"A good action-nothing but a good ac-1 of 500 persons is seldom in order; the tion-forgotten for these last fifteen years, doors having been taken off their hinges and and which has all at once presented itself removed for the convenience of the danto them under the form of a hideous, yel-cers, left the apartments open to all eyes. low, dissipated looking rascal, a low thief, M. and Madame de Crivelin had kept but who has rubbed off the dirt of his tatters their own bedchamber and that of their upon the silk damask of those gilded sofas which an hour previously had sustained the light forms of the young and beautiful dan

cers."

"I don't understand you."

daughter secluded from the general invasion. It was now broad daylight; Madame de Crivelin was in the hands of her femme de chamber, when her husband came to beg that she would retire to her daughter's bedroom for a few moments, and let him have their chamber for an interview of the greatest importance.

"Listen to me, then. This man, clad in a dirty suit of cast-off livery, had remained all night in the antechamber. Amongst the crowd of servants he had escaped the observation of the domestics of the house; but as the saloons began to thin, and the antechambers also in consequence, they began to remark his presence there, and look-to some more seasonable hour?' ed on him, it must be said, with a very suspicious eye; but the rogue was by no means disconcerted with this demonstration, and only stretched himself out more at his ease on the benches. At length came the moment when the last guests had taken their departure, and our ragged friend still remained at his post. They ended by asking him. whom he was waiting for.

"Ah,' said she laughing, 'I would lay a wager now that it is M. de Formont who pursues you. But I suppose lovers don't require any sleep. Cannot you put him off

"I am waiting for my master, M. Eugene Ligny."

"There is no such person here,' they replied.

"I tell you that he is here; ask your master, he'll soon find him.'

་

"And what is his master's name?' "The person I seek,' said the unknown lacquey, is named Eugene Ligny, and I shall not stir a peg until I have spoken to him.'

"Scarcely had he pronounced these words, when M. de Crivelin started back as if he had received a dagger in his heart; he turned deadly pale, and fixed his eyes with an expression of mute terror on the countenance of his strange visitor; then, with difficulty concealing his emotion, he gave orders to his domestics to retire, and invited the man to follow him.

"Petty annoyances generally come in the train of great catastrophes. A house in which one has just given a ball to upwards VOL. VIII. No. IV.

72

"No, it is not that, it is--for mercysake retire until I come for you.'

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But what is the matter, then?' cried Madame de Crivelin; 'you are pale-ill— what is it?'

"Nothing, my love, nothing; but I beg of you to leave us.'

"Madame de Crivelin retired, but carried with her a feeling of uneasiness and anxiety which she in vain endeavored to control, and which soon gained also upon her daughter; for Adéle was not yet asleep, and seeing her mother enter her room pale and anxious, she questioned her, and began to tremble in her turn. Here, then, were these two poor women enclosed in the narrowest corner of their splendid apartments, anxiously awaiting the issue of a conference as singular as it was unexpected, and at the bare idea of which only M. de Crivelin had been so visibly agitated. With whom was it? What did he say? And what powerful argument had been made use of to induce him to give a similar interview at such an unseasonable hour? Adéle fancied that some terrible accident must have happened to her lover; Madame de Crivelin lost herself in a labyrinth of confused and impossible suppositions.

and a slice of ham, and you'll soon see if I am a ghost or not.'

Come, come, Jules, it is not for this that you are come here; speak, speak then, unhappy man.'

"I'll tell you what it is; for these last six hours, I have been waiting in your antechamber - I am dying of hunger and thirst-I want to eat and drink.'

"What is all this about?'

"I want to eat and drink, I tell you. Come, go and get me something yourself, if you are afraid of your domestics soiling their hands by serving me.'

"Crivelin left the room without replying. He returned in a few moments with a plate, which he placed before his strange guest.

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Now,' he said to him, 'speak, what would you have?'

"Jules sat down to his supper, and while eating, spoke as follows:

sure my flight, I had deposited on the banks of the river a letter, in which I stated that I was unable to survive my shame; and a month afterwards you received the news of my death. At that very time your daughter died at Ancona, and you made the usual declaration of it to the authorities, under the name which you then bore. You then continued your journey, allowing all the strangers whom you encountered on your way, to consider the child which accompanied you, as your daughter. You yourself, charmed with her grace, her beauty, and her affection for you-you, I say, called her your daughter; traveling slowly, dreading the moment when you should be obliged to tell your wife that her child was deadThen, a sudden thought came into your mind. Your wife, led by her brother, M. de Crivelin, to the death-bed of her mother, had quitted Adéle three months after her birth, at that age when the features of children change so perceptibly with almost every succeeding month. Could not Marie, "You see, Jules, your mad career has the daughter of Jules Marsilly, dead as you terminated as I foretold. From disorder thought, replace in a mother's eyes, the lost you have passed to faults, from faults to Adéle? Your wife fell ill in her turn; the crime; and now, a disgraceful condemna- news of her daughter's death might prove tion hangs over your head. Since you have fatal to her; you decided upon deceiving been enabled to effect your escape from her; Marie Marsilly became Adéle Ligprison, profit by your liberty, and fly, but fly alone. Drag not with you an innocent child, who has but just entered the world, into that wandering existence which you must hasten to conceal in a far distant land. Leave me your daughter. When the vengeance of the law overtook you, misfortune overtook me also: my daughter is dying. If God preserves her, yours will be to her a sister; if it pleases the Almighty to deprive us of her, your Marie shall take her place. I send you some money, sufficient to enable you in another country, to regain the position you have lost in this.'

