the three beings before him, and then, in tones of secrecy, thus addressed the priest :

"Father, I am come to entreat you to celebrate a mortuary mass for the repose of the soul of―of a-of a person whose life the laws once held sacred, but whose corpse will never rest in holy ground."

An involuntary shudder seized the priest, as he guessed the hidden meaning in these words. The nuns, unable to imagine what person was indicated by the stranger, looked on him with equal curiosity and alarm.

"Your wish shall be granted," said the priest, in low, awe-struck tones. "Return to this place at midnight, and you will find me ready to celebrate the only funeral service which the church can offer in expiation of the crime to which I understand you to allude."

The stranger trembled violently for a moment, then composed himself, respectfully saluted the priest and the two nuns, and departed without uttering a word.

About two hours afterwards, a soft knock at the outer door announced the mysterious visitor's return. He was admitted by Sister Agatha, who conducted him into the second apartment of their modest retreat, where everything had been prepared for the midnight mass. Near the fire-place the nuns had placed their old chest of drawers, the clumsy workmanship of which was concealed under a rich altar-cloth of green velvet. A large crucifix, formed of ivory and ebony, was hung against the bare plaster wall. Four small tapers, fixed by sealing-wax on the temporary altar, threw a faint and mysterious gleam over the crucifix, but hardly penetrated to any other part of the walls of the room. Thus almost exclusively confined to the sacred objects immediately above and around it, the glow from the tapers looked like a light falling from heaven itself on that unadorned and unpretending altar. The floor of the room was damp. The miserable roof, sloping on either side, was pierced with rents, through which the cold night air penetrated into the rooms. Nothing could be less magnificent, and yet nothing could be more truly solemn than the manner in which the preliminaries of the funeral ceremony had been arranged. A deep, dread silence, through which the slightest noise in the street could be heard, added to the dreary grandeur of the midnight scene--a grandeur majestically expressed by the contrast between the homeliness of the temporary church, and the solemnity of the service to which it was now devoted. On each side of the altar, the two aged women kneeling on the tiled floor, unmindful of its deadly dampness, were praying in concert with the priest, who, clothed in his sacerdotal robes, raised on high a golden chalice, adorned with precious stones, the most sacred of the few relics saved from the pillage of the Carmelite Convent.

The stranger, approaching after an interval, knelt reverently between the two nuns. As he looked up towards the crucifix, he saw, for the first time, that a piece of black crape was attached to it. On beholding this simple sign of mourning, terrible recollections appeared to be awakened within him; the big drops of agony started thick and fast on his massive brow.

Gradually, as the four actors in this solemn scene still fervently prayed together, their souls began to sympathize the one with the other, blending in one common feeling of religious awe. Awful, in truth, was the service in which they were now secretly engaged! Beneath that

mouldering roof, those four Christians were then interceding with Heaven for the soul of a martyred King of France; performing, at the peril of their lives, in those days of anarchy and terror, a funeral service for that hapless Louis the Sixteenth, who died on the scaffold, who was buried without a coffin or a shroud! It was, in them, the purest of all acts of devotion,-the purest, from its disinterestedness, from its courageous fidelity. The last relics of the loyalty of France were collected in that poor room, enshrined in the prayers of a priest and two aged women. Perhaps, too, the dark spirit of the Revolution was present there as well, impersonated by the stranger, whose face, while he knelt before the altar, betrayed an expression of the most poignant remorse.

The most gorgeous mass ever celebrated in the gorgeous Cathedral of St. Peter, at Rome, could not have expressed the sincere feeling of prayer so nobly as it was now expressed, by those four persons, under that lowly roof!

There was one moment, during the progress of the service, at which the nuns detected that tears were trickling fast over the stranger's cheeks. It was when the Pater Noster was said.

On the termination of the midnight mass, the priest made a sign to the two nuns, who immediately left the room. As soon as they were alone, he thus addressed the stranger:

My son, if you have imbrued your hands in the blood of the martyred King, confide in me, and in my sacred office. Repentance so deep and sincere as yours appears to be, may efface even the crime of regicide, in the eyes of God."

"Holy father," replied the other, in trembling accents, "no man is less guilty than I am of shedding the King's blood."

"I would fain believe you," answered the priest. He paused for a moment as he said this, looked stedfastly on the penitent man before him, and then continued:

"But remember, my son, you cannot be absolved of the crime of regicide, because you have not co-operated in it. Those who had the power of defending their King, and who, having that power, still left the sword in the scabbard, will be called to render a heavy account at the day of judgment, before the King of kings; yes, a heavy and an awful account indeed! for, in remaining passive, they became the involuntary accomplices of the worst of murders."

"Do you think then, father," murmured the stranger, deeply abashed, "that all indirect participations are visited with punishment? Is the soldier guilty of the death of Louis who obeyed the order to guard the scaffold?" The priest hesitated.

"I should be ashamed," continued the other, betraying by his expression some satisfaction at the dilemma in which he had placed the old man-"I should be ashamed of offering you any pecuniary recompense for such a funeral service as you have celebrated. It is only possible to repay an act so noble by an offering which is priceless. Honour me by accepting this sacred relic. The day perhaps will come when you will understand its value."

So saying, he presented to the priest a small box, extremely light in weight, which the aged ecclesiastic took, as it were, involuntarily; for he felt awed by the solemn tones in which the man spoke as he offered it. Briefly expressing his thanks for the mysterious present, the priest

conducted his guest into the outer room, where the two nuns remained in attendance.

