to pay my respects to him. Will you kindly inform mademoiselle, do you resist what seems to me to be him of my intended visit?" The door leading to the invalid's room was half open, and a querulous voice said: “I hear the contre-maître. I want to see him. Bid him come to me. You must not keep secrets from me. Are the works captured? André, look out of the window. Do you see any smoke? You don't reply? Stupid fellow! Are you an idiot? Yes, or no? I will see M. Percival. I order you, André, to bring him to me at once." "Will you go? Pray do, M. Percival. It were as well to see him now, and to tell him all," said Mademoiselle Pauline. now inevitable? By the greatest piece of good luck I happen to know the officer who will be, perhaps, in charge here. I must present you to him.” What must I affiliate with our enemies? Can you ask me such a thing?" "I do ask it. Mademoiselle has, I am fully aware, dignity enough to command respect. The enemy has so far acted with a certain amount of gallantry. I have seen soldiers, and even officers, when in a house, when red-handed, act with much less consideration. I am afraid you will consider me as an alarmist." Suppose they had thrown you over the balusM. Percival went noiselessly into the ill man's | trade, and you had had your brains dashed out on the marble pavement below? They threatened itthis gallant enemy! Babette has told me all about it." room. 'It is I, sir; and I am so glad to hear your voice and see you once more! Now, let me make the briefest kind of a report to you. For two months, just as if you had been there, the work at the usine has gone on. Two days ago we finished the most important parts of the government contracts, and sent them off-" 46 "It was really nothing but bluster. You see, my having but one arm was exactly the condition necessary to arrest their anger." "You knew the officer in charge? What a coarse, brutal voice he had! I shall never approach him The Prussians did not get the war-material? without a feeling of horror." That was well done. Bravo!" Now, my brave old master "—and M. Percival took M. Delange's hand in his—"the Prussians hold the château." "Mademoiselle, that very man served under me once, and was a brave soldier and a true friend. Lieutenant Müller, when I was hurt, carried me off the field, right through a murderous fire. I know there "Have my positive orders about the usine been is a natural aversion all women feel at meeting an carried out?" "I think so." "There has been a fight quite near. I know it. The house shook with explosions. Take what care you can of the grounds. If the Germans want to see me, perhaps in a day or so they can do so. Of course we will have to decamp. Where is Pauline? My poor child! one wouldn't think from looking at her that she was frightened. So the last of all the shot and shell were sent off. How did you manage it? I do not care a snap of my finger if France ever pays me or not." enemy of their country; but Müller was only doing his duty." "He saved your life, and wanted to take it again! Still his voice is not a pleasant one, especially when coupled with a sabre pointed at a man's breast. But you do not mean to say that you have ever rushed sword in hand into a private house threatening blood and extermination?" "The action you describe goes with glory. I do not remember to have been ever forced to do it; still, if I had been acting under orders, or thought it necessary, I might have been even less gentle than "Are you not talking too much, dear father?" Captain Müller. There was a fight, I am afraid, in said the daughter. 'This is business, Pauline.-M. Percival, in the middle of France I own a property. We will go there. I will start a big establishment. It will be a good ways from these Germans, where they cannot reach us. Ha ha! we will outwit them yet. I may be crippled a little in mind and body, but not killed outright. There, that will do. I am not a bit the worse for this little talk. I have made up my mind not to worry about things. In a day or so I will be stronger; then you and I will lay our heads together." Then M. Delange shut his eyes, and Mademoiselle Pauline and M. Percival stole out of the room. "He will get better; I am sure of it," said M. Percival, joyfully. "He must have medical advice now." "What, sir! one of those German surgeons?" Certainly; there are no better." "You insist on it, M. Percival?" the lower part of the château. Men waive considerations of politeness when they storm a house. But spare me the details." "Listen to them now! They are bursting open the doors below-the wretches! They are laughing and shouting. The impertinence of the thing! Do you hear? They are absolutely playing on my Errard piano! How the brute is thumping on it! And now a man is singing; and there goes a chorus. Do not