"Listen to me, Eugène; you remember a letter you wrote to me seventeen years ago-here it is.' The epistle ran thus:

"That's your writing, Eugène, is it not?'

"" It is.'

ny.'

"Since you know so well the sentiments which dictated my conduct,' said M. de Crivelin, can you blame me?'

"I blame nothing,' replied the drunkard, 'I merely recount facts.'

"He drank a couple of glasses of wine, and proceeded as follows:

"Your ruse succeeded beautifully, it succeeded even beyond your hopes; not only was your wife delighted with her charming little daughter, but her uncle, M. de Crivelin, who could never pardon you for having become his brother-in-law, became dotingly fond of the child, and eight years afterwards, left her his entire fortune, naming you her guardian, on condition that you added his name to your own. And this is why you re-entered France under the name of Eugène Ligny de Crivelin.'

"But I have never deceived any one; I have never denied my name.'

'Eight days later,' continued this man, you departed, carrying with you the two children into Italy, both aged then about two years; you were on your way to rejoin your wife, who had been obliged to quit you in order to receive the last adieu and par- "You are incapable of doing so. Only don of her mother, who died at Naples.- by degrees you dropped the name of Ligny, You had married her against the wishes of and called yourself de Crivelin; and, as I her relatives, and this noble family had for- had seldom heard mention made of this bidden your presence at the reconciliation. name in my youth, I should never have susYour mother-in-law being dead, you rejoin-pected that the wealthy M. de Crivelin was ed your wife. As to me, the better to as- my old college chum, Eugène Ligny, had

not I seen the other day, posted at the jimmense succession by means of this act, doors of the Mairie of my arrondissement, you are rich, honored; you swim in oputhe marriage banns of Mademoiselle Adéle lence and luxury: this is not just.' Ligny de Crivelin, with the Count Bertrand de Formont.

"When I saw this, I asked myself how it was, that the Adéle who died at Ancona was alive and well in Paris.'

"It is a falsehood,' said M. de Crivelin, who fancied he saw a loop-hole by which he could escape from his embarrassing position.

"My good man,' said the brigand, with a slight laugh, 'do not play a character which you are ignorant of. I passed through Ancona the day after your daughter's death, and every one was talking of your despair. Besides, if necessary, we could procure the acts; so just listen to me quietly.'

"The rascal finished his second bottle, and continued as follows:

"You can understand that, once upon the straight road, the history of your romance has been very easily made. You put my daughter in the place of yours, and now you have perhaps almost reached the point of persuading yourself that she is indeed your own child.'

"But what would you do, unhappy man? Would you carry off my Adéle and her mother? for my poor wife is a true mother to her. Would you destroy her? Oh! I would prefer, fifty times over, to tell the truth; for the tribunals would acquit me, I am very sure.'

"That remains to be seen,' replied the visitor; but the question is not yet exhausted, and here is an important point:The will left by M. de Crivelin is made in favor of Mademoiselle Adéle Ligny. If I prove that the heiress is not the Demoiselle Ligny, I ruin her, I ruin you, I ruin your whole family. This is a piece of folly I have no desire of committing. Besides, I am too indulgent a father to inflict such useless cruelty for nothing. But you know that it is written in the moral code of all honest men that a benevolent action is never lost; in consequence of this maxim I appoint myself your benefactor. This fortune, which I could snatch from you all, I leave you; this is just the same as if I bestowed it. This happiness, which, by one word, I could destroy forever, I respect; it is as if I caused it. Your wife, who would die of this discovery, I let live; it is precisely the same as if I had saved her life from drowning or fire. This cherished daughter, whose prospects in life I could blast forever, I permit to marry her lover. What is this I do, then? I make you rich and happy; First of all, you have stolen my daugh- I save your wife's life; I marry my daughter; that, if I do not mistake, is a crime ter to a man of honorable name and noble by no means approved of by law. After- family. Upon my word, one cannot act wards, in order that she might inherit the more virtuously, more benevolently than fortune left her by your brother-in-law, you that. Why, my bounty actually overflows, have produced an extract of birth which and, as it is said that a benevolent action you have applied to my daughter, when the never goes unrewarded, why you shall give proof of your own child's death lies at An-me a million of francs.'

