way of meeting is sea which separates France from England, very pretty; but it is grossly rude on the but Hatred!' and, misled, for a moment, one part of the men-—they have the air of ac- dreams of taking an insensate vengeance. costing a lady as they would approach a Such an idea is bad, and, thank God, every horse. In relations with the vulgar you day draws closer two countries made to unlower yourself by being polite. If you take derstand each other, and to guide the rest off your hat on entering a shop you are of the world in the paths of civilization. served last and with bad grace. Sometimes No one more than I am is a partisan of the even you are taken for a beggar, and are great ideas of union and peace, to which the turned out of doors, or have a penny offered universal Exhibition must cause great proyou. That actually happened to me in a gress to be made. But the old elements of glove shop in Regent-street. hatred exist, and are felt, when for the first time one's foot touches British ground, and we are obliged to call reason to our aid to silence them. The Englishwomen, however, fortunately plead powerfully the cause of civilization. They are the fair angels of peace, and Frenchmen are so fully conquered by them, that we think no more of undertaking the conquest of England. "Does a comfortable way of living exist in England? It is always so stated, and the thing has passed into a proverb amongst us; one would almost suppose every Englishman a sort of Sardanapalus. That may be true of the wealthy classes; but the middle, amongst whom I live, appear to me to be completely without that comfort of which so much is said. In my opinion there is nothing comfortable in the ordinary life of London. I stuff myself with ham, brutify myself with beer, and drown myself in floods of tea, and yet I do not attain that material felicity so much vaunted, and which some enthusiasts represent to be a foretaste of Paradise. I do not mean to say, however, that I am positively arrived at the infernal regions-that would be an exaggeration; but assuredly, English life is decidedly a nice little purgatory. True, the houses of the middle class are well kept in the interior-the fireplace is always full of coal, the kettle is always boiling, and if hot water caused happiness I should be the happiest of men. But what bedrooms! simple nails to hang up your clothes-beds stuffed with fir-apples-blankets of I know not what-and then the beds are most horribly ill made by the chambermaids. Moreover, in London there are no commissionaires, and if you have a letter to send anywhere you must carry it yourself if you have no servant. No commissionaires in such an immense town as London-is that credible! And then there are few baths, and you are not allowed to heat or cool them as you please-nay, if you stop in a bath more than half an hour, the attendants turn off the water, and leave you like a fish on dry land. And yet people talk of the comfort of the English way of living? "There is no more striking scene than the transept of the Exhibition on a fine afternoon. What an elegant and variegated crowd! Englishwomen are mad after gay and striking colors; their silk gowns of green, blue, rose-colored, lilac, and striped, contrast strangely with the pale seriousness of their romantic faces. A Frenchwoman would call their dress in bad taste, but I like it. All these charming and strange creatures pass to and fro, like a swarm of brilliant insects. They then seat themselves amidst flowers and verdure to eat ham; and it is not one of the least curiosities of London to see Clarissa Harlowes with such good appetites. For one shilling and sixpence you are admitted to the refreshment room, and you have the right to indulge in all the gastronomic eccentricities of Garagantua. Several tables laden with viands, worthy of the descriptions of Rabelais and Cervantes, and such as are only to be seen in England, are every day crowded by famished visitors. There animals of all countries take their food with ferocity, the mere sight of which is too much for people of delicate nature. Except in England, meat is no where exposed to the eye with so much shamefulness of quantity, and with that redness of color which makes you shudder with horror. Roast beef, roast mutton, roast lamb, roast veal and ham, and even roast pork, only appear to disappear; and the English call that taking refreshment." "Abstraction made of their usages, it is impossible not to render justice to the qualities which have made the English one of the first nations in the world. But in mixing In the subsequent letters of M. de Prémawith the crowd in public places, in being ry there is little worth the trouble of transelbowed only by Englishmen, the newly-lation, though, no doubt, all that he says is arrived Frenchman feels explained by I-interesting enough to his own countrymen— |