Volume 18 — CHAPTER VI. MARRIAGE BELLS.

That green and sequestered domain which Mr. Schöninger had looked at across the water-lilies and peopled with his fancies, which, indeed, he had visited, and was perfectly familiar with, was not so far out of the world as it appeared. It was in a great triangle made by three railroads, and there was a station-house a mile back from the pond by which the tenants of the cottage held easy communication with the two cities near. Still, the place was not very accessible from without; for this mile of country road had been made by simply driving over pasture and field, and through alder-woods, till a track was visible, and then continuing to drive in the same track. After coming through the alder-swamp, the road became two yellow-brown lines across the greensward, and ended in a grove that completely hid the barn built in it. Between these two yellow-brown lines, at regular distances, were yellow-brown spots, showing where the horse had stepped. Dobbin appeared to always step precisely in his own tracks.

It was seldom that any one drove over this road except old Mr. Grey, whose horse and wagon were, after their kind, quite as old as himself. Mrs. Macon, zealously collecting useful articles for the new convent, had driven there in her light phaeton, and spent two hours rummaging the attics with Mrs. Grey, and talking over the relics they found; that is, Mrs. Grey explained, and her visitor listened. She had gone away with bundles piled up to her chin.

One afternoon late in August, Mr. Grey harnessed Dobbin to the wagon—"tackled" Dobbin, he would have said—and started for the railroad station. He had almost reached the alders, which seemed to bar the way, when he drew the reins and listened. If it had been Mrs. Grey, instead of her husband, she would have driven straight on, for she was perfectly deaf.

These alders leaned over, and, in summer, completely hid the road, and whatever went through there had to breast a tide of leaves. It had never occurred to Mr. Grey to cut the twigs away, nor, apparently, had it occurred to Dobbin to fret against them. They jogged on uncomplainingly, never in a hurry, and lived and let live. Mr. Grey's philosophy was that every person in the world is appointed to do just so much, and that, as soon as his work is accomplished, he dies. He preferred to do his part in a leisurely manner, and live the longer.

The sound he listened to was a faint noise of wheels and hoofs, in, or beyond, the alders. For two carriages to meet in that place would be a predicament more perplexing than that of the two unwise men and the two wise goats on the narrow bridge we have all read of; because here neither could turn back, nor walk over the other, and if one should be killed, still that would not clear the track. So the driver waited, his mouth slightly open, to hear the better, and the lash of his old-fashioned whip hanging motionless over his shoulder. The old white horse dropped his nose, and went to sleep, and the creaking and rattling wagon looked as if it had made its final stand, and meant to go to pieces where it was.

There was just sound enough to show how still it was. Some wild creature under a rude cage on the lawn snarled lowly to itself, there was the swift rustle of a bird's wings through the air, and the roll of a train of cars lessened to a bee's hum by distance. The pond was glassy, the rails shone hot beyond it; farther still the sultry woods heaved their billows of light and shade; and, farthest of all, over a little scooped-out valley, a single mountain stood on the horizon.

There was, indeed, a carriage among the alders, but by no means such an equipage as that which awaited it. It was like a fairy coach in comparison, with a glitter of varnish and metal, and snowy-white lining that shone like satin, and beautiful horses that pranced from side to side as they felt the soft, brushing leaves and twigs against their dainty coats, and pushing into their very eyes. The mice on the box wore glossy hats, and appeared to be very much disgusted with this trap into which they had fallen. To the birds overhead the whole must have looked like something swimming in a sea of green leaves.

The fairies in the coach were not fully visible from any point, but a clear voice rose presently from the submerged cushions. "There's a sufficient road underneath, John," it said. "Drive where you see the alder-tops lowest. There are no roots, if you keep the way. It is only overleaning branches."

In a few minutes they emerged, and drew up beside the wagon. Its occupant did not make the slightest reply to the bright salutation of the two ladies. It was not his custom to salute any one. He merely waited to see what would be said.

"O Mr. Grey!" says Annette, "if I had a pair of strong shears, I would cut a peep-hole, at least, through that jungle. Did you get my letter?"

He nodded, with a short "Yes," looking with calm scrutiny at the two young women.

"Well?" continued Miss Ferrier.

"Elizabeth is out on the pond," he said; "but the old woman will blow the horn for her. She'll show you the flowers; and you can have 'em all. I can put them aboard of any train you settle on."

There was a moment of silence; for Mr. Grey had condensed the whole business into a few words, and there was really no more to say. Annette had written him to save all his flowers for her wedding, and this was his answer.

"Are you going away?" she asked, rather needlessly.

"I'm going to meet the next up-train," he answered, and began to tug at his reins, and chirrup at Dobbin.

They left him making great efforts to get under way again, and drove noiselessly on.

"What a peculiarly condensed sort of man he is in his speech!" remarked Miss Pembroke.

"Condensed!" exclaimed the other. "His talk reminds me of some one whose head and limbs have been cut off. It takes me by surprise, and leaves me astonished. I always feel as if something ought to be done."

So one carriage creaked into the alders, and the other sparkled up to the house door.

This door stood open, and within it sat an old woman, her hands folded in her lap, her eyes looking out over the water. She had a placid face, and looked refined. A sweet, faint smile greeted her visitors, and her voice was sweet, and was very low, as the voices of some deaf persons are.

"Elizabeth has gone out on the water," she said. "I will call her."

"Don't rise!" exclaimed Annette quickly, preventing her. "I'll get the horn for you. I know where everything is here."

The old lady understood the action, though she had not heard the words, and sank back into her seat again.

"She feels for everybody's pain," she said gratefully, speaking to herself.

Annette tripped lightly across the sunny, silent room, and took down from a nail beside the chimney a large ox-horn suspended there. With simple politeness, the old lady obeyed her visitor's wish, and did not rise even when the horn was placed in her hand. She merely leaned forward, and, placing it to her lips, blew a loud and prolonged blast that sounded far over water and forest.

"That will bring her," she said, and gave back the rustic instrument for Annette to return to its place.

The two then strolled down to the water-side to wait for the lady of the lake. They seated themselves on a mossy rock close to the water, under the shade of the only tree left there. It was an old pine-tree, of which the main part was decayed, but one strong branch made a shade over them, and held firmly all its dark-green fasces in token of a sovereignty it would not abdicate while life remained. Beside the rock, in the warm sunshine, stood a group of Japan lilies.

"I don't like them," Annette said. "They are beautiful in their way, but they look cruel and detestable. They seem to me like a large pink and white woman who poisons people."

"My dear," said Miss Pembroke, as she bent her head over the flowers, "it would be well if you could contrive to shut the battery of those nerves of yours once in a while."

"It might be well if I could be changed into one like you," Annette responded; but immediately corrected herself. "No! And I do not believe that the most unfortunate and discontented person in the world would be willing to change his individuality with another. It is only his circumstances he would change, and be still himself, but at his best. Perhaps that is what will keep us contented in heaven, though we may see others far above us: each will be himself in perfection, with all the good in possession that he is capable of holding, and will see that he cannot be different without being some one else."

"Perhaps," said Honora dreamily.

It may be that she felt unconsciously a little of that superiority which the calm assume over the troubled, though the calm may be of the pool, and the trouble of the ocean, or both a mere question of temperament. She leaned over the lily, and examined the red clots on its petals; how they rose higher, and strained upward toward the centre, till by their passionate stress they drew up the milky flower substance into a stem to support them; as though they would reach the slender filaments that towered aloft over their heads. Two or three tiniest red spiders were picnicking on the fragrant white ground among these stems, and did not seem to even suspect the presence of a large black spider, with extravagantly long legs, which walked directly over the flower and them in two or three sextuple strides.

"The petal they stand on must seem to them a soft and snowy-white moss," drawled Miss Pembroke, half asleep with the heat and the silence. "I should think the perfume of it would be too strong for their little noses."

"Perhaps the particles of fragrance are too large for their little noses. Or, perhaps, they have no noses," responded Miss Ferrier, gravely.

A faint, responsive murmur of assent from the other.

Annette tossed twigs into the water, and watched the dimples they made, and which way they floated. "That is a wild fox up under that cage," she said. "It is cruel to keep it there. I shall free it when we go back."

"Perhaps Mr. Grey is going to stuff its skin, and may not like to lose it," Honora answered, having finished her examination of the lily. "I have heard that he is quite a naturalist, and has specimens of every animal, and insect, and plant about."

Annette tossed a pebble this time with energy. "I hate naturalists," she remarked. "I always fancy that they have bugs in their pockets."

"Bugs in their pockets! That would be uncomfortable," was the placid comment.