smile, M. Percival; it is irritating to a degree! Such sounds of hilarity are dreadfully out of place. I have not ventured to look out. There may be dead and wounded on the lawn. My God! how fearful is war! The hubbub is worse and worse. they are laughing and roaring. For Heaven's sake, beg this Captain Müller to bid his bandits cease!" Now 'I should be powerless. The piano is really the only sufferer. Listen, mademoiselle: there is a touch for you which certainly displays more physique than sentiment. Let them sing; music never was "Not insist-I have no right to insist. Why, | more timely. All I can do is to try and prevent in trusion from below. Pluck up spirits, mademoiselle. I swear to you that the worst is over, at least for the present. St.-Eloi will fall. The absence of firingit ceased some time ago-means that it has been abandoned by our soldiers, and this part of the country is virtually separated from France. Now I have no longer any business here. If permitted to do so by the Prussians-and doubtless Captain Müller will help me I shall get a pass. Thence to Hamburg or Bremen is an affair of but a few days. M. Delange is so much improved that perhaps in a week or so you might move him, and find safer quarters than in this château." "Monsieur, you shock, you distress me! What! you are going to leave us? Can you entertain such an idea? If the crisis is past, I am still as much in want of help as ever; and you ought to see it." "Do you bid me stay, mademoiselle?" "Who I? I cannot assume now the position of one who gives orders or commands. But "-here she paused, and seemed to measure her words-" if you think my poor father would feel no pang at your departure, you are mistaken. What! M. Percival, just as my father seems to be returning, thank God, to convalescence, at least, you want to bid us coolly good-by? As to his daughter, sir-" "" Say not another word, mademoiselle. If I can be of any use to M. Delange, I will remain. My intended departure from St.-Eloi might be in a week or ten days hence. I am very happy that my services are thought of some avail. There, mademoiselle, the piano has ceased now. Allow me, then, to enter into my functions. There must be means found for sending tidings of your condition to your friends." "Friends! There is but one friend; she is in Paris. It is Madame de Montfriand; and can you communicate with her?" "Very possibly." "I will give you her address. You must write her that I am well; that my father is better; and that M. Percival has-" "Well, mademoiselle ?" | " "Has been very good to us.' "Nonsense! My name must not appear. .Is there no one else?—no one in France, besides, to write to?" "No one," replied Mademoiselle Pauline, reflectively. "You are very positive?" asked M. Percival. "Not that lady, Madame de Valbois?" 'Certainly not." "Nor M. de Valbois, a pleasant gentleman, who was more than once very affable and considerate with me?" Here Pauline Delange stamped her foot and said: "What! M. de Valbois patronize M. Percival? I write to Raoul de Valbois? Why should I? What a preposterous idea you Americans must have of what it is fitting for a Frenchwoman to do!" "Les convenances again, I suppose," said M. Percival; "but," continued the contre-maître, demurely, "from what I heard-if not presuming too much, mademoiselle-M. de Valbois would have the right to hear from you-to hear from you among the very first." "You are talking about matters you do not at all understand in quite an unwarrantable way," replied the lady, in a petulant mood, "and it is unkind and heartless.' Excuse my presumption. I thought, mademoi selle-" "You had no right to think at all." Certainly not as a contre-maître." "You could not write to him if you tried, though you may if you wish to. There-anything you like. As your gallant soldiers will probably pillage my trunks, write M. de Valbois to-to-send me a dozen pairs of Italian kid-gloves, three buttons on the wrist; they make them well and cheaply where he is—in Turin, I believe." And, without vouchsafing M. Percival another word, the young lady sought her room. Having first satisfied herself that her father was doing well, she threw herself on her bed, and indulged in a hearty fit of weeping. [TO BE CONTINUED.] A SUMMER SONG. ONNY bird! blackbird in the poplar-tree, In your liquid, rippling notes to make them ring so swect. In the early morning wakefully I lie, And watch the dawn redden along the eastern sky; For there's a latticed window where honeysuckle grows, Last night, when I passed her latticed window by, She smiled at me, she blushed-O blackbird! tell me why! Some day I shall know what smiles and blushes mean ; I would lose lightly only for her sake. Fly down, bonny blackbird, from your poplar-tree, ΟΝ TOM CHESTER'S ROMANCE. I. and fro over his head. Then, after