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ous as my pretty bargain." But this, to be sure, he thought at the sight of every woman he saw, and it only added to his distress. As he left the church he observed that the ladies also got up, and moved away. A number of gentlemen followed them respectfully, assisted them at the church door into a magnificent carriage, went themselves into a second, and drove off. Le Blond concluded from all this that they must have been duchesses at the least. But this momentary apparition made the deeper impression on him that it presented itself to him again. As he wandered the same day, to dispel his melancholy thoughts, through the lower town, over the stone bridge across the Sambre, he took a fancy to climb the Castle-hill. On the steps of the lower ascent he was encountered by the gentlemen he had seen at church. The two carriages were also drawn up in waiting. When he had ascended a little way, to where the road makes the second turning, he met the lady in the gold-spangled veil in lively conversation with her friend, and loud in her admiration of the prospect; for from that point the view of Namur is very beautiful, as it lies between the two mountains, surrounded and crossed by the Meuse and the Sambre, and the rivulet, the Bederin. But ladies, in coming down steps, should take care not to be lively in conversation or ecstatic about scenery. A false step is easily made even when there is no snow to make it slippery. Of this the veiled lady gave a striking example she fell with a loud scream. Le Blond rushed up the steps to her assistance, and raised her courteously. She thanked him, and took the arm he had offered for her support. But as her foot was slightly hurt, she frequently paused, on their downward way, to rest. She asked many questions of the polite Le Blond, and when she heard, among other things, that he dealt in lace, she expressed a wish to buy, named the hotel where she resided, and fixed an hour for him to bring some articles for her inspection. He was directed to ask for the Countess de St Silvain. She would probably have talked much longer, had not the gentlemen come up the steps to enquire what had detained the lady. She related the accident in answer to their respectful enquiries; and on

hearing it they nearly fell into fits, conducted her with the utmost care to the carriage, and left Le Blond transfixed to the spot. In the course of time, however, he recovered himself sufficiently to find his way home, and tell his mother the whole occurrence. At the appointed hour he went to the hotel, and enquired for the Countess de St Silvain. He was conducted to her apartment, and found her still in her travelling dress, and still enveloped in the gold-spangled veil. He laid before her two boxes of the costliest laces; her choice was quickly made; she paid him the price demanded, and added a piece of gold for the trouble she had given him in coming to the hotel. After this she again led him into conversation, as she had done in the morning on the hill. When Le Blond told her that he had never yet been more than twenty miles from Namur, she wondered at his want of curiosity, and asked him if he would enter into her service.

"You will see all France," she said; "I will give you more than you make by your trade. You shall be private secretary either to me or my ford-my husband."

This was said in such a soft sweet tone that Le Blond was nearly tempted; particularly as at that very moment a thought came across him of the very untempting Mademoiselle Paulet, and the different tone she spoke in.

But then, to leave his old mother such a step was impossible. And though he had threatened a hundred times rather to throw himself on the wide world than marry the silversmith's daughter, still, when he thought of how desolate his departure would make the poor old woman, he declined the Countess's invitation, and told her he could not leave an aged parent who had no friend in the world but himself. When he came home and told the whole story to his mother, she, who, like most mothers, had a higher opinion of the return due by her son for all her kindness, than of any thing else, exclaimed, in a sort of pet, at the very thought of such a proposition, "Go, if you please, you disobedient boy, but Mademoiselle Paulet must go with you. Marriage, I see, is the only thing to save you; and I have gone too far in the business with the silversmith to draw back with ho

Driven to despair, Le Blond went next day to offer himself to the Countess, but he came back to his shop

half broken-hearted. The Countess had left Namur !

AN INTERFERENCE.