"For the bugs, yes!" said Annette; then, after a moment, added, "Whenever it is a question of tormenting what Lord Erskine called the 'mute creation,' I am always for the plaintiff. Who is to be profited by knowing about bugs and beetles? It is a contemptible science, and, I repeat, a cruel one. I never can like a woman or a man whom I have once seen sticking pins through beetles, and butterflies, and bats; and I would as lief have a human skull for an ornament in a room as a stuffed skin of anything. I shall set that fox free this instant. I observed it as I came past, and it looked like a person going crazy. Its eyes were like fire and there was froth round its teeth."

Miss Pembroke looked up in alarm, for Annette had risen. "Do be careful!" she said. "His bite would kill you. Don't you remember that Duke of Richmond who was bitten by a fox, in Canada, and died of hydrophobia a day to two afterwards? He was playing with it, and it snapped at his hand."

"I'm not going to play with it, but to free it," said Annette, and walked rapidly across the green. "I've found one fault in Honora," she muttered. "She is sweet and good to a certain length, but her sympathies are circumscribed."

The cage of strong withes was securely fastened to the ground with wooden pins, and the door was tied with a slender chain. The fox was furthermore secured by a rope which held one of his legs. He faced about and glared at his liberator, while, from the outside, she cut the rope with her pocket-knife. His eyes were like balls of fire, but he did not snap at her. He did not trust her, but he had perhaps a doubt that she meant him well.

The leg free, Annette slipped the knob of the chain, and opened the door.

"In honor of the Creator of men and beasts, and S. Francis of Assisi, go free now and for ever," she said.

The creature stood motionless one instant, then, with the rush and speed of an arrow, it shot through the opening, flew across the green, and leaped into the water, that hissed as though a red-hot coal had been dropped into it. Annette ran, laughing and full of excitement, back to the rock, and watched the swimmer. Only his nose and long tail showing, he made fiercely for the shore, his whole being concentrated in the one longing for freedom.

"If he should run into a cage on the other side, I believe his heart would burst with the disappointment," Annette said, standing up to watch him. "Bravo! There he is, my dear brother, the fox."

He leaped up the farther shore and over the track, and rushed headlong into the broad, free woods.

"Won't he have a story to tell!" said Annette, seating herself; "that is, if he ever stops running. You may depend on it, Honora, I shall be a great heroine among the foxes; and as years go by, and the story is passed down from generation to generation, I shall undergo a change in the picture. My hair will grow to be golden, with stars in it, and my eyes will be radiant, and they will put wings on me, and I shall be an angel. That's the way the myths and marvels were made. But how they will get over my sawing off the rope with a dull pen-knife is more than I can tell."

"The spirit will be true, dear, if not the letter," Honora answered, smiling. "What signifies a little inaccuracy in the material part? That will be turned to dust before the story reaches the winged period."

Miss Ferrier had something on her mind which she shrank a little from speaking of, but presently mentioned in that careless manner we assume when we care more than we like to own:

"I've been wondering lately whether it would be silly in me to have my genealogy looked up. It seems a little top-heavy to have one's family tree all leaves and no roots, though mine is not so in reality. My father and mother were both very poor and ignorant when I was born; but my great-grandfather was a French gentleman. He became poor in some way, and had no idea how to do anything for himself. I dare say he was very weak, but he was immensely genteel. He and his sons lived in a tumble-down old stone house somewhere near Quebec, and ate oatmeal porridge out of painted china bowls, with heavy spoons that had a crest on them. There they moaned away their existence in a state of resigned surprise at their circumstances, and of expectation that the riches that had taken to themselves wings would fly back again. There was one desperate one in the family, and he was my grandfather. He grew tired of shabby gentility, and set out to work. The others cast him off; and I suppose he wasn't very energetic, or very lucky, for he went down. He married a wife from the working class, and they had no end of children, who all died sooner or later, except my father. My grandfather died, too—was glad to get himself out of sight of the sun; and my poor father—God be merciful to him!—stumbled on through life in the same dazed way. All he inherited was the dull astonishment of that old Frenchman who could never be made to realize that riches would not some day come back as they had gone. Of course"—Annette shrugged her shoulders, and laughed slightly—"it would be necessary to drop some of the later details. That is the way people do. Build a bridge over the chasm into the shining part. Miss Pembroke, what do you think of my unearthing my great-grandfather, and setting him up in my parlors for people to admire? Wouldn't it be more interesting than a stuffed fox? I am of his ancestry"—her laughter died out in a flash of pride. "If they had any fire worthy their blood, I have it. Some spark was held in abeyance, and I have caught it. I would like to go back and search out my kindred. Well! do you think me vulgar?"

Honora looked at her earnestly. "No, Annette; but you are condescending too much. You are coming nearer to vulgarity than I ever knew you to before. Lineage is something, is much, and those who can look back on a noble and stainless ancestry are fortunate, if they are worthy of it. I do not wonder that they are pleased to remember their forefathers. But character is more, and does not need ancestry. It is sufficient to itself. What, after all, is the real advantage of belonging to a high family? It is that one is supposed to inherit from it high qualities. If one has the qualities without the family, it is far higher. It is the kind of character that founds great families—that natural, newly-given loftiness. I should be sorry if you allowed yourself to take a step in this matter, Annette."

"You can easily say all that," Annette replied, half pleased and half bitter. "You have a past that you can look to with pride."

"With pride!" echoed the other. "I do not understand you. If you mean Mrs. Carpenter, I certainly like to think of her; but her qualities were entirely personal. I have nothing to be ashamed of in my family, and I am thankful for that; but, also, I am not aware that there is anything to be proud of. It is a merely negative feeling."

"But," Annette said, "your people have always been well off, and some were very rich, and they were educated."

"And you think me capable of pluming myself on that—of being proud of an ancestry of prosperous traders and merchants who were passably educated!"

Honora flushed, and drew herself up involuntarily, with an awakening of that invincible personal haughtiness which is more soaring than any mere royalty of blood.

"I never give it a thought, except in a negative way. They merely did what decent people with ordinary sense and capacity are obliged to do. No, Annette, don't fancy that I can walk on such small stilts. If it were an old historical name, now, one that painters had illustrated and poets sung, that would be fine. If there had been great warriors and mighty rulers, there would be a chance for pride to come in. Or, better, if it were some hero or benefactor to the race, whom I could look back to; or if it were a poet. I always fancy some grace surrounds the children of a poet. They may not sing, they may be personally commonplace; but, like the broken vase,

"'The scent of the roses will hang round them still.'"

"I think you must be descended from a poet," Annette said, smiling.

"And so, child," concluded Honora, laying her hand on her companion's arm, "don't condescend to go into the past for some reason why you should be respected; find it in yourself. I think it right to tell you now what might otherwise sound like flattery. I, and many better judges than I, think you uncommon and admirable. You have made little mistakes—as who has not?—but they were never mean ones. Don't be led into pettiness now."

Annette blushed.

"What set me talking of ancestry?" she exclaimed. "It's a dusty subject, not fit for this fresh, clear place. It belongs to the town. How quiet and lovely it is here! I would like to come often. In the city, I can't hear myself think."

They sat a while without saying anything, and looked over the water. A shower was travelling across the distant mountain, trailing in a dim silver mist from sky to earth. It sailed nearer, so that drops from the edge of it dimpled the pond not far away.

A boat came toward them, propelled by a pair of strong arms. Elizabeth had heard her grandmother's summons, and was coming home. Her little boat was piled full of boughs of the wild cherry. Strings of its fruit, like strung garnets, glowed through the green leaves. With this was a tangled mass of clematis. She had hung a long spray of the vine over her head and neck, and its silvery-green blossoms glistened in the loose rings of her short, black hair, which it pushed over her forehead, and almost into the laughing eyes beneath. Through this vine, and the blouse that covered but did not hide them, the working of her supple shoulders could be seen. Her smooth, oval face was deeply flushed with health, exercise, and warmth.

She was perfectly business-like in her manner, and attended strictly to what she was doing. Even in passing before the young ladies, and looking directly in their faces, though her lips parted in a smile, she made no other sign of recognition. She brought her boat round in a smooth circle, not without pride, apparently, in displaying her skill, pushed it into a tiny cove, where the long, trailing grass brushed both sides, sprang lightly ashore, and tied it to the mooring-ring.

Then she made her half-embarrassed salutation, and stood wiping away the perspiration that lay in large drops on her forehead, and in little beads around her mouth.

If these three young women had been changed into flowers, the rower would have been a peony, Honora a lily, and Annette—but there is no flower complex and generous enough to be her representative. Be her symbol, rather, the familiar one of the orb just rounding into shape out of chaos. She was less well balanced than Honora, merely because there was so much more to balance. Her freak of searching out an ancestry would never have been acted on, even if her friend had approved it. It was one of those thoughts which need only to be put into words in order to be dismissed. Annette had rid herself of a good many foolish notions in this way, and had been growing wiser than her critics by the very acts which they took as proofs of her weakness.

