THE LITTLE FRENCH GIRL OF ST. SULPICE. WHEN 'HEN I was in Paris, a year or two before the terrible war broke out, I often went to the church of St. Sulpice. A grand old place is St. Sulpice, not so majestic outwardly as Notre Dame, but far more interesting to me. Its painted chapels, its noble altar with the royal seat in front, its chairs full of kneeling people, from the splendid dame to the bonnetless peasant, its gorgeously dressed priests, its magnificent organ, — everything about it charmed and interested me. One day I saw a little girl asleep at the foot of a statue. The calm, white marble face seemed to look down in pity on the child, whose beauty startled me. Her white cape-bonnet had fallen from her head, and curls, lustrous as gold, and quite as yellow, fell over neck and cheeks. What long dark lashes she had! Her complexion seemed blended roses and lilies. But her dress was very shabby. The most beautiful feet will get soiled if they go shoeless, and this child seemed one of the very poorest of the poor. There came a grand burst of organ-music, with which a thousand voices joined, and the child awoke. She lifted her head, and the great brown eyes seemed to drink in the melody. Then, seeing that we were watching her, she held out a little palm. The mute appeal was not resisted: I gave her my last franc. She followed us out of the church. On the stone steps we could see the fountains playing. Omnibuses decorated with gay little flags, horses decked out with ribbons, merry groups passing, the red sunshine, and the distant beauty of the green park, with its gravelled walks and flowery borders, made a picture that I shall never forget. The child touched my dress. "I must sing for you, madame," she said, holding up the franc. Then she stood back a little, let her pretty arms drop, and sang in a sweet contralto a little French air. Her voice was charming. "Why do you beg?" I asked. "I do not beg, madame, I sing"; and her cheek flushed. "Where do you live, my dear?" "Rue St. Père." "Near Hôtel St. Père ?" "Not far from that, madame. My father makes wooden images; perhaps you pass his window. At least, I call him my father." I had often passed his window, filled with a melancholy collection of wellcarved animals, boxes, heads, quite yellow by exposure. ever to be sold. Nothing seemed The poor man, His face was like One day I went in to ask the price of a stag's head. broken down by sickness, sat whittling in the corner. saffron, while his thin hair was black as jet. A heavy curtain was hung across the shop. Presently the rings that supported it rattled a little; the curtain opened midway, revealing a bit of French home-life. A cradle of an 1872.] The Little French Girl of St. Sulpice. 235 antique pattern, a woman ironing at a table, a tiny stove, two windows full of flowers, everything poverty-stricken, but clean. As I was paying for the stag's head in came my little one of St. Sulpice. She knew me, but with only a nod and a smile passed into the other part of the room. "That is your little girl, I suppose,” I said. "O no; I care for her; that is all. Her mother is dead; she is no kin to me, but one cannot see a little one suffer. Besides, she does very well with her voice; she will work her way in the world. We do not suffer; we have bread." Nevertheless I knew by his voice and the aspect of things that they did suffer sometimes, so I often made little expeditions that way, and spent for carved wood every franc I could spare. Now comes the wonderful part of my story. I had been at home six months when the French war broke out. While reading the dreadful tidings, and seeing with my mind's eye those fairy-like palaces over which I had wandered so often sacked and destroyed, I thought of the little girl of St. Sulpice, and wondered what had become of her. Where were the wooden hounds with their life-like eyes, the stags' heads so beautifully carved, the long French faces with the dust lying in their grotesque goatees? Where were the sick old man, the tidy little mother, the large, rosy baby? One day, only a very few weeks ago, while walking down Pennsylvania Avenue, in Washington, a splendid carriage drove past, and I caught a glimpse of a face that set my heart beating. I turned to look, and, strange to tell, the child was also turning to look at me. Could this be the little French girl of St. Sulpice? Impossible. On the following day I was called into my sitting-room to see some one who wanted a donation. "They're always a beggin', Miss Alice," said my maid. "There was three men with papers yesterday, and now come these flipflappers." The "flipflappers were two Sisters of Charity. One of them, the youngest, with large, loving, dark eyes, and one of the finest faces I ever saw, won me at sight. She was soliciting money, she said, for an Old Folks' Home. "You are not an American," I said. "O no; I am only five months from Paris. This is my sister, who can talk only French." An hour passed, during which I had told all about my St. Sulpice child. The women looked at each other. "It seems like Marie," said one. "It certainly does seem like Marie," responded the other. "And who was Marie?" "Marie was with a wood-carver. Her husband brought her to Paris. one. Marie's mamma was an Englishwoman. Marie used to sing, and she lived in Rue St. Père.” "It must be my St. Sulpice girl!" I said, excitedly. "During the troubles," continued the woman, "the old wood-carver died. His wife, whose sister was a nun, went to one of the charity homes. She, alas! was shot, and soon after her baby pined and died. The sisters took care of Marie for a while, she was so beautiful. No, madame, it is not to be denied that they would have liked it if Marie could have grown up in their midst, and become one of the holy order, but