pondering his joy in the beauty of the day, and watching a brownand-yellow bee that droned drowsily past him looking for the sunshine, he felt a need of something else. He flung himself full length upon the moss, took his Virgil from his pocket, and began reading softly to himself, for he was fond, in a vague, unreasoning way, of the flow and rhythm of the stately Latin cadence-liking it just as he liked the sym among the stubble in the distant fields. After a while he heard the drum of a partridge, then the whir of wings, and, dropping his book, he put his face close to the moss, and peered into the thicket glooms on each hand. His imagination was kin dled by the story of Æneas in Libya—the forestglade was a scene of enchantment; the whispers of the wind presaged every falling leaf as the messenger of a sibyl; each shadow was the mantle of a god. Like Æneas, Tom felt stirred as by a goddess presence and a goddess promise, and he suddenly began declaiming some Latin lines at the top of his lungs. NE Saturday morning early in September, after Dr. Greenleaf had dismissed his "young gentlemen" to their holiday recreations, Tom Chester set out on one of his long walks. No one offered to accompany him, because first or last he had in turn tired out every lad in school. With two-thirds of a day before him, he thought nothing of any distance, for his own long legs performed their automatic func-phony of rustling leaves and the piping of the quails tions without hint of fatigue, and he was certain to regard symptoms of failure in the powers of his companion at any but the final stage of the jaunt with intolerant contempt. Then, again, although he stood well and was respected by his mates, there seemed always some check upon his ability to fuse himself strongly into sympathy with others. He was little of a talker on any occasion, but while walking he never talked at all, preferring, he distinctly affirmed, to keep his mind quiescent, ready for any impression | of flower in the grass, dragon-fly on the river, or cloud upon the sky. Not only his schoolmates, but his family as well, were in doubt about Tom. He had an attitude of antagonism, an armor of apathy. Most of his teachers believed his mind to be sluggish and unimaginative, but one of the younger tutors said that the boy had the making of a poet or of a man of science in him. For one point there could be no indecision: nothing was lost upon Tom, something of force, deep, steady, and concentrated, kept his brain at work upon every shred of material offered him. He was glad to set forth alone on this Saturday, which was to become an imperishable day in his memory. Such freedom was sweet to him. He could loiter or go on, follow up the lane or climb the hill, as the freak seized him. His fancy could run riot-might be a pipe for every vagrant curiosity to play its tune upon. Along the hilly horizon on the one hand, and the mountain-chain beyond the river on the other, the hazes changed color like an opal in the sunlight. As he walked through the lanes, the sumach flamed against the background of cedars, and under his feet he crushed the flaunting goldenrod and purple asters. He had walked many a mile by noon. The heat of the day was of summer intensity, and he was glad to turn into a nook well hidden in the woods. He sank down on the moss, and munched his sandwiches with hearty boyish relish. Here and there a ray of sunlight filtered through the leaves, resting on the gray tree-trunks of the long colonnade, and burnished a laurel-leaf with its swift, silent magic. The birds looked down upon him, giving shrill gurgles of disdain at the intruder on their solitudes, and crickets and cicadas made many a murmuring sound in the bloomless thickets of bramble and sapling. Tom gazed for a while into the shadowy vistas, and up at the chestnuts and maples that swayed to "What a funny boy!" exclaimed a shrill child's voice. "What do you mean by that?" Tom started up, and saw within five yards of him a little girl of six or seven, sitting on a stump, watching him intently. He was in a mood to believe in apparitions, but, after one startled glance, resumed his faith in the natural order of things; for the child, although dressed in the richest materials, was in tatters, and her lips were stained with the wild-grapes she had been eating. He went up to her; she continued to stare at him deliberately with a pair of marvelously-brilliant gray eyes, while she sat posed like some diminutive queen upon her throne. "Where did you come from?" he asked, wonderingly. She half lowered the lids of her great eyes, and wicked child to tell such stories. But I do like to smiled wickedly. think my grandpa is coming! Nobody loves me any more; I belong to nobody. It grows so lonesome and my clothes, my clothes!" Here she lifted