Miss Pembroke had discovered this, for she looked lovingly. Others were astonished to find themselves awed to-day where they had mocked but yesterday, and professed that they knew Annette Ferrier only to be puzzled by her.

It sometimes happens to people that illusory thoughts and feelings, which, pent in the mind, have an appearance of reality, and even of force, perish in expressing themselves, as the cloud breaks in thunder.

There was another difference between these two: Annette had one of those souls that are born nailed to their cross.

It is usual with hasty and superficial judges, people who, as Liszt says, "desire to promulgate laws in spheres to which nature has denied them entrance," to show what they fancy is a good-natured contempt for these discontented beings who cannot accommodate themselves to life as it is. They mention them with an indulgent smile, and seem to take pleasure in wounding still further these sensitive souls, not aware how clearly they display their own presumptuous selfishness. The ease with which they content themselves with inferior aims and pleasures, they dignify by the name of philosophy and good sense; and they presume to censure those who, tormented by a vision of perfection, and feeling within themselves the premature stirring of powers that can be employed only in a higher state of existence, seem so imperfect only because to be perfect they must be superhumanly great. There are two ways in which this divine discontent may be silenced: the soul may degrade itself, and treat its ideals as visionary; or it may find rest in God. But no ordinary piety suffices; only a saintly holiness, flowing in and around the troubled soul like a sunny and peaceful sea, can lift and bear it smoothly on to that land where nothing sacred is mocked at, and the smiles are awakened by no sight of another's pain.

Annette Ferrier had made this much progress, that she had learned to rely on no one for a sympathy that would satisfy her, and had owned to herself that her heart required other and nobler aims and motives than those which had occupied her. She was half aware, or would have been, if the thought had not been rejected as treasonable, that if she were not already engaged to Lawrence Gerald, nothing would induce her to accept him as her future husband. But she had accepted him, and there was no longer room to doubt or to choose, or even to think of doubting or choosing. It lacked but a week to their wedding-day, and she was making her last preparations. What was worth doing at all was worth doing well, she thought, and resolved to make the occasion a festival one.

The three walked up the green together, Elizabeth between the two young ladies. Miss Pembroke stepped quite independently, her hands folded lightly together; Annette held by the end of the clematis wreath that still hung over the young girl's shoulders, and looked at her with a caressing smile.

"Did you buy the little writing-case we were speaking of when I was here last?" she asked.

"Well, not exactly," was the hesitating answer.

"Not exactly! That means that you have engaged it, or got one that does not suit, and must be exchanged."

Miss Ferrier had dropped the wreath, and was engaged in gathering up the cloud of pale blue muslin that flowed around and behind her, and did not observe the smile on the girl's face.

"No," said Elizabeth, gathering courage from her visitor's kindness. "You see, when I sat down and looked at the half-eagle you gave me, I thought it seemed a pity to go right off and spend it for a writing-case. I could have that, if I wanted to, so I didn't feel quite so anxious about it; and there were other things I wanted just as much. It would be nice to have a little clock in my room, and five dollars would buy one. So since I could have that, too, I felt easier about not having it. Then, I would like a larger looking-glass. Well, I kind of thought I had it, since I could buy it if I would. And I could get any one of the half a dozen other things I wanted, making about ten in all. But when I knew that I could have either whenever I chose, I didn't feel in a hurry to get anything; and I was so sure of each one that it seemed to me as if I had them all. So I just kept the five dollars; and while I keep it, it is as good as fifty to me. When I spend it, it will be only five dollars, and I shall want nine things dreadfully, and be sorry I hadn't bought one of them instead of what I did get."

Annette dropped her gathered-up skirts from her hands to throw her arms around the young rustic's neck, and kiss her astonished face.

"You dear little soul!" she cried, in an ecstasy, "how quickly you have found it out!"

Elizabeth blushed immensely, for she was not used to being kissed. "Found out what?" she asked.

"Why, that nothing in the world is very desirable except what you can't get."

"Oh!" The girl tossed her head back, and laughed ringingly. "I found that out as long ago as I used to cry for mince-pie to eat, and then cry with stomach-ache after I had eaten it. Grandfather used to tell me then that if there is anything in the world that we want so much we cry to get it, it will be sure to make us cry still more after we have it. I never forgot that. Grandfather knows a great deal about everything," she concluded, with an air of conviction.

"Did you ever see a creature learn so easily?" Annette said to Honora. "She begins life with all the wisdom of experience."

Honora sighed as she answered, "She reminds me of something dear Mother Chevreuse said the last time she came to see me: 'Nothing is worth working for but bread and heaven.'"

They had reached Mr. Grey's floral treasure-house by this time, and the flowers absorbed their attention.

"Bushels of asters!" exclaimed Annette, pausing outside the door, and glancing along the garden-beds. "And they are almost as handsome as roses. Those will do for the balconies and out-of-the-way places. And, Elizabeth, I want you to cherish every pansy as if it were a jewel. I don't care about the piebald ones, but the pure purple or pure gold are quite the thing. And now, Honora, step in here, and own that you never before saw fuchsias. You remember Edgar Poe's hill of tulips sloping to the water, like a cataract of gems flowing down from the sky? That Poetical creature! Well, here's a Niagara of lady's ear-drops."

When at length they had started, and were driving down to their alder-bath again, Honora leaned out of the carriage, and looked back.

"What a lovely place this would be to spend a honeymoon in!" she said softly, as if to herself.

"Which, yours or mine?" asked Annette.

Honora blushed. "I was thinking of honeymoons in the abstract," she replied.

Elizabeth stood on the lawn, and looked after the carriage as long as it was in sight; and when it was no longer in sight, she still gazed at the green wall that had closed up behind it. Perhaps she was thinking what a fine thing it must be to drive in a pretty carriage, and have gauzy dresses trailing away behind one like clouds; or may be she was recollecting what they had said to her, and how that delicate, airy lady had kissed her on the cheek, and laughed with tears in her eyes.

While she gazed, deeply occupied with whatever dream or thought she was entertaining, the alders parted again, and a man appeared, hesitating whether to come forward, yet looking at her as if he wished to speak. Elizabeth did not much like his looks, but she advanced a step to see what he wanted. No harm had ever come to her there, and she had no thought of fear. Besides, she would have considered herself perfectly well able to put this person to flight; for his slim, little figure and mean face were by no means calculated to inspire either fear or respect.

Encouraged by her advance, the man came forward to meet her.

"My grandfather will soon be home, if you want him," she said directly, holding aloof.

The stranger did not want to see him; he merely wished to ask some questions about the place which she could answer.

They were very trivial questions, but she answered them, keeping her eyes fixed intently on him. He wanted to know what they raised there; if it was very cold in winter; if it was very hot in summer; if they had many visitors there; if she was much acquainted in Crichton; if she had a piano; if she could play; if she knew any good music-teacher. And perhaps she had seen Mr. Schöninger?

No, she had not seen him.

"Oh! perhaps you have met him without knowing," the man said with animation, in spite of an assumed carelessness. "Seems to me I saw him come here this summer. Don't you remember a man whose buggy broke down beyond there, and he came here for a rope?"

The girl's eyes brightened. "Oh! is that a music-teacher?" she asked. "His voice sounds like it, or like what a music-teacher's ought to be. Yes, I remember him. He got on to the wrong road driving up to Crichton, turned off here instead of going straight on, and something broke. I gave him a rope, and he went away."

"Let me see; there was somebody else here at the same time, wasn't there?" he asked, with an air of trying to recollect. "Wasn't there a woman here getting things for the new convent?"

The disagreeable eagerness in her questioner's eyes chilled the girl; but there seemed no reason why she should not answer so insignificant a question. She did so reluctantly. "Yes, Mrs. Macon was here."

"And her carriage was standing at the door?" he added, nodding.

"Seems to me you're very much interested in our visitors," said Elizabeth abruptly, drawing herself up a little.

The man laughed. "Why, yes, in these two. But I won't ask you much more. Only tell me one thing. Did you see this Mr. Schöninger come up to the door, and go away from it?"

"I saw him come up, I didn't see him go away," she said.

The truth was that Miss Elizabeth had admired this stranger exceedingly, but had not wished him to suspect it. So instead of frankly looking after him as he went out, she had turned away, with an air of immense indifference, then rushed to the window to look when she thought him at a safe distance.

"Then you didn't see him when he passed by the phaeton that stood at the step?" pursued the questioner.

She shook her head, and pursed her lip out impatiently.

"He had a shawl over his arm when he came. Did you notice whether he had it when you saw him going away?" was the next question.

"I don't know anything about it," she said shortly; but recollected even in speaking that she had said to herself as she watched the strange gentleman going, "How does he hold his shawl so that I can't see it?"

"Now, one more question, and I have done," the stranger said. His weak, shuffling manner had quite disappeared, and he was keen and business-like. "Was there anybody else about the house who saw this man?"

"Yes; grandfather was in the garden; but he didn't come near him."