the war forbade that. Some of the sisters escaped to England, and Marie went with them. In London, Marie sang a little now and then, for we were much reduced. "One day she was listened to by a lady living in some villa. She had the child brought in, and kept saying to herself, 'It is a wonderful likeness!' Then she called her husband and all the family, and they each one said that it was a wonderful likeness. "Well, madame, they found the child was one of them, the child of a sister who had married imprudently and gone off, and after that we had little to do with Marie. But we came over to America in the same ship, and the little lady was very kind to us. Her friends have given largely to this fund since she has been here. Will madame contribute?" On condition that they found where the child lived, I gave them what I could spare, and they went away grateful. Only the next day a grand equipage stopped at my door. There were two men in splendid livery on the box, and a tiger behind, who sat with his arms folded, like a statue of ebony. Ah, but there was my sweet little St. Sulpice girl, with her nurse, or companion. How lovely she was! Her white hat and blue feather, beautiful blue silk, trimmed with costly white lace, her buttoned gloves, and dainty parasol, spoke most eloquently of the change in her circumstances. But to me she seemed just the same. "Then you have not forgotten St. Sulpice," I said. She shook her head and her lips trembled a little. "It was so awful before we came away!" she said, with a shudder. "They took St. Sulpice for the soldiers, and they killed the nuns, and shot the good priests, and it seemed as if everybody was dead or dying. O, how we did fly for our lives!” "But you are very happy now." "Yes. I have a governess, and I am studying English, but I shall always love my dear, dear France, and I would go there again, but poor Père and Mère Bouve are gone, and their little child. If they could only have come to England with me!" "And does your aunt stay in America long?” "Till the next September. O, how I felt when I saw you on the street! I knew it was you. To-morrow we go to Cape May, and I shall never see you again." "O yes, you will. I shall come over to England next summer." The child's eyes brightened. "Will you?" and she threw her arms round my neck in true French style, and declared that she loved me. I hope I shall see my little one of St. Sulpice again. If anybody meets an English family at Cape May, with one of the loveliest little girls in the world, I have no doubt she will answer to the name of Marie. Alice Robbins. "I LITTLE MARY'S WISH. HAVE seen the first robin of spring, mother dear, You said, Hear it and wish, and 't will surely come true'; "I thought I would like to ask something for you; But I could n't think what there could be That you'd want while you had all these beautiful things; Besides, you have papa and me! "So I wished for a ladder; so long that 't would stand And the other go up past the moon and the stars, "Then I'd get you to put on my pretty white dress "And you and dear papa would sit on the ground "I wonder if God keeps the door fastened tight? I would whisper, 'Please, God, let this little girl in; "She came all alone from the earth to the sky; The gardens of heaven with their robins and flowers, "And then, when the angels had opened the door, God would say, 'Bring the little child here.' But he'd speak it so softly I'd not be afraid; And he'd smile just like you, mother dear! "He would put his kind arms round your dear little girl, And I'd ask him to send down for you, And papa, and cousin, and all that I love, O dear! don't you wish 't would come true?" The next spring-time when the robins came home, That grew where the foot of the ladder stood, And the parents had dressed the pale still child In a fair white robe with one snow-white rose And now at the foot of the ladder they sit, Till the beckoning hand and the fluttering robe Mrs. L. M. Blinn. THE MOTHS AND COCOONS. HE pine and oak woods around Orchardville are bordered in the early spring by dark brown fields shielding in their duskiness rich clumps of red cup-moss and delicate patches of pink. I know this is so because I went there one year as early as March, while the other girls in our street stayed in the city till examination was over and the schools closed. All along the country roads the bushes were bare and leafless. One day I was walking with Cousin Celia past a desolate thicket; I had been there alone a dozen times and thought the way an excessively uninteresting one, and remembered longingly the flowers and berries which hung so temptingly by that very roadside in spring and summer. Suddenly Cousin Celia plunged into the bushes, and pulling a branch toward her, said, "I do believe this is a cecropia." "O, let me see!" cried I, following and taking from her hand a twig bearing a brown bunch which I knew must be a cocoon, as we have a book full of pictures of such things at home. Celia said she would keep it in her room, and that soon a beautiful moth would come out of it. "Oh! I wish I had one too," said I. And then we searched till Cousin Celia found another. She knew a great deal about such things, and told me there were three or four different kinds of cocoons right there in our woods, and that we could find others on the alders by the brook. After that I explored every day for new treasures, and the bushes which before seemed so empty and desolate were like enchanted woods, where, at any moment, a sleeping beauty might be discovered lying in a warm, snug bed. The first cocoon I found was fastened to a straggling huckleberry-bush in the pasture; I have never found another so large. I carried it home and put it, with the twig it was attached to, over a picture in my room, |