LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume II, Issue 182, 8 January 1875, Page 3

LITERATURE.

LADY ARABELLA. Concluded. She was looking back in thought over her life, so lonely and unsatisfactory, in spite of its splendour. Bitterly did she now regret the unfeminine spirit which had animated her in this contest with the Marquis de Cherville. She tried to shift the blame from her own shoulders, but it was impossible. It had been idiotic folly from the first: and it was now worse. Scandal had attacked her name, and would never leave her alone till she was dead. She had always relied on the purity of her motives and conduct to keep the coarsest tongue from assailing her name; but she realized at length that no human being who transgresses the set laws of society can escape. Her exalted rank would only make the tale more widely spread. Every man's hand—or worse, every woman's hand —would be against her. She cried a little; and then she took refuge in thoughts of the Marquis. She could not help fancying how pleasant such care and attention as he had shown during the past months would be, if fate had not put it out of their power to be friends. The price of the filly, indeed ! —that had been poor silly Mocourt's thought: she knew he only wanted to be friends with her. And then she grew angry with herself for such silly imaginings, wiped away her tears, and set off at a mad canter.

She thought she heard a horse's hoofs behind her, and rode the faster. Her fiery grey took fright at some object in the road, shied suddenly, stumbled, fell; and, for the first time in her life, Lady Arabella was thrown from the saddle. When she came to her senses, she was neither dead nor harmed. She had been moved to the road-side, where was a stone bench under an image of the Virgin —a fountain at a little distance. Somebody was standing beside her, who turned at a sound she uttered. She] was face to face with the Marquis ! ' Don't try to move,' saidM. de Cherville. Let me give you some more water.' She had no intention of stirring; simply because she conld not stir. She leaned back helpless, faint. He looked so handsome in the soft twilight, standing bareheaded before her ! —his dreamy eyes full of interest, his voice so gentle. ' I—l should like to get back : I can ride now, I think,' was the first remark she hazarded.

But she -was informed that her horse had galloped back to Fiesole, andhis had followed it. A ragged boy passed, and the Marquis ordered him to send on a carriage he would find waiting in the village square. ' I—l can't thank you,' she murmured. ' There is no need !' he replied. 'I am very grateful that I was able to help you.' Was it possible that he did not recognise her in the dim light? If he remembered her, could he stand there and talk like that ? She must make her identity known. His scorn and anger would be a little punishment for all her silly conduct—she would have applied a harsher name now. ' Perhaps, if you knew who I am, you would not have helped me,' she began, in a timid tone. ' I am Lady Arabella Grahame.'

'Of course; I know it!' he exclaimed. ' Of all huiran beings who could have aided you, I am most thankful that it was I.' The conquered girl sank back in her seat, and burst into a tit of weeping, as tumultuous as if she had been sixteen.

' I—l can't bear it,' she gasped. And she was so near a fit of hysterics that she could neither speak nor hear ; could do nothing but sob, and choke. When the faculty of hearing returned she concluded that she had gone > stark, staring mad. Her senses refused to give credence to the words the Marquis poured out He seemed to be in the middle of a speech, and evidently supposed she had heard what went before.

' You will drive me from you, I know,' he said, in perfect English, ' but at least it is a comfort to say it—l love you ! —I love you ! I cannot tell you, Lady Arabella, when my love began. I think, now, in the early days of my unmanly pursuit. But since then I have followed because to breathe the same air with you, catch sight of your face, was heaven itself —the only happiness I could ever hope foi\' Arabella Grahame checked her sobs, held her reeling senses fast, sat upright, and stared at him.

' You—you are punishing me too severely,' she said. 'Be generous ; content yourself with having saved my life. Don't laugh at me.'

' Can you think it ? ' he cried. * I love you, I say—l love you ! I know I am wrong to persecute you now; but try to think kindly of me, Lady Arabella; try to tolerate me.' Like a handsome hero in the by-gone days of chivalry, he sank on his knees and told his story. And she? She listened, entranced, while the nightingale sang a soft refrain to his words, and the Italian moon rose suddenly from behind the hills, and floated in glory up the sky. • Speak to me !' he pleaded. • Tell me that I do not seem to you like a complete stranger ! Let me hope, at least, to be ranked among your friends—l will ask no more as yet. I will be patient as man never was ; live on a look—a smile ' The Marquis stopped abruptly. Some incoherent exclamation she uttered made him lift his eyes to hers. He read the con-