"What part of the garden? In sight of the door?"

"I won't tell you another word!" she exclaimed, turning away. "And I think you'd better go."

When she glanced back again, the man had disappeared. She felt uneasy and regretful. Something was going on which she did not understand, and it seemed to her that she had done harm in answering those questions.

"I wish I had gone into the house when I saw the prying creature," she said to herself; "or I wish I had held my tongue. He's got what he came for, I can see that."

He had got what he came for, or very nearly.

"Shall I waylay the old man, and question him?" he thought; and concluded not to. "If he knows anything, he will tell it at the proper time."

The green boughs brushed him with their tender leaves, as if they would have brushed away some cobwebs from his sight, and opened his eyes to the peace and charity of the woods; but he was too much absorbed in one ignoble pursuit to be accessible to gentler influences. What he sought was not to uphold the law; what he felt was not that charity to the many which sometimes makes severity to the few a necessity. His object was money, and charity lay dead in his heart with a coin over each eye.

That evening Miss Ferrier and Lawrence Gerald talked over their matrimonial affairs quite freely, and in the most business-like manner in the world. They discussed the ceremony, the guests, the breakfast, and the toilette, and Annette displayed her lace dress.

"It is frightfully costly," she owned; "but I had a purpose in making it so. I shall never wear it but once, and some day or other it will go to trim a priest's surplice. You see, I ordered the pattern to that end, as nearly as I could get it, and not have it made for me. There was no time for that. The ferns are neutral; but the wheat is perfect, you see, and that vine is quite like a grape-vine. I shall wear a tulle veil."

She threw the cloud of misty lace over her head.

"Why, Annette, it makes you look lovely!" Lawrence exclaimed.

"I am glad you think so," she responded dryly, and took it off again.

Lawrence was seated on a tabouret in Annette's own sitting-room, which no one else was allowed to enter during these last days of her maiden life. It had been newly furnished after her own improved taste, and the luxury and elegance of everything pleased him. He was still more pleased to see her so well in harmony with it. He was beginning to find her interesting, especially as he found her indifferent and a little commanding toward him.

"And now, Lawrence," she said, folding carefully the beautiful Alençon flounce, "you have some little preparation to make. You know you must be reconciled to the church."

"I have nothing against the church," he said coolly.

"The church has something against you, and it is a serious matter," she urged, refusing to smile. "You haven't been to confession for—how many years? Not a few, certainly. No priest will marry us till you go."

"I suppose a minister wouldn't do?" remarked the young man, with the greatest hardihood, seeming mildly doubtful about the question.

"Now, Lawrence, don't talk nonsense," Annette begged. "When one is going to be married, one feels a little sober."

"That's a fact!" he assented, with rather ungallant emphasis.

She colored faintly. Her gentle earnestness might have touched one less careless. "It is beginning a new life," she said; "and if it were not well begun, I'm afraid we should not be happy."

The young man straightened himself up, and gave his moustache an energetic twist with both hands—a way he had when impatient.

"Well, anything but a lecture, Ninon," he exclaimed. "I'll think the matter over, and see if I can rake up any transgressions. I dare say there are plenty."

"You will speak to F. Chevreuse about it?" she asked eagerly.

He nodded.

"And now sing me something," he said. "I haven't heard you sing for an age. Is there anything new?"

She seated herself at the exquisite little piano, well pleased to be asked. Here was one way in which she could delight him, for he grew more and more fond of her singing. Annette's was a graceful figure at the piano, and she had the gift of looking pretty while singing. Her delicate and expressive face reflected every light and shade in the songs she sang, and the music flowed from her lips with as little effort as a song from a bird.

"Here is 'The Sea's Answer,'" she said.

Lawrence settled himself into a high-backed chair. "Well, let us hear what the sea answered. Only it might be more intelligible if one first knew what the question was, and who the questioner, and why he didn't ask somebody else. There! go on."

Annette sang:

There was silence for a little while when the song ended; then Lawrence exclaimed, with irritation, "What sets people out to write such things? The whole world wants to be cheered and amused, and yet some writers seem to take delight in making everything as gloomy as they are. Why can't people keep their blues to themselves?"

The singer shrugged her shoulders. "You mistake, I think. I always fancy that melancholy writing proves a gay writer. Don't you know that school compositions are nearly always didactic and doleful? When I was fifteen years old, and as gay as a lark, I used to write jeremiads at school, and make myself and all the girls cry. I enjoyed it. When a subject is too sore, you don't touch it, and silence proves more than speech."

Lawrence kept the promise he had made, though he put its fulfilment off as long as possible. The morning before his wedding-day he was at early Mass, and, when Mass was over, went into F. Chevreuse's confessional. It would seem that he had not succeeded in "raking up" many transgressions, for ten minutes sufficed for the first confession he had made in fifteen years. But when he came out, his face was very pale, and he lingered in the church long after every one else had left. Glancing in from the sacristy, after his thanksgiving, F. Chevreuse saw him prostrate before the altar, with his lips pressed to the dusty step where many an humble communicant had knelt, and heard him repeat lowly, "Enter not into judgment with thy servant; for no one living shall be justified in thy sight."

The priest looked at him a moment with fatherly love and satisfaction, then softly withdrew.

The spiritual affairs of her future husband attended to, toilet, decoration, ceremony, reception, all planned and arranged by one brain and one pair of hands, Annette had still to school and persuade her mother to a proper behavior. She, the daughter, had conquered Crichton. They no longer laughed at nor criticised her, and were in a fair way to go to the opposite extreme, and regard her as an authority on all subjects. For the Crichtonians had the merit of believing that good can come out of Nazareth, and could become enthusiastic over what they conceived to be an original genius victoriously asserting its independence of a low origin and of discouraging circumstances.

But the mother was, and ever would be to them, a subject of quenchless mirth. Her sayings and doings, and the mortification she inflicted on her daughter, were an endless source of amusement to them.

"Now, do keep quiet this once, mamma," Annette begged pathetically. "You know I shall not be able to hover about and set people to rights when they quiz you. You will have to take care of yourself. Don't trust anybody, and don't quarrel with anybody."

For once the mother was disposed to yield entire obedience. She had begun to assume that mournful face which, according to Thackeray, all women seem to think appropriate at a wedding; and there was far more danger of her being inarticulate and sobbing than of her showing either pugilism or loquacity.

"I'm sure I sha'n't feel much like saying anything to anybody when I see my only daughter getting married before my eyes," she said reproachfully.

"Suppose you saw your only daughter growing into an old maid before your eyes, mamma," said Annette, laughing, and patting her mother on the shoulder. "Would you like that any better?"

"Well," Mrs. Ferrier sighed, "I suppose you may as well be married, now you've had the fuss of getting ready. All I care about is your happiness, though you may not believe it. I'm no scholar, and I know people laugh at me; but that doesn't prevent my having feelings. You deserve to be happy, Annette, for you have been a good child to me, and you were never ashamed of me, though you have tried hard to make me like other folks. I couldn't be anything but what I am; and when I have tried, I've only made a greater fool of myself than I was before. But for all that, I'm sorry I've been such a burden to you, and I'm grateful to you for standing by me."

This was Mrs. Ferrier's first confession of any sense of her own shortcomings, or of her daughter's trials on her account, and it touched Annette to the heart.

The outside world, that she had striven to please and win, faded away and grew distant. Here was one whom she could depend on, the only one on earth whom she could always be sure of. Whatever she might be, her mother could not be estranged from her, and could not have an interest entirely detached from hers.

"Don't talk of being grateful to me, mamma," she said tremulously. "I believe, after all, you were nearer right than I was; and I have far more reason to be ashamed of myself than of you. I have been straining every nerve to please people who care nothing for me, and to reach ends that were nothing when reached. It isn't worth the trouble. Still, it is easier to go on than to turn back, and we may as well take a little pains to keep what we have taken much pains to get. I'm sorry I undertook this miserable business of a show-wedding. It disgusts me. A quiet marriage would have been far better. But since it is undertaken, I want it to be a success of its kind."

"Oh! as to that," Mrs. Ferrier said, "I like the wedding. I don't like to see people get married behind the door, as if they were ashamed of themselves. You don't marry every day, and it may as well be something uncommon."

They were conversing more gently and confidentially than they had for a long time; and the mother appeared to greater advantage than ever before, more dignified, more quiet. Annette pushed a footstool to the sofa, and, sitting on it, leaned on her mother's lap.

"Still, I do not like a showy marriage," she said. "It may do for two young things who have parents and friends on both sides to take all the care, while they dream away the time, and have nothing to do or think of but imagine a beautiful future. For serious, thoughtful people, I think the less parade and staring and hurly-burly there is, the better. But then, that quiet way throws the two very much alone together, and obliges them to talk the matter over; and Lawrence and I would find it a bore. We are neither of us very sentimental."