her tattered skirt with a wavering smile, half arch, half sad. "And my shoes!" she went on, extending a slender foot. "The thorns cut through and hurt me. They hurt me now; I must get them out." "Poor little mite!" said Tom; "let me see." He sat down and laid bare the slim, blue-veined foot, drawing out thorns and splinters with awkward zeal. Then he replaced the wretched shoes and stockings. "I will go to Mrs. Brown's with you," said he, rising. “I want to talk to her about you." He looked at her with grave kindness, and held out a firm, warm hand. She clasped it confidingly and trudged along by his side, until she limped again and burst out crying that her feet hurt her. He stooped This was transparent flattery, but Tom was not then, lifted her in his arms, and walked on rapidly, displeased. asking her now and then if she were comfortable, receiving her cooing replies and her unstinted caresses with some pleasure as he looked into the lit, happy face. At the end of the wood was a stile which led to a meadow on the highway, and the For answer, she flung her arms around his neck, house by the roadside was Mrs. Brown's, and at the and kissed him over and over. Tom was a quiet fellow, yet had already dreamed many a dream. He had forgotten his existence, to be Robert Bruce, Kenneth, or Sidney; but, so far as his own world was concerned, this was his first full sweet experience. For many a day he had longed to have something of his own, and to love it with his whole heart; and, when he returned her kiss shyly, his ardent heart had but one impulse, and that was to appropriate her to himself. "What is your name?" he asked, softly. "Miss Hester." "Miss Hester what?" doorway stood a plain, respectable woman, watching their approach with anxiety. "Is Hester hurt?" cried Mrs. Brown, as soon as he was within speaking-distance, and, at the sound of her voice, Hester sprang away from Tom and darted toward her. "I am not hurt, but my feet ached," she explained. "Laws!" ejaculated Mrs. Brown. "I told you not to run about with those shoes ready to drop off. -I have will enough and to spare to buy her new shoes," she added, with an apologetic look at Tom, "but money does not grow on my bushes." "I wish," said Tom, in his stolid way, entering "Why does everybody ask me that?" she cried, and sitting down in the freshly-cleaned kitchen—“I petulantly. "Miss Hester is enough." "Where do you live?" "I live with Mrs. Brown since Pietro died. I used to live with mamma, but she was sick, and they put her into a box and took her away to make her well; then Pietro brought me over the sea in a big ship; afterward we were in the cars. I was asleep in Pietro's arms, and there came a loud crash, and everything was thrown about, and Pietro's head-ah! Pietro's head was hurt!" The tears stood in her eyes. "He could speak no more," she added, sadly. "He looked at me a long time, then he lay quite still. Mrs. Brown says he died." And you live at Mrs. Brown's?" "Yes, until grandpa comes to find me." Oh, I do not know. If I did know, I would walk and walk until I found him. I sit on the step, and look to see him come over the hill. Sometimes I play that I see him, and I call to Mrs. Brown that my grandpa is riding down the hill with a gold coach and six white horses. Then Mrs. Brown she strikes me-she strikes me almost hard, and says I am a wish you would tell me about this little girl; I could make neither head nor tail of her story." "No more can I. The first I ever see of her was after the railroad accident last December down in the bend. Six people were killed and more than fifty badly hurt, and they fetched the man she calls Pietro here because this was the nearest house and he was dying. She held so tight to him and he to her, you couldn't separate 'em till he was dead. He never spoke a word, only looked at her till his sight left him." "What sort of a man was this Pietro?" "Oh, a furriner; a dark man with black eyes and ear-rings in his ears! Did you ever hear the like of that? Whatever he was, and whatever she is, he was her servant. So far as I can make out, her mother died in London, and left Pietro to bring the child to America to the grandfather. But who the grandfather is, nobody can tell, now that Pietro is dead." "But was there nothing on the man or in their luggage to give a clew?" up. All that could be found was a little hand-bag, with C. Percival' on it, which Hester claimed. There was plenty of talk about the child at first, and the papers took it up, for, as you see, she has a grand way with her, and all her things were fit for a royal princess. In the bag was a silver cup and plate and knife and fork and spoon, all marked 'Hester, born October 9, 184-,' and Squire Curtis, over at Kingsbury, wrote advertisements and had 'em printed in New York and Boston papers. But nothing ever came of it. That was last winter. He gave me ten dollars to pay for her board, and somebody else gave me five, and a deal was said about what must be done for her, but it ended in talk. I really don't know what's to become of the child. I want to go out West and spend the winter with my darter, but I can't take her. I am afraid she will have to come upon the town." "I will adopt her," said Tom, coolly. "Laws! you mean your mother!" I will provide for her as if she were my sister," said Tom again, and turning looked at the little girl who was watching him with wistful eyes.