sciousness which had suddenly her own soul. During these, which he had played so her life she had learned to love'"|p|jl*v\S|H instant the truth became so f could hardly believe she had before. And the explanation eamj^^jv.:.'*•{ It was some time before they the proprieties of life. By the^'aawiSi4. ; . talked themselves far past the |iifMpTiMr lif misunderstanding. A short would become man and wife. [v. »1 a The carriage drove up and na wjLwWw: De Cherville led her towards, it tajfiora,'}/!.. ' You will even consent to go to Epgkad, and gratify the Earl by having the iunito at home V Victor ' I will do whatever you tell nwjj; *k» answered, trying to laugh, and cry. 'lt is of no use for me to have been tamed, you see, and I aiii, gJ#»to relinquish the charge of myself.' £i££ y ' The family beamed with delight news reached them, the Earl welcome letter aloud. ' It's like a said his lordship. Paris went wild with astonishment; but consoled itself by deciding that the Marquis had given in to English manners and habits, until he was as mad as the maddest Briton of them all. THE FLOWER OF BERNAY. A STORY OF BERNAY DE L'EURE. Chapter I. It is market-day at Bernay—market-day in the ancient Abbey, founded long before the Norman Conquest by Judith of Bretagne, Duchess of Normandy. The building is so crowded with farmers and sacks of grain that it is difficult to realise it nas once been a stately church. It is market-day, too, in the Place outside and in the quaint street which runs down on to the Place, and which is full of half-timbered houses, with inquisitive pointed dormers, that seem to Be stretching forward to peep into the windows on the other side of the street.

In the Place are meat stalls, and crockery spread on the stones, and garments of all kinds, and hardware; but up this street, which curves into a sort of crescent, there are fruit and vegetable stalls, fresh eggs, and butter, with bronzed-faced guardians, men and women. At the further end of the street the corner house projects over the footway, and the upper story is supported by pillars that have once had richly-carved capitals, now half defaced. The beams of the house, too, are moulded, and rest on brackets carved with grotesque grinning faces. The shop in front of this house is full of fruit and vegetables. A comfortable, well-to-do looking man, with a plain sensible face, half covered by a huge pair of black whiskers, goes past the vegetable sellers. He pays no attention to their repeated solicitations to buy from them; he is evidently looking for some one, and as he nears the pillared house he quickens his pace, and his broad plain face beams into a smile that is almost beautifying. An old fruit woman, in a white cotton nightcap and a much-patched greenish-grey gown, a short black jacket and yellow neckerchief over her shoulders gives a nod and a wink at her gossip, Marie Touchet, who has the largest melons and the ripest peaches that have been brought to Bernay market this morning. ' What dost thou mean, la mere ?" Marie Touchet speaks as sharply as if she lived on the unripe fruit of her garden. * Comment! what do I mean ? But thou knowest it, Marie Touchet. Aha, my friend, it is not in that voice thou wouldest have spoken if Monsieur Lagrange had bought peaches of thee instead of buying them at the shop.' ' He ! but thou art mistaken, vieille. Monsieur Lagrange has peaches at home more than he can eat, and if he goes to the shop of Le Blanc the fruiterer, it is to meet his dame and not to purchase fruit.' The mere Fremont shrugs her yellow shoulders till the cotton nightcap seems to sink between their ample breadth. His dame ! ma foi! ' The wrinkles round her mouth look as hard as the flutings of a shell with the excess of her scorn. ' I did not think I should live to hear Eugenie Toutain called dame—a, poor little slip of a thing brought up by her grandmother, without so much as a penny of fortune. Hein ! I see now why the old widow Marcel sent her doll's face to market once a week to sell her sour pears and stunted cabbages. There are always fools " ' Chut, chut ! la mere." La mere Fremont looks up at the lowered tones of her gossip's voice. The well-to-do looking man with the black whiskers is coming down the street again, but this time he is not alone. A tall, sweet-faced girl, with a fair skin, and loving dark eyes, leans on his arm. She is dressed in black, but there is a style in the set of her polonaise which is not often seen in Bernay; her straw hat-bonnet too is gaily trimmed with pink and brown ribbon.

' Look '—the cotton nightcap gives a spitefully sudden jerk—' to think that she has been never used to anything better than a cotton gown and a muslin cap, and see how she holds up her head in silk like a queen. Dame ! it is a shame and a folly.' > * For shame, then thou.' Marie Touchet courtsies as the happy-lookingpair come near her stall; but the young wife of Monsieur Lagrange slips her arm suddenly out of her husband's, and putting a hand on each of the fruit-seller's shoulders, kisses her on both cheeks.

' How art thou, Marie ?' The girl's voice is as sweet and joyful as her face. * How goes it with thee and thy father ?' Marie Touchet does not answer directly. She stands gazing at Eugenie's sweet face till two soft rosy blushes spread over the girl's fair cheeks. Then Marie wipes her eyes quickly with her apron and looks earnestly at Monsieur Lagrange. She is satisfied with what she sees, for she pats his arm and laughs. 'Aha, Monsieur,' she says, slyly, 'I owed you a grudge when I came back here after my father got well, and I found our pretty child had been taken away, but you have made her look more bright and beautiful than before, and I forgive you, and wish you joy. Take care of her; there is not another like her in Bernay:' ' Thou old flatterer'—Eugenie stoops down and kisses the brown freckled face again—- ' but if thou tellest this to Monsieur Lagrange, I shall never be able to content him; he will expect me to behave like an angel.' She gives a loving, half timid glance up at her husband. His face is not able to express emotion easily, but there is a most unusual glow in his dark eyes a 8 he looks down at his wife. To be continued.