She spoke gently enough, but there was a faint touch of bitterness in her voice that the mother's ear detected.

"I don't know why he shouldn't like to talk the matter over with you," she began, kindling to anger; but Annette stopped her.

"Now, mamma, there must be an end put to all this," she said firmly. "And since there is no other way, let me tell you the true story of my engagement. You seem to think that Lawrence was very anxious to get me, and that he has made a good bargain, and ought to be grateful. Well, perhaps a part of the last is true; but the first is not. I've got to humiliate myself to tell you; but you will never cease to reproach him unless I do." A burning blush suffused her face, and she shrank as if with a physical pain. "Lawrence knew perfectly well that I liked him before he ever paid the slightest attention to me; and when he began to follow me ever so little, I encouraged him in a manner that must have been almost coaxing. He knew that I was to be had for the asking. Of course, I wasn't aware of this, mamma. Girls do such things, like simpletons, and think nobody understands them; and perhaps they do not understand themselves. I am sure that Lawrence was certain of me before I had the least idea what my own feelings were. I knew I liked him, but I never thought how. I was too romantic to come down to realities. Of course, he had a contempt for me—he couldn't help it—though I didn't deserve it; for while he thought, I suppose, that I was trying to win him for my husband, I was only worshipping him as superior and beyond all other men. If girls could only know how plainly they show their feelings, or rather, if they would only restrain and deny their feelings a little, they would save themselves much contempt that they deserve, and much that they do not deserve. So you see, mamma, Lawrence might at any time, if you reproach him, turn and say that I was the one who sought him, and say what is half true, too. I didn't mean to, but I did it for all that. Now, of course, it is different, and he really wants to marry me. He is more anxious than I am, indeed. But the less said about the whole matter the better. When I think of it, I could throw myself into the fire."

"Well, well, dear, don't think about it, then," the mother urged soothingly, startled by the passion in Annette's face. "It doesn't make much difference who begins, so long as both are willing. And now, don't torment yourself any more, child. You're always breaking your heart because you have done something that isn't quite up to your own notions. And I tell you, Annette, I wouldn't exchange you for twenty Honora Pembrokes."

Annette leaned on her mother's bosom, and resigned herself with a feeling of sweet rest and comfort to be petted and caressed, without criticising either grammar or logic. How mean and harsh all such criticisms seemed to her when brought to check and chill a loving heart!

"Mamma," she whispered, after a while, "I almost wish that we were back in the little cabin again. I can just faintly remember your rocking me to sleep there, and it seems to me that I was happier then than ever since."

"Yes," Mrs. Ferrier sighed, "we were happier then than we are now; but we shouldn't be happy to go back to it. I should feel as if I were crawling head-foremost into a hole in the ground. We didn't know how happy we were then, and we don't know how happy we are now, I suppose. So let's make the best of it all."

The wedding proved to be, as the bride had desired, a success of its kind. The day was perfect, no mishap occurred, and everybody whom the family had not invited themselves as spectators. Policemen were needed to keep the way clear to the church door when the bridal party arrived, and the heavens seemed to rain flowers on them wherever they went.

Seeing Mr. Gerald bend his handsome head, and whisper smilingly to the bride, as they entered the church, sentimental folks fancied that he was making some very lover-like speech suitable to the occasion. But this is what he said: "Annette, we draw better than the giraffe. Why hadn't we thought to charge ten cents a head?"

Her eyes had been fixed on the lighted altar, just visible, and she did not look at him as she replied, "Lawrence, we are in the presence of God, and this is a sacrament. Make an act of contrition, or you will commit a sacrilege."

And then the music of the organ caught them up, and the rest was like a dream.

"How touching it is to see a young girl give herself away with such perfect confidence," remarked Mr. Sales, who was much impressed by the splendor of the bride.

"Give herself away!" growled Dr. Porson in return. "She is throwing herself away."

TO BE CONTINUED.

THE CATHEDRAL OF CHARTRES.

The story of the erection of the Cathedral of Chartres is an epic from beginning to end. Before it arose in the amplitude and majesty which the great epoch of Christian art knew how to bestow upon its works, nothing less was required than the greatest courage, the most indomitable perseverance, and a determination of will which no difficulties or reverses could turn from its purpose. The building of this cathedral was a struggle against fire and sword, against barbarians and the elements—a long conflict, which in the end left piety and devotion victorious.

No sooner was the era of persecution closed by the conversion of Constantine, A.D. 312, than a church was raised over the Druidic grotto, and thronged incessantly by the multitudes of pilgrims who came to venerate the sacred image. The wood covering the hill, no longer possessing, as formerly, any sacred character, was cut down, in order that the town might extend itself in that direction; and houses began forthwith to cluster round the foot of the temple, as if seeking the immediate protection of Mary.

Of this earliest structure it is impossible to give any description, as no account of it remains. It was in all probability a basilica resembling others of the period, built with much less splendor than solidity, and existed through several centuries until the year 850. Charles the Bald was then on the throne, and Frothold was Bishop of Chartres, being the forty-second prelate of that see. The times were very troubled. Charlemagne had years before gone to his glorious repose, leaving to his degenerate successors a sceptre too heavy for their feeble arms to wield—a vast empire without cohesion, and which, lacking the firm hand of a sagacious ruler, was already torn with dissensions. The incursions of the Northmen, invariably accompanied by fire and carnage, were continual upon the hapless kingdom of the Franks. Hasting, the Danish chieftain, laid siege to Chartres, which was at this epoch surrounded with strong and solid walls, and held out courageously, well knowing its fate should it fall into the hands of the barbarians. After spending some time in ineffectual endeavors to effect a breach, the wily Northman had recourse to craft, causing the bishop to be informed that he was ready, with all his followers, to accept the Christian faith, and humbly requesting admittance into the city. Scarcely had he entered, when he threw aside the mask; the bishop and most of the inhabitants were massacred, the church destroyed, and the city given up to the flames. This exploit was no sooner performed than rewarded as it deserved. Before the savage invaders had time to hasten back, laden with plunder, to their vessels, the Franks of the surrounding country fell upon them and slew them without quarter.

Soon the church and the city arose again from their ashes. The new sanctuary was but an humble erection. The people gave to God the best they could, but they were impoverished, and in that age of iron the arts had sunk to the lowest condition; moreover, another century had not elapsed before a similar disaster seemed about to befall the building.

In those barbarous ages, the sacking and burning of towns and the slaughter of their inhabitants were events always possible, often impending. In the year 911, Chartres was besieged by the fierce Norman chieftain, Rollo, at the head of a formidable army provided with powerful engines of war. The Dukes of France and Burgundy, with the Count of Poitiers, hastening to the succor of the city, gave battle outside its walls; but they were hard pressed, and to the anxious watchers on the ramparts seemed likely to be overborne by the foe. The bishop, Ganthelm or Gancelin, was not only a warrior in time of need, but was also full of devotion to Mary. In the heat of the combat, he put himself at the head of the Chartrians, taking with him the reliquary containing the greatest treasure of his church—the sacred tunic of Our Lady—and fell upon the invaders. This vigorous sortie was so successful that the Northmen were utterly defeated and with so great a slaughter that, according to the account of the monk Paul, the river was choked with their corpses.

The holy tunic just mentioned had been given to Charlemagne by the Emperor Nicephorus and the Empress Irene, who previously kept it at Constantinople, whither it had been brought from Ephesus in the year 460, in the reign of the Emperor Leo. Charlemagne, who meditated an Empire of the West, of which the capital should be Aix-la-Chapelle, had at first placed the relic in that city. His successors, being unable to carry out his designs, nevertheless recognized the importance of preserving so great a treasure to France, and Charles the Bald, removing it from Aix, presented it to the church of Chartres. The history of this double translation may be seen portrayed in the great window of the chapel of S. John Baptist; the archives of the cathedral and the Poem of the Miracles agreeing with these representations in their account of the facts, with regard to which the poet Maître Nicolas Gilles, writes:

But the effects of protection from on high are not such as to permit a people and its rulers to do evil with impunity. Some time afterwards, Thibault le Tricheur—i.e. the "sharper" or "cheat"—ce chevalier fel et enginous—"this dangerous and deep-skilled knight," as he is called in the chronicles of the time, who by some unknown means obtained possession of the county of Chartres, made an expedition against the town of Evreux, which he took by stratagem, and, going on from thence as far as Rouen, so utterly devastated the country that, in all the land through which he had passed, "there was not heard so much as the bark of a dog." During his absence, the Normans and Danes together laid siege to Chartres, which they took by assault, and again burnt the town, together with the church. Thibault, returning to find his son slain and his town in ruins, went mad with anger and grief.