The apparition was soon forgotten; but old Madame Le Blond did not forget Mademoiselle Paulet. "Custom

at last makes all things tolerable." This proverb was repeated in Le Blond's ear day after day. Day after day he denied its truth. In this way a whole year was passed; and then other sorrows came in addition. Louis XIV. had taken it into his head to be a great man ; even already people called him Louis the Great; but what will not people do to please an individual with an army of two hundred thousand men ? At last, in the year 1692, he advanced in person to besiege Namur, and, with a few waggon loads of powder, blew all Madame Le Blond's plans of marrying her son to the silversmith's daughter into the air. For, after an attack of eight days, he carried the city; and after two-and-twenty days he carried the castles; and Madame Le Blond grew ill from the extremity of her fears, and died. Le Blond was infinitely obliged to the French monarch for his timely interposition; but at the same time his grief for his poor mother was sincere. That careful manager left behind her a far more considerable succession than he had expected. Without his knowledge she had seraped together sundry rouleaus of gold, which enabled the young man to carry a design he had long entertained into execution—namely, to remove into a more spacious wareroom. In about a quarter of a year he had left the small shop in the small street, and had settled himself in fine commodious premises in one of the most fashionable parts of the town. His customers, both male and female, soon found him

In

out. It was no small addition to his gratification that his new dwelling had a small garden attached to it; for he was an enthusiast in his love for plants and flowers. The garden was surrounded on all sides by those of his neighbours. Little hedges and even flower borders were the only divisions between them; so that they presented the appearance of one large garden, instead of numerous small ones. the portion belonging to Le Blond, there was a bower of wild jasmin. Here it was that he resolved to spend his happiest hours, and to devote himself to the study of Italian, in order to be able, like other silk merchants, to write to his correspondents in their own language. The splendid house of which he had hired the groundfloor, belonged to the President of the Sovereign Court, who troubled himself very little about his tenant. Every thing went on delightfully. The ladies, who had formerly shown so much favour to the wares of the handsome laceman, did not desert him in his new position. They were constantly dropping in to rummage his stock and make their purchases, and have a few minutes' conversation. Le Blond, indeed, appeared to grow handsomer every day; but the ladies maintained that his silks and laces were the best in Namur, and his prices the most reasonable. Happy, happy Le Blond!-But, on the other hand, his efforts were not so prosperous in respect to the Italian grammar. It was a wearisome employment; and besides this, it was not long before he encountered another obstacle to his studies.

THE OBSTACLE.

One warm summer day, as he went into the garden with the Italian grammar in his hand, and was about to enter the jasmin bower, he perceived that it was already occupied. A young lady sat there, busily intent upon a

book. She was apparently not more than eighteen-graceful as a lily—in short, a maiden such as Le Blond had never seen in his life. For it was not an every-day sight-that throat of snow, those cheeks of roses, those

glowing lips, and, round the stately head, those raven tresses waving in a cloud that might have formed a portion of the Egyptian darkness. Le Blond stood at the entrance of the bower abashed and thunderstruck. No less astonished was the beautiful stranger at the approach of Le Blond, who appeared to her like a being from another world. She seemed, indeed, never to have gazed on a Le Blond before. In the agitation of the moment she bowed to him, and he nearly curtsied to her, and both begged pardon a thousand times, without being offended with each other in the least degree. At last a conversation was commenced; the beauty carried it on with wonderful fluency, but without much benefit to Le Blond; for, in the first place, that individual's soul was situated more in his eyes than his ears; and, in the second place, her French was nearly unintelligible, and terribly mixed with Italian idioms. But they made out that they were neighbours. The garden that joined the foot of Le Blond's belonged to the great house, whose front looked towards the street of St Fiacre; the said street of St Fiacre being parallel with that in which Le Blond resided. He had come to learn Italian; she with a French grammar-for she had only been three months arrived from Italy, and was anxious to acquire the French as quickly as possible. While they were engaged in this mutual explanation, which was, indeed, a somewhat tedious process-for signs and attitudes had to assist in the translation of Italian into French, and French into Italian-a female voice was heard calling the name Jacqueline! upon Jacqueline rapidly took leave, lifted the grammar from the table, and disappeared. Le Blond stood nearly rooted to the ground, and was scarcely aware of what had passed.