"Oh, yes,' exclaimed M. de Crivelin, 'she is my child, my hope, my happiness. Come, what do you wish, what do you demand?'

6

"Let us first put the question in a correct point of view,' said the visitor, and then, perhaps, we shall be able to come to a proper understanding.

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cona. Secundo, in order to publish the "A million! just Heaven!' cried M. banns of the pretended Mademoiselle Lig-de Crivelin.

ny de Crivelin, you have made use of a title "A benevolent action never goes unreequally false. These facts are incontesta- warded,' said the rascal. ble. Now let us reason:

"For having affixed a signature not my own at the bottom of a piece of stamped paper, I have been condemned to fifteen years' hard labor at the galleys. I am miserable and dishonored, and I owe my absence from the bagné at this present moment but to the general supposition that I am dead. You, on the contrary, for having falsely used an authentic act-for having deprived others, the rightful heirs, of an

6

"But you forget,' said M. de Crivelin, that I could send you to the bagné.' "The villain rose, his eyes flashing, his mouth foaming with rage.

"No menaces of this kind,' he shouted, or I force you to beg for mercy on your knees; or I compel your wife and my daughter to come here and kiss the dust of my shoes. I give you two hours to make up your mind; in two hours' time I shall be here.'

"Thus speaking, M. de Crivelin's visitor and laugh-tears in their eyes, sobs rising quitted the house." to their throats, and despair and anguish

"This is a very sad history," said Ripon-rankling at their hearts."

neau.

"But what have they done? what do they mean to do?" inquired Riponneau. "A large sum of money has rid them for the present, of their terrible visitor; but he is liable to return again at any moment, and, what is more, in a few years' time, his punishment will be nonsuited, that is to say, that because he has been enabled to evade the bagné during twenty years, he will be as clear in the eye of the law, as the man who may have remained all that time fastened to his chain; and then he will no longer speak with the moderation of one who is fearful for his own safety-he will be the absolute master of the family."

"Oh," said the old gentleman, "this was but the commencement; for in the adjoining room were the mother and daughter, whom one of those good faithful domestics who never fail to tell you whatever is disagreeable, had warned that M. de Crivelin was closeted with a man who had all the appearance of an assassin, and that that circumstance had much alarmed the good people of the antechamber. This charitable intelligence, joined to the agitation which Madame de Crivelin had perceived in her husband's manner, induced her to lend an ear to what was going forward in the neighboring apartment. On seeing the dreadfully agitated state into which her mother was thrown, on hearing the stifled cries which burst from her overcharged bosom, Adéle listened in her turn, and both learned at the same time the horrible secret which struck them both with an equal blow; the secret which whispered to the mother, This is not thy daughter; to the daughter, This is not thy mother. This was the reason why, on entering his daughter's bedchamber, M. de Crivelin found them both weeping, sobbing, and holding each uniuded-because she is proud of being other convulsively embraced; for Madame de Crivelin no longer wept the dead child which she had scarcely known; she wept for the child she had brought up, whose mind, in her divine maternal power, she had fashioned on the model of her ownthe child that she had passionately loved, and that had returned her love with an affection no less ardent and sincere.

"In the mean time, impelled by the fallibility of their preceding existence, they live during the day as they ought to live, to prevent suspicions, but they weep at night. It is there, at their melancholy fireside, that all three watch and weep-there pass those long conferences, mingled with bitter tears, and vows never to separate from each other. This is not all, Monsieur, Adéle loves M. de Formont, she loves him because he is brave, generous, and noble

loved by him; and it is precisely because she is loved with this pure and noble affection, that she is unwilling to deceive him— she is determined that the happiness of this loved being shall never be destroyed by the apparition of that miserable drunkard, who might rush into the presence of her husband, and declare himself the father of his wife. Adéle will not marry the Count de Formont."

"But what can we do? what can we say?" have cried Monsieur and Madame de Crivelin. "As it

And this poor child has replied; is for me that you suffer thus, it is for me to take upon myself the blame and misery of this rupture."

"It was then above all that the drama began with its anguish, its transports and its tears; and during the eight days that has lasted, Monsieur, all has been despair, anguish and terror in this house. And yet, on the following day, they were obliged to go to a magnificent dinner given by the Count de Formont's mother; and, in order that the secret of their misfortune "She has kept her word, Monsieur; durshould not transpire out of doors, these ing these last eight days, she has endeavorthree happy persons whom you have envied ed by show of affection and indifference, went there; and, as they were all three very foreign to her own naturally open and more serious than usual, and looked pale affectionate manner, to estrange her lover and cast down, they were overwhelmed from her side; she endeavors to chill his with joyous felicitations upon the fatigue affection for her by her coldness and recaused by their splendid fête. Their serve; you may judge what this costs her. healths were drunk; the future bride and As I said before, the hour comes when the bridegroom were toasted, and these happy comedy finishes, and the drama of real life people were obliged to smile, and talk, begins, and then the torments she has