Towards the close of the IXth century was a period of great calamities and sinister predictions. There was a general spirit of discouragement and gloom. Men said that the end of the world was approaching, for the year one thousand was close at hand. They built no more churches; for to what purpose would it be? Still, Our Lady must not surely be left without her sanctuary at Chartres, nor could the people themselves dispense with it; they set to work, therefore, and the destroyed building was speedily replaced by a new one; yet, as they had no hope of its long continuance, wood had a larger place in its construction than stone. A few years later, however, when the unchecked course of time had belied the prophecies of popular credulity, it seemed as if Heaven itself willed to teach the Chartrians that God and their blessed Patroness must be more worthily honored; for in the year 1020, under the episcopate of Fulbert, on the Feast of the Assumption according to some, on Christmas Day according to others, the church was struck by lightning, and wholly consumed.

Bp. Fulbert was a holy man, and also a man of intelligence and courage. He felt that God had given him a mission. Amid the smoking ruins of his episcopal church, he laid the foundations of a noble structure which should be fitted to brave the injuries of time, and not be liable, like the former ones, to the danger of conflagration. In order to carry out his design, Fulbert needed treasure. He at once devoted all his own fortune to the work, and then appealed to his clergy, who imposed on themselves great sacrifices to satisfy their generosity; the people of his diocese also aiding eagerly with their contributions. Not satisfied with all this, he addressed himself to the princes and nobles of France, and especially to King Robert, who has been called the father of religious architecture, and who could not fail to take a lively interest in the erection of a sanctuary to Our Lady of France. The princes of the whole Christian world were in like manner invited to assist in the undertaking, and the King of Denmark in particular signalized himself by his munificence.

Gifts arriving from all parts, Fulbert was enabled to commence the works, as he had desired, on very large proportions, and to push them forward with so much activity that in less than two years the crypt was finished—this crypt which is probably the largest and finest in the world, and which is still admired as a marvel of the architecture of the XIth century. This sanctuary of Notre Dame de Dessoubs-terre, or "Our Lady of Underground," more worthy than any which had preceded it of the Druidic Virgin, was then opened to receive, through long centuries, successive generations of the faithful. Nevertheless, this was but the root of the majestic tree which was to rise and expand above this favored spot. Fulbert devoted the remaining years of his life to the work, so that when he died, in 1029, it had made great progress; and, being continued with equal energy by Thierry, his successor, was considered sufficiently advanced to be consecrated in 1037, although still requiring much for its completion.

After the death of Thierry came a period of marked relaxation in activity. Several bishops in succession made no progress in the erection. S. Yves, one of the most illustrious prelates who ever filled the episcopal throne of Chartres, confined himself principally to the interior adornment of the cathedral. Munificent gifts from Maude, Queen of England, enabled him to replace the ancient and already dilapidated roof by one of lead. A new impetus being given to the undertaking, in 1115 were laid the foundation of the two spires, so remarkable and so well known to the world. In 1145, the works were in full activity, and it was wonderful, observes Haymond, Abbot of S. Pierre sur Dive, to see with what ardor, perseverance, and piety the people set to work to bring about the completion of their church. "What a marvellous spectacle!" he writes. "There one sees powerful men, proud of their birth and of their wealth, accustomed to a life of ease and pleasure, harnessing themselves to the shafts of a cart, and dragging along stones, lime, wood, and all the materials necessary for the construction of the sacred edifice. Sometimes it befalls that as many as a thousand persons, men and women, are harnessed to the same wagon, so heavy is the load; and yet so great a silence prevails that there is not heard the faintest murmur."

It was chiefly during the summer season that these labors were carried on. At night, tapers were lighted and set on the wagons, while the workers watched around the church, singing hymns and canticles. Thus it was at Chartres that the custom, afterwards so prevalent, began of the laborers assembling together to pass the night as well as the day near the building in course of erection.

The old spire being at last completed, and the new one reaching to the height of the roofs, in 1194 another fire broke out, the cause of which was unknown. It had seemed as if a strange fatality pursued the pious undertaking, were not every event providentially permitted or arranged. The faithful of those days so understood this fresh catastrophe, acknowledging that it was the chastisement of Heaven for those sins from which, in spite of their zeal, the toilers in this work had not always kept themselves free. It is easy to comprehend that, notwithstanding all precautions, these large and prolonged assemblages could not have been without great dangers. Some considered the disaster as a manifestation of the divine will that the work was not carried on to a sufficient degree of perfection; while others again regarded it as an effect of the jealous hatred of the arch-enemy, and, according to the historian Mezeray, declared that demons, under the form of ravens, had been seen flying over the cathedral, with red-hot embers in their beaks, which they let fall upon the sacred edifice. This time the destruction was immense. Nothing was saved but the crypt and the two spires, with the connecting masonry forming the western portal. The latter, not having as yet been joined to the main building, were unharmed by the flames.

Historians of the XVIth century and later do not mention this fire, and suppose the edifice which at present exists to be almost entirely the work commenced by Bp. Fulbert—an error only to be accounted for by the most complete ignorance of the laws of ecclesiastical architecture. Contemporary writers, as, for instance, William le Breton and Rigord, monk of S. Denis, as well as Robert of Auxerre, who adds that a portion of the town was also consumed, are unanimous as to the date and principal particulars of the disaster.

Melchior, the legate of Pope Celestine III., was at Chartres at the time of its occurrence, and it was he who revived and sustained the spirit of the people, overwhelmed as they were at first by their calamity. Assembling them around the ruins of their church, he did his utmost to console and cheer them, winning from them the promise to raise a cathedral which should not have its equal in the world, and which should be built entirely of stone, so as to render its destruction by fire impossible.

The impulse was easily given. At the conclusion of the legate's stirring address, the bishop, Regnault de Mouçon, and all the canons of the cathedral, gave up their revenues for the space of three years towards the expenses of the building, as may be seen in the Poème des Miracles of Jehan le Marchant; Philip Augustus adding his offerings to those of the clergy with a royal liberality. The towns-people, also, considering that their misfortune was not so great by far as it might have been, seeing that the reliquary containing the sacred tunic of Our Lady was saved, thanks to the devotion of certain courageous men, who bore it from the burning church into a place of safety, felt bound to show their gratitude by depriving themselves of part of their possessions in favor of the work.

A powerful and irresistible current of devotion seemed in those days to carry along with it the hearts of men; and the enthusiasm of the Crusades having been chilled by reverses, the religious sentiment of the people found its outlet in another channel—raising sanctuaries of which the magnificence should be a marvel to succeeding ages.

Moreover, it must not be forgotten that, in those ages of faith and fervor, the fabulous sums which would be required in our days for similar erections were not necessary, even taking into account all proportions with regard to the respective value of money. The time had not then arrived for none but master-masons, working for ready money only, and of that a free supply; they who had nothing but their strength and good-will cheerfully gave the alms of their toil, thus sharing equally with the rich and great in forwarding the enterprise. Everywhere architects arose, ready to translate into stone the religious thoughts and aspirations of the time, which was not a period of popular enthusiasm only, but that in which Christian art was rapidly expanding into its most remarkable development, and replacing the heavy and massive edifices of the Romano-Byzantine style by those possessing a boldness, freedom, and splendid gracefulness hitherto unknown.

Where was found the marvellous genius capable of conceiving and executing the plan of the Cathedral of Chartres?—this man who, careless of human fame, and careful only to work for God, has left no record of his name, and is called by Jehan le Marchant simply li mestre de l'œuvre.

The "master of the work" for three years wrought with incredible ardor. The idea had sprung from his mind complete, and he longed to see it realized in its colossal harmony. It is only in the crypt, in the old spire, and in the western portal, spared by the fire of 1194, that the ancient style is to be recognized; everywhere else the art of the XIIIth century triumphs, and we behold the poem of stone as it was hewn out in the first purity of its beauty.

At the end of three years resources failed, and the work could not go on. "Then," says the poet Jehan, with all the simplicity of a mediæval chronicler—"then the Holy Virgin prayed her divine Son to work fresh miracles in her Cathedral of Chartres, in order that the increase of alms and offerings might be such as to secure its completion:"

Miracles, which in this place had at all times been numerous and remarkable, and which we might cite by thousands, are said to have now greatly multiplied. Those which at that period excited the enthusiasm and gratitude of the people to the highest degree were the cures of a terrible malady very common in the middle ages, and known by the name of the "burning sickness." The unfortunate persons who were attacked by it, besides being consumed by fever, suffered internally as if from torture by fire, while outwardly their bodies were covered with frightful ulcers, of which the pain was intolerable. The victims of this malady came from all parts for relief and healing to Our Lady of Chartres. According to Jehan le Marchant and other contemporary writers, the disease never failed to disappear, either during or immediately after the novena which it was customary for each sufferer to make in the church.