Here

He seated himself on the bench she had left-he dreamed-he raved as if intoxicated, and was profuse in complimentary speeches to the vanished beauty, as if she were still before him. And now, for the first time, he cursed with all his heart his ignorance of Italian, and swore by all the saints to devote himself to the study of the grammar, that he might tell his neighbour -he was not exactly certain what. But when he seized the grammar, he

perceived that the book was not the same-it was a French one. In the agitation of the moment Jacqueline had taken his Italian rudiments, and left her own. He scarcely ventured to touch the holy leaves that had been consecrated by her fingers, and lamented his fate in being only Julius Le Blond, and not the enviable Italian grammar that Jacqueline had carried away with her. He did not recover himself the whole day; but when there were no customers in his shop, he sat in the little back parlour and gazed at the jasmine bower, and the great house beyond it that it belonged to. It was only towards the evening that the thought struck him that it would be proper to go and restore the volume, and by way of insuring its safe delivery, to give it to his lovely neighbour with his own hand. He set off on the instant, and had very soon hurried through the cross alley and reached the street of St Fiacre. The great house was easily discovered. On the ground floor was a merchant's shop, and there, in great letters on a black board, he read, "Mesdemoiselles Buonvicini, mantuamakers from Milan."

Thus far all was well; but all of a sudden a sort of failing of nerve got possession of him; he went past the palace, for a palace it really was, the whole length of the street; and only recovered his courage when he had got to some distance. "Why shouldn't I go in?" he thought; "I am not going to do any harm." He turned round, but with every step that he made towards the palace his nervousness increased. What will she say when she sees me with the grammar? Won't she consider me a pushing, impertinent fool? Couldn't I wait till she asked me for the book herself? And which of the sisters Buonvicini is Jacqueline? Who can tell whether she is at home? And, besides, wouldn't it be giving up the grammar, the only chance I have of ever seeing her again?" In the midst of these ruminations, he was long past the palace on the other side; but with every step his anxiety to call upon Jacqueline grew stronger. Again and again he returned, and always lost heart at the door. At last, when he had wearied himself with his wanderings up the street and down the

street, he fairly put the grammar into grumbling at his want of impudence— his pocket, and betook himself— to his little back parlour again.

THE MISTAKE.

The good and modest Le Blond soon discovered some gleams of comfort in his distress. The French grammar he laid safely under lock and key, as a pledge of its bringing him to another interview with the owner. We cannot maintain that he enjoyed his supper on that night, but there are occasions when people can live very well upon air; and, indeed, build stately castles on the same unsubstantial foundation. For instance, Le Blond was delighted beyond measure that the beautiful Jacqueline was of no higher rank than a milliner,-it fitted so admirably to his own trade in laces and silks. His plans were innumerable, and one of the most fixed of them was, to make the captivating Mademoiselle Buonvicini, with all convenient expedition, into Madame Le Blond. The only question was, how such an angel was to be won? These plans, and even this last one, were admirably well laid with but one error in them, and that was, that Jacqueline resided indeed in the palace, but, alas! alas! not on the ground floor. She was no connexion of the sisters Buonvicini, but was the only daughter of the French general De Fano, who had received some wounds at the siege of Namur, and had remained to have them cured. The good laceman-who had entirely accommodated himself to his situation, and, in consequence of his mother's advice, entirely forgotten the former rank of his father-would never have ventured on such an undertaking as to lay siege to the heart of the daughter of one of the Grand Monarque's most famous generals. Poor Julius was no politician, and had never even heard of General De Fano's name. Jacqueline, on the other hand-for since we have told the secrets of one of the parties, we may as well be equally

communicative about the other-Jacqueline had left the jasmin bower, in scarcely an inferior state of bewilderment-she could not drive Le Blond out of her memory, and in girls of eighteen the seat of the memory is the heart. Now the image of a Le Blond in the heart is not unattended with danger to girls of even a year or two older than Jacqueline. She was anxious to know who he was; but, as to making any enquiry that might lead to the supposition that she took any interest in the matter, such a thing never entered her head. She tried, therefore, to attain the information in a roundabout sort of a way, and discovered that the great house to which the jasmine bower belonged, was inhabited by my Lord the President. How, then, was it possible to doubt that Le Blond was one of his sons?