-“ You would like that, wouldn't you, Hester?" he asked her, smiling, but reddening. She stole toward him, half glad, half ashamed, and nestled up against him, peering into his face while hers changed from doubt to mutinous glee. "I am not your grandfather," observed Tom, holding her out at arms'-length and looking at her kindly, "and I have neither a gold coach nor six white horses; but I promise to take good care of you. And you, you fairy one, you must be a good child and obey me and love me—yes, love me with your whole heart." "I will-I will!" she cried, and clung to him, kissing him with a strange, passionate fervor, which she must have learned from some strong, proud, lonely heart, which had found not only its supreme joy, but its supreme despair, in love for her. Then she looked up at him with her intense, luminous gaze. 'I like you," she said, and both smiled. She takes to you wonderfully," observed Mrs. Brown. "She's got a good heart, though she's too wild and fanciful for me to understand." When Mr. Chester, Tom's father, went to his office in Wall Street, New York, on the following Monday morning, he was somewhat startled at finding the following letter from his son, who had for two years been plodding away at Dr. Greenleaf's school: "Strictly private and confidential. "MY DEAR FATHER: You told me when you discovered that I was rather miserable at home and you sent me to school, that you had my highest welfare close at heart-that you would deny me nothing which was for my good. I am about to ask you to have considerable faith in my judgment of what is for my highest good. I want to adopt a little girl. It may seem singular to you, and perhaps it is an unusual thing for a boy to do. Her story is a sad one" (here followed Hester's history so far as understood). "It seems to me probable that she comes from well-born people, if not really great ones. I should like to put her at school and educate her suitably, and by the time she is grown up I will be in a position to marry her. Now, father, you know that Uncle Thomas left me ten thousand dollars for my own education; that you have never used it. I remember you told me the money was in stocks that paid dividends to the amount of seven or eight hundred dollars a year. What I wish is, to have you permit this interest to be used in Hester's maintenance and education instead of its being put by to accumulate for me. Do not say that this is a foolish request. Think what the dearest wish of your heart was to you when you were young. It is impossible that— let me live as long as I may-I shall ever want anything as I want this. I have needed something, and this is it-I seem to have missed it always, and only now do I see my way to being happy, eager, and ambitious. I want the matter kept secret for a time at least. If you told it to mother, she would give it to the girls, and they would cackle about it. "Your respectful and affectionate son, TOM's encounter with Hester seemed to have been the providential pivot upon which the highest welfare of two lives turned. The boy had grown up in an artificial atmosphere at home, and had suffered many a keen and bitter pang from the want of tenderness and kindliness. The gay city-mansion of Mr. Chester was fairy-land for his fashionable wife and daughters, but a desert to the little lad who hungrily asked from life a heart to answer his heart, and who blindly longed for the affection he had never received, because he was so capable of feeling and returning it. Mr. Chester recognized in a measure the disappointment that had always lain beneath Tom's impassive air of antagonism and dejection, and was anxious to remove it. No sooner had he seen little Hester than his interest in her equaled his son's, and he interested himself in choosing a school for her, and established her there before he returned to New York. And at this school Hester Percival spent the following eight years of her life, and, after a few weeks of shyness and doubt, accepted the circumstances of her lot with unquestioning delight. The only clew to her name had been the mark upon the bag containing her plate and a few changes of raiment; but Mr. Chester had not hesitated to appropriate it, |