This increase of favors revived the ardor of the faithful. Gifts and thank-offerings were made in great abundance, and the building of the church went on, with what vigor may be gathered from the fact that, in little more than twenty years afterwards, the cathedral was built and covered with what William le Breton calls its merveilleuse et miraculeuse roof of stone. It is in the year 1220 that he writes: "Entirely rebuilt anew in hewn stone, and completed by a vaulted roof like the shell of a tortoise, the cathedral has no more to fear from fire before the day of judgment."

The new tower received a spire like that of the old, excepting that it was constructed of wood and lead, and destined to perish in the very partial fire of 1506, to be replaced by the beautiful and delicately sculptured steeple of the XVIth century, still so greatly admired. The porches were finished,[81] as well as the sculptures, in their finest details, and the windows put in. On the 17th of October, in the year 1260, the edifice was complete, and on this occasion the Bishop of Chartres, Pierre de Maincy, seventy-fifth successor of S. Aventine, solemnly consecrated his cathedral, in presence of the king, S. Louis.

Description, however picturesque, is utterly inadequate to convey a worthy image or idea of a Gothic cathedral in all the mysterious fulness, richness, and variety of its details. Chartres must be seen, must have received many quiet hours of contemplation, before its magnificences will have shown to what heights Christian art was raised by Christian devotion in those early centuries of enthusiasm and of faith.

And yet we cannot leave the reader at the threshold without inviting him to glance with us rapidly, and therefore most imperfectly, within.

How grand is the perspective which opens upon the view, when, looking from the "Royal Gate" towards the sanctuary, the eye takes in this triple nave, with its forest of pillars, amongst which fall, in rich and softened splendor, warm rays of light and color from the higher windows! All the dimensions are on a scale of grandeur. In its elevation, the cathedral is divided into three parts, the idea of the Blessed Trinity ruling this arrangement. The arcades, springing from the ground, form the first line, under the triforium, which forms the second, while above this rises the third height, containing the clerestory windows, which are lofty, double lancets, each surmounted by a rose. The lower walls are pierced by simple lancets of very large size. To the right and left of the nave are aisles without side chapels; but in the double aisle which is carried round the choir are seven apsidal chapels, of which the centre one, dedicated to Our Lady, is the most important. The pillars of the nave are massive in their proportions, to bear the weight of the lofty superstructure. There are sixteen circular or octagon pillars round the choir, with well-sculptured capitals; and in the centre of the transept rise four colossal pillars, around which cluster a number of smaller ones, which are carried up to the spring of the roof. The latter was the most beautiful in the world, and was called the Forest, being constructed of fine chestnut-wood, which time colors with a sort of golden hue, and which attracts neither dust nor spiders. The roof of St. Stephen's Hall at Westminster gives a good idea of what this must have been, with its exquisite fan tracery and graceful pendants, until, on the fourth of June, 1836, the whole was destroyed by fire. The iron roof by which it has been replaced, though excellent in its kind, is far from approaching the worth and beauty of the ancient Forêt.

The church is paved throughout with large slabs of stone, not one of which is a grave-stone, as would be the case in almost every other cathedral, under the pavement of which are buried numbers of ecclesiastics and other persons; but this is virgin earth, wherein no sepulture has ever taken place. We give the reason in the words of Sebastian Rouillard: "The said church has this pre-eminence as being the couch or resting-place of the Blessed Virgin, and in token thereof has been even until this day preserved pure, clean, and entire, without having ever been dug or opened for any burial."

The choir is the largest in France, and one of the most splendid in existence, notwithstanding the unfortunate zeal of the chapter in the year 1703 to alter and disfigure its mediæval beauties according to their own ideas, which appear to have been warped to the lowest degeneracy of "Renaissance." Happily, however, the prodigious expense to which they put themselves resulted in but a partial realization of their plan, in which ancient carving and mural frescos were swept away to give place to gilding and stucco, marble and new paint, to say nothing of kicking cherubs and arabesques gone mad. It was at this time that the groups representing the annunciation of Our Lady and Our Saviour's baptism were placed at the entrance of the choir, which, even if they were the work of a more skilful hand, instead of being that of a very mediocre artist, would yet be out of harmony with the church; and the same may be said of the group, in Carrara marble, of the Assumption, which rises behind the high altar, and which is the work of the celebrated Bridan, who finished it in 1773.

When, two centuries before, the choir was still without enclosure, the XVIth century provided for it one of the rarest specimens of late Gothic art ever seen. Jehan de Beauce, who had been charged with the building of the new spire, was chosen to make the designs and direct the work; and though he died whilst it was still unfinished, his plan was carefully carried to its completion. In this marvel of conscientious labor there are forty groups, each containing numerous figures, nearly the size of nature, representing the Legend of Mary and the principal events in the life of Our Lord. Around these groups cluster pillars and arches, turrets, crocketed spires, everything that can help to give them, as it were, a framing and background as full and elaborate as possible, while all sorts of odd and Lilliputian creatures are playing in and out of the pediments, or clinging to the columns in the most capricious and fantastic manner. Besides these forty principal subjects, the enclosure is further enriched with thirty-five medallions, the first of which represents the siege of Chartres by Rollo, followed by subjects from the Holy Scriptures, and then, strange to say, by others taken from heathen mythology! The pagan spirit of the Renaissance was already daring to invade the sanctuaries of the Catholic faith.

Before proceeding to mention other architectural details, two of the especial treasures of the cathedral require some further notice. Besides the Druidic Virgin, of which we have already given the history, and whose chapel has, since the Revolution, been carefully restored, as well as the twelve other subterranean chapels of this marvellous crypt, there is in the upper church another statue, almost equally venerated, which dates from the first years of the XVIth century, and is called "Our Lady of the Pillar," from the columnar pedestal on which it rests. This figure is enthroned, and adorned with gold and painting of good execution, as far as may be seen under the abundant vestments of lace, silk, and gold with which the loving piety of pilgrims, greater in devotion than good taste, delights to load this statue, of which the dark but beautiful face has an expression of great sweetness and benignity, as well as that of the divine Child, whose right hand is raised in benediction, while his left rests upon the globe of the world.

It was to this venerable image of Notre Dame du Pilier that the Sovereign Pontiff, Pius IX., granted the signal favor of a solemn coronation, which took place on the last day of the month of May, 1855, in the presence of seven prelates and a concourse of clergy and people so immense that the church could not contain the multitudes. The dogma of the Immaculate Conception had just been promulgated, and a special jubilee in honor of Our Lady of Chartres had been granted by the Holy Father, and the whole city was in a state of indescribable joy.

With regard to the vestment of Our Blessed Lady, to which allusion has so frequently been made, and which appears to be of indisputable authenticity, we will give the remainder of its history up to the present time. When this was presented to the cathedral by Charles the Bald, it was enclosed in a chest of cedar-wood covered with gold. The veneration with which the precious relic was regarded did not allow of the chest being opened without necessity, and its form was naturally supposed to be that of a tunic or undergarment. Numbers were made after the imaginary pattern, and, after being laid upon the reliquary, were greatly valued as pledges of Our Lady's protection, especially by those about to become mothers. As to one detail, however, everybody was mistaken, the vestment not being by any means of the form supposed. This was for the first time discovered in 1712, when, by order of the bishop, Mgr. de Merinville, the coffer, which was falling to pieces from extreme age, was opened with the most extraordinary care and precautions. A kind of gauze, embroidered with silk and gold, enveloped the sacred relic, which proved to be a veil of great length, woven of linen and silk. It was then, in presence of Mgr. de Merinville and other witnesses, enclosed in a chest of silver, and placed again in the ancient reliquary, which had been strengthened and repaired. This, being most richly ornamented with precious stones, was, in December, 1793, carried off by the men of the Revolution, who took the relic to Paris, and submitted it to be examined by the members of the Institute, without giving them any information respecting it, and anticipating from their verdict a triumphant proof of its being nothing more than a cheat and deception of "the priests." It was with less satisfaction, therefore, than surprise that they were informed by the learned members that, "although they found it impossible to give the exact age of the fabric, it was evidently of very great antiquity, and the material was identical with that of the long, folding veils anciently worn by women in the East." Owing merely to this character of remote antiquity, it was allowed a place among the curiosities of a museum. When the Reign of Terror was over, certain pious persons obtained possession of it, but had the want of judgment to divide it, giving larger or smaller portions to different churches and individuals. In 1820, Mgr. de Lubersac succeeded in collecting several of these portions, and, after having had them carefully authenticated, he placed them in a reliquary of coral, which has since, by Mgr. Clausel de Montals, been replaced by one of greater richness, so arranged as to allow the precious relic to be visible.

We must, before taking leave of the cathedral, bestow at least a passing glance upon its glorious windows. Here and there one has been broken by revolutionary or other anti-religionists, one or two others have had a deep-toned color clumsily replaced by one of brighter hue by certain of the aforesaid XVIIIth century canons, who required more light to read their office; but, on the whole, they are in admirable preservation. We can linger but to read some few of the characters of this vast book of light, which is justly called by the Council of Arras "The Bible of the laity"; for months would be insufficient to decipher its glowing pages.