She had soon perceived the exchange that had happened of their grammars; by a paper mark at the place, she saw that his lesson had stopt short at the conjugation of Io amo; a verb which she was quite able to translate into the French J'aime. But somehow, on this occasion, the translation was accompanied with some odd sorts of feelings, for which she could not exactly account; and more than once she went into the apartment of her dressing maid, whose window com manded a view of the jasmine bower. Every morning, as soon as the sun rose, both the young people kept constantly looking towards the arbour; one watched for the other's appearance, only that they might restore the grammars; but, as neither of them liked to be the first to go, three days were wasted in useless expectation. Jacqueline was very restless, and Le Blond nearly died of anxiety.

THE LESSONS.

At last, on the fourth morning, just as the sun was rising, the bashful Le

Blond determined to visit the jasmin bower. And, as he went to the win

dow, he saw a figure in white wandering in the milliner's garden. With the speed of lightning he rushed forth, the grammar under his arm, and pretend ed to be busy examining his flowers; keeping his eye, however, attentively fixed on the movements of the living flower on the other side of the hedge. She approached the arbour,-he walked towards it at the same time. Heavens! how both began to blush as they mutually showed the borrowed volumes!-at last, however, the expla nation was made, and the exchange effected. When once the conversation was commenced, it seemed to flow more naturally than either of them could have expected. Jacqueline complained of the difficulty of French; Le Blond of the tediousness of Italian. The complaints of each raised in the other the tenderest emotions of pity; and nothing in the world could be more natural than the offer to be of assistance to each other in their studies they resolved to dedicate the first hour after sunrise to this system of mutual instruction-long before Pestalozzi was born-and they fixed on the hour of prime, probably, because in both grammars was the proverb.

"The morning hour

Brings golden dower."

It was wonderful what a charming schoolroom they made of the jasmin arbour. The commencement was made that very hour. They sat down be side each other on the bench, and took the grammar in hand with the most studious intentions in the world. Perhaps, indeed, they might have made more progress in the language, if they had not sat quite so close. For when, by any accident, Le Blond was touched by Jacqueline's arm; or if, in the morning breeze, one of her curls was waved against his check, a sort of shudder passed through him; he forgot the art of speaking either in his own language or any other; and appeared, poor fellow, to be labouring under a difficulty of breathing; or, when Jacqueline's hand, in pointing out the place, came in contact with that of her pupil, all of a sudden she lost the power of distinguishing a single syllable, though, on other occasions, having no cause to complain of blindBut, to be sure, not much can be expected in a first lesson, so they

ness.

looked forward to making greater progress in the second. And, indeed, the studious propensities of the young people were most exemplary. In spite of the earliness of the hour, neither of them was ever one instant behind the appointed time; yet it might be in consequence of this over zeal that their attention occasionally flagged, and Jacqueline herself occasionally laid her forefinger on the lower line, instead of the upper. On those occasions, it was, of course, necessary for the attentive pupil to set her right; and, on taking her hand in his for this purpose, it not unfrequently happened, that neither of them could recollect whether it was the upper line or the lower one they had been reading; and so, sometimes for five minutes at a time, both of them sat without saying a syllable, in the aforesaid attitude, and gazing most strenuously on the book whose lines neither of them could perceive a word of.

Le

In the third lesson, therefore, it was indispensable to go over again the two former ones; which, owing to these unavoidable circumstances, had almost slipt from their memories; and, by way of bringing things into regular order, it was resolved that Jacqueline should be the teacher one day in Italian, and he the next in French. Blond confessed that he had stuck at the verb "Io amo," and begged the teacher to hear him say off the book all of it that he knew. As she felt conscious that her own progress in the French was not a whit more advanced, she felt the less wonder at his ignorance. Matters were now arranged for a serious lesson. The books were closed; and, in case of any recurrence of the strange sensations he had experienced when accidentally touched by Jacqueline's hand, Le Blond thought it better to take hold of it at once, and keep it close prisoner in his own. A tremor ran through the captive thus laid hold of, which luckily escaped the captor's observation, as at that moment he was labouring under a very similar fit of agitation himself. After a long silence, which, however, neither of them seemed to consider tedious, Le Blond commenced his lesson—

"Present time, Io amo."

It was fortunate he had to wait for the translation, for one other syllable he found it impossible to utter.

Jacqueline sank her eyes to the

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