tion of his estate, and a decree of banishment. Permission, however. was granted him to sell the furniture and heir-looms of his patrimonial villa, and to visit it for ten days without official superintendence. He returned to the Provençal valley in extreme ill-humour; and much as he had been chagrined by his wife's coldness, he was glad to find some one forced to listen to his tale of grievances. She heard the sentence of exile and deprivation with admirable fortitude, but her husband would have been more pleased if she had raved at his enemies and deplored her ill-fortune. He wanted a pretext to scold and lament, and was angry that she seemned wiser than himself. He walked out to his favourite recess in the valley, and found the sacred rose-bushes torn up by the roots, the gates of his gardens broken, and all the outrages of petty and vulgar malice committed by the peasantry, now no longer his vassals.—" And why," said Ariette, who walked by his side, "are you heart-struck by this ?-Of what use to you were these men's acts of false servility, and what harm is there in their open hatred? Let them show it as often as they will by such acts-they are only ills because you think them such.-Feel them no longer, and you disappoint your enemies. They have had more trouble in pulling up these paltry thickets of roses than you had reason to value them."-" But my mother!-was it nothing to see a memorial of her goodness?-I need it, madam, I assure you, to prevent me from growing ferocious."—" Very well, chevalier! and if you had no better reason for your goodness than the sight of a few rose-buds growing where your mother's died twenty years ago, your ferocity will be more honest and more natural." Valamour's fury rose beyond his power of self-command, and he uttered all the bitter upbraidings his wit could devise; for anger and despair are oftener witty than love. They lasted half an hour without provoking a single retort from Ariette; but as her watch, on which she looked with vexatious calmness, indicated the thirtieth minute, she dropped her veil, and turned to leave him. This act recalled to his mind the custom she had religiously observed before her marriage he had never held her in passionate discourse so long after, and it cooled his emotion by reminding him of the strange circumstances connected with her character. While he hesitated, and thought of snatching off the mysterious veil, she retired in silence, sighing deeply." How intolerable is all this meekness!" said poor Valamour to himself-" if she would be angry sometimes, I could be angry myself at my ease." At the supper-hour he found her sitting alone near a table, dressed with the graceful order of happier times. They were to depart to-morrow; and this parlour--this hearth which his childhood had endeared to him, the portrait of his father, the grave of both his parents seen in the soft moonlight, recalled all that was kind and good in Valamour's temper. Ariette lifted up her veil, and seated herself at the head of the table, lighted only by the beams of the summer-moon. It touched her countenance with singular beauty, not rendered less affecting to her husband's eye by novelty, for this was the first time she had ever permitted herself to be seen by him in the moon's light.-"To-night," she began, breaking a long silence, "is the anniversary of our marriage, and the seventeenth since-but it is not yet time to speak of that.-You were displeased with me for paying but little attention to the rose-trees you respected-I planted another during your absence at Paris, and these are its first productions-perhaps they will not displease you, for they must die tonight." And smiling sorrowfully, but with great sweetness, she placed on the centre of the table a basket of white roses, and retired. Valamour was surprised and touched by her last words, and still more when, by drawing out a branch of the flowers, he discovered a large quantity of gold coin and several jewels beneath them. A leaf of ivory in a corner of the basket offered itself next to his notice, but the words pencilled on it made him forget every other part of the gift. "You have often asked me why I refused before our marriage to be seen by you in the moon's light. A follower of the Cabalist's Red Cross would tell you that souls are aptest to be communicated in her presence, therefore I declined the hazard then—and since our marriage you have not seemed disposed to give me any part of yours.-A veil must cover the remainder of my few days, for you have not wished to prolong them: but though I cannot give you life, I leave you the means of living nobly till your term is ended." Valamour made but one step to his wife's apartment, and found it vacant. He was, as all perplexed men are, extremely angry that he had not foreseen this event. Then he wondered at his own ill-temper and impatience; and though he had almost begun to hate his wife, was heartily chagrined at her sudden and final departure; for with all her provoking calmness, she had been a convenient and patient subject of complaints and murmurs, when it suited him, as it sometimes suits every man, to find a passage for his spleen. In a few hours, all that was beautiful and uncommon in Ariette came thronging on his fancy: the last words of his letter began to alarm him, and he looked at his horoscope once more. By long and anxious references to the astrological books of her reputed father, he had discovered signs and combinations which informed him that his line of life was threatened on the day that deprived him of his wife. Our chevalier became dull, dejected, and sickened as if he had eaten of the Obi-poison. In two or three months he was pronounced in a confirmed decline, and the best physicians attended him in vain. One of great eminence at Aix-la-Chapelle offered his services, and came with due ceremony into the sick man's room. When alone with him, he said, "If you were a common hypochondriac, Valamour, I would force you to laugh by compounding certain medicines in your presence, and inducing those grave men, your other physicians, to taste them. But I shall try plain truth. Who am I?" "Erasmus Haller, a most learned and benevolent practitionerthe friend of sick and dying men." "I am also, or I was, the friend of your dead father-in-law, and have some interest in the French court, which I have used to obtain a revocation of your sentence. This is my first medicine-my next is, to translate your horoscope truly. He who drew it was a sufficient cabalist, for he knew human nature wants no help from other elements. He saw you had been made afraid of ordinary women by a fierce stepmother, and tempted to look for extraordinary ones by old romances. So he devised this scheme of your nativity to ensure a good husband for his daughter. He told you, if she was a sylph or spirit, she had but a short term of certain life, and he thought,—how true and beautiful was that thought!-that you could not fail to treat her gently while you remembered she might die in another moment. Who could be harsh or unjust to another, if that remembrance was always present, as it ought, to all of us?-He thought her quiet character would suit yours, and perhaps be animated by it, as he chose to hint in a poetic way, which gave you, no doubt, much comfort and encouragement. At least, like a wise father, he ensured your care of her by knitting your line of life with hers. Come, forgive the cabalism, and be content with a mere woman, composed, as all the sex are, of both sylph and salamander. If she refused to go with you to Paris, it was because she could serve you better by coming to beg my help, and by selling her jewels to buy the court's pardon. And now she comes to beg, not to buy, yours." Ariette came in, covered with her veil, and stood at a timid distance, though beckoned forwards. "Do you not see," said the good physician, "the moon is waning, and this is the moment when a gentle soul may be communicated!" "I give her mine fully and for ever," said her husband, "if she drops that mysterious and cabalistic veil." "Ah!" she replied, "be prepared to see me with a different face -I wore it only when I felt my aspect changing to one which might displease you. ."-And after a little pause she threw off her veil, and discovered eyes full of laughing brightness, and cheeks which betrayed, notwithstanding the tears that still glistened on them, a few dimples ready to express some merry malice. |