There are one hundred and thirty-five large windows, three immense roses, thirty-five roses of a middle size, and twelve small ones. These are almost all of the date of the XIIIth century, and are the gifts of kings, nobles, ecclesiastics, burgesses, and workmen of every trade, as may be seen in each window, which usually contains a kneeling figure of the donor. The great roses are marvellous in their splendor. That of the north transept, which, from being the gift of S. Louis, is called the Rose of France, represents the glorification of the Blessed Virgin, who occupies the centre, bearing in her arms her divine Son. The five great windows beneath the rose make the complement of the subject. In the centre is S. Anne, with Our Lady as an infant. On the right and left stand Melchisedech and Aaron, types of our Lord's priesthood; David and Solomon, the types of his royalty.

The southern rose was given by the Count of Dreux, and has for its subject the glorification of our Lord, which is also that of the sculpture over the western entrance. In the centre window of the five below is the infant Saviour in the arms of his Mother, while to the right and left are the four greater prophets, bearing on their shoulders the four Evangelists, to symbolize the support which the New Law receives from the Old. The western rose represents the Last Judgment. The three splendid windows beneath it are more ancient than the rest, and are said by those who are learned in stained glass to date from the XIIth century at the latest. One of these is the far-famed "Jesse Window," in which the tree of Jesse bears among the verdure of its branches the royal ancestors of Our Lord; the second represents scenes from his life, and the third those of his passion and death; while above appears the resplendent figure of Mary, known by the name of Notre Dame de la Belle Verriere, and justly celebrated for its admirable beauty. In the seven great windows of the apse, Mary is still the centre. In those of the choir occur amongst others the figures of S. Louis, S. Ferdinand of Castile, Amaury IV., Count of Montfort, and Simon de Montfort, his brother. The lower windows are filled with scenes from the Holy Bible and the Golden Legend, and contain a great number of figures of small size, while the higher ones are principally occupied by grand and separate figures of prophets, apostles, and saints.

Standing in the middle of the transept, one sees the extremities darkened by the great masses of the porches, but above them shine the great roses, whose rainbow hues play upon the entrance of the choir; the aisles and chapels are softened by that sort of half-luminous obscurity in which we find ourselves on entering the church; but the shadows flee more and more before the light, which, ever increasing, streams down in torrents as we approach the centre of the cross, making the sanctuary resplendent with emerald and ruby rays. And this marvellous picture has ever-changing aspects, beauties ever new, according to the hour of the day, the brightness of the sun, and the season of the year. Reader, when in propriâ personâ you make your pilgrimage to Notre Dame de Chartres, you will feel how poor and how inadequate has our description been, and, with the Presence that is ever there, will own that it is heaven in all but the locality.

We will conclude our sketch with a few historical notices of interest, without which it would be incomplete.

Although we have lived to see occasionally something approaching to a renewal of the ancient throngs of pilgrims, and notably so on the last 27th-30th of May, when a multitude of more than sixty thousand persons, including twelve prelates, besides six hundred other ecclesiastics, two generals, one hundred and fifty officers, and one hundred and forty members of the National Assembly, went from Paris and various parts of France on a pilgrimage to Chartres, still this does not recall the continuous concourse of former days, when it often happened that the town was not large enough to contain the crowds of strangers, so that on the eve of certain festivals it was necessary to allow great numbers of them to remain all night for shelter in the church itself. The parvis of the cathedral, which slopes downwards from the choir to the western door, rendered easy the cleansing process which followed in the early morning, when floods of water were thrown upon the pavement.

This eager devotion of the common people has in it something more touching even than the innumerable visits of the rich and great to this chosen shrine. In the course of the XIIth century, Chartres numbered among its pilgrims no less than three popes and five kings of France; Philip Augustus being accompanied by his queen, Isabella of Hainault, who came to ask Our Lady's intercession that she might have a son. Whereupon, says William le Breton, even whilst the queen was making her prayer, the candles upon the high altar suddenly lighted of themselves, as if in token that her request was granted, and which accordingly came to pass.

Before the completion of the church, it had been visited by two princesses greater for their sanctity than for their rank—namely, Blanche of Castile, the mother of S. Louis, and the gentle and pious Isabelle, her sister. They were followed not long afterwards by the holy monarch himself, who, on his first visit, was accompanied by Henry III., of England, and on his second, in 1260, was present at the consecration. Philip the Fair, who attributed his success at the battle of Mons en Puelle entirely to the protection of Mary, came thither to do her homage by offering the armor he had worn in the combat; and in like manner Philip of Valois, after the victory of Cassel, gave to the church of Chartres his charger and his arms. And when the times darkened over France, and her king, John the Good, was the prisoner of Edward III., the latter refused to listen to the entreaties of the Dauphin and the Papal legate that he would grant peace on reasonable terms, although "the Father of Christendom had again and again with his own hand written letters to the English king, calling on him to 'forbear from the slaughter of souls redeemed by the Blood of Christ'"; success had made him relentless, and, leading on his victorious army, he laid siege to Chartres. We learn from Froissart, among other chroniclers, how Our Lady signalized her power, not only in saving the city, but in leading, humble and submissive, the lion of England to her feet: "For there befell to the King of England and all his men a great miracle: a storm and thunder so great and horrible came down from heaven on the English host that it seemed as if the end of the world were come; for there fell down stones so great that they killed men and horses, and so that even the boldest trembled."[82] ... "Thereupon the King of England, leaping down from his saddle, and stretching out his arms towards the church of Our Lady at Chartres, devoutly vowed and promised to her that he would no longer refuse to grant peace upon any terms consistent with his honor." When, therefore, he entered the city, it was not as a warrior, but as a pilgrim; for he repaired at once to the cathedral, in company with the Prince of Wales, the Duke of Lancaster, and many other English knights, and shortly afterwards signed the Peace of Bretigny.

Charles V., having revived the glory of the French arms, was not unmindful of his gratitude to Our Lady of Chartres, to whom on two occasions he made a pilgrimage barefoot, prostrating himself before the sacred image; "considering," as he declares in his letters-patent, "the splendid, great, and notable miracles which our Lord God works day by day in the said church," and praying for the peace and prosperity of his kingdom.

One other fact connected with the kings of France ought not to be omitted—namely, the sacring of Henri IV., which, instead of taking place at Rheims, according to, we believe, invariable precedent, was, by his own special desire, solemnized in the church of Our Lady of France at Chartres, when he made, as it were, a second abjuration by thus publicly declaring himself to be henceforth a devoted client of the Blessed Virgin. "Thus," observes the Abbé Hamon, Curé of S. Sulpice, "Protestantism, which had flattered itself with the hope of mounting on the throne of France, was broken at the feet of Our Lady of Chartres, where also paganism had expired before it in the defeat and subsequent conversion of Rollo."

Were we to attempt to name the saints who have gone as pilgrims to Chartres, from S. Anselm and S. Thomas à Becket to S. Francis de Sales, S. Vincent de Paul, M. Olier, and the Blessed B. Labré, the enumeration would be endless; and though it would require, not pages, but volumes, to recount the favors obtained by the intercession of the Blessed Virgin for her city, we cannot refrain from selecting a few well-authenticated historical facts in addition to those already mentioned.

In the year 1137, Louis le Gros, having great cause of displeasure against Thibault, Count of Chartres, resolved to chastise him in a signal manner, and advanced against his city, with the resolution to raze it to the ground. The inhabitants were in the utmost terror and distress, knowing their helplessness before the power of the irritated monarch. The bishop, Geoffrey de Lieues, causing the reliquary containing Our Lady's tunic to be taken from the church, carried it in procession with his clergy and people outside the gates, and advanced to the royal tent. At this sight, the anger of the king subsided. He fell on his knees before the sacred relic, which he then devoutly followed, entering alone into the city, not to destroy it, but to grant it special privileges.

More than four centuries later, in 1568, Chartres was besieged by the Huguenots under Condé. They opened a heavy fire against the Porte Drouaire, above which gate the Chartrians placed an image of the Blessed Virgin. This greatly excited their fury, and their utmost endeavors were used to shoot it down. But the sacred image remained untouched, though every stone near it was shattered. The rampart was nevertheless so far weakened as to be unable longer to stand against the powerful artillery. A large breach was opened, towards which the besiegers crowded, that they might carry fire and desolation into the city. But while the defenders believed that all was lost, the whole of the population not in arms was praying in the cathedral. In the very moment of their success, the enemy lost courage; the trumpets sounded a retreat, and the Huguenot army left the city, never to return. It was in memory of this signal deliverance that a chapel was raised between the Porte Drouaire and the river Eure, dedicated to "Our Lady of the Breach," and which, after being destroyed in 1789, was in 1844 rebuilt.