"The house you now inhabit," said the stranger, addressing the nuns as well as the priest, "belongs to a landlord who outwardly affects extreme republicanism, but who is at heart devoted to the royal cause. He was formerly a huntsman in the service of one of the Bourbons, the Prince de Conti, to whom he is indebted for all that he possesses. So long as you remain in this house you are safer than in any other place in France. Remain here, therefore. Persons worthy of trust will supply all your necessities, and you will be able to await in safety the prospect of better times. In a year from this day, on the 21st of January, should you still remain the occupants of this miserable abode, I will return to repeat with you the celebration of to-night's expiatory mass." He paused abruptly, and bowed without adding another word; then delayed a moment more, to cast a parting look on the objects of poverty which surrounded him, and left the room.

To the two simple-minded nuns, the whole affair had all the interest of a romance. Their faces displayed the most intense anxiety, the moment the priest informed them of the mysterious gift which the stranger had so solemnly presented to him. Sister Agatha immediately opened the box, and discovered in it a handkerchief, made of the finest cambric, and soiled with marks of perspiration. They unfolded it eagerly, and then found that it was defaced in certain places with dark stains. "Those stains are blood stains!" exclaimed the priest.

"The handkerchief is marked with the royal crown!" cried Sister Agatha.

Both the nuns dropped the precious relic, marked by the King's blood, with horror. To their simple minds, the mystery which was attached to the stranger, now deepened fearfully. As for the priest, from that moment he ceased, even in thought, to attempt identifying his visitor, or discovering the means by which he had become possessed of the royal handkerchief.

Throughout the atrocities practised during a year of the Reign of Terror, the three refugees were safely guarded by the same protecting interference, ever at work for their advantage. At first, they received large supplies of fuel and provisions; then the two nuns found reason to imagine that one of their own sex had become associated with their invisible protector, for they were furnished with the necessary linen and clothing which enabled them to go out without attracting attention by any peculiarities of attire. Besides this, warnings of danger constantly came to the priest in the most unexpected manner, and always opportunely. And then, again, in spite of the famine which at that period afflicted Paris, the inhabitants of the garret were sure to find placed every morning at their door, a supply of the best wheaten bread, regularly left for them by some invisible hand.

They could only guess that the agent of the charitable attentions thus lavished on them, was the landlord of the house, and that the person by whom he was employed was no other than the stranger who had celebrated with them the funeral mass for the repose of the King's soul. Thus, this mysterious man was regarded with especial reverence by the priest and the nuns, whose lives for the present and whose hopes for the future, depended on their strange visitor. They added to their usual prayers at night and morning, prayers for him.

At length the long-expected night of the 21st of January arrived, and, exactly as the clock struck twelve, the sound of heavy footsteps of the stairs announced the approach of the stranger. The room had been carefully prepared for his reception, the altar had been arranged, and, on this occasion, the nuns eagerly opened the door, even before they heard the knock.

"Welcome back again! most welcome!" cried they; "we have been anxiously awaiting you."

The stranger raised his head, looked gloomily on the nuns, and made no answer. Chilled by his cold reception of their kind greeting, they did not venture to utter another word. He seemed to have frozen & their hearts, in an instant, all the gratitude, all the friendly aspirations of the long year that had passed. They now perceived but too plainly that their visitor desired to remain a complete stranger to them, and that they must resign all hope of ever making a friend of him. The old priest fancied he had detected a smile on the lips of their guest when he entered, but that smile if it had really appeared — vanished again the moment he observed the preparations which had been made for his reception. He knelt to hear the funeral mass, prayed fervently as before, and then abruptly took his departure; briefly declining, by a few civil words, to partake of the simple refreshment offered to him, on the expiration of the service, by the two nuns.

Day after day wore on, and nothing more was heard of the stranger by the inhabitants of the garret. After the fall of Robespierre, the church was delivered from all actual persecution, and the priest and the nuns were free to appear publicly in Paris, without the slightest risk of danger. One of the first expeditions undertaken by the aged ecclesiastic led him to a perfumer's shop, kept by a man who had formerly been one of the Court tradesmen, and who had always remained faithfel to the Royal Family. The priest, clothed once more in his clerical dress, was standing at the shop door talking to the perfumer, when be observed a great crowd rapidly advancing along the street.

"What is the matter yonder?" he inquired of the shopkeeper.

Nothing," replied the man, carelessly, "but the cart with the condemned criminals going to the place of execution. Nobody pities them -and nobody ought!"

"You are not speaking like a Christian," exclaimed the priest. 'Why not pity them?

"Because," answered the perfumer, "those men who are going to execution are the last accomplices of Robespierre. They only travel the same fatal road which their innocent victims took before them.”

The cart with the prisoners condemned to the guillotine had by this time arrived opposite the perfumer's shop. As the old priest looked curiously towards the state criminals, he saw, standing erect and undaunted among his drooping fellow prisoners, the very man at whose desire he had twice celebrated the funeral service for the martyred King of France !

"Who is that, standing upright in the cart?" cried the priest, breathlessly.

The perfumer looked in the direction indicated, and answered—

"THE EXECUTIONER OF LOUIS THE SIXTEENTH!'

A FIRST VISIT TO THE COURT OF QUEEN ADELAIDE.

WHEN I was a little girl of some twelve years old, I enjoyed a pleasure, which at any time I should have valued, but which, at that happy age, was so delightful, that it nearly drove me mad with joy; for I had an invitation, in company with my mother, to an evening party at Windsor Castle, in the good old time of Queen Adelaide, when all the loyal (or, as they call themselves, royal) county of Berks, enjoyed the distinction of once at least a year seeing their fat old king chez soi. Considering my age, which in years reduced me to a mere child (though in feelings I was as precocious a little wretch as many a girl of sixteen), I verily believed the invitation was entirely a mistake, and I scanned the name on the grand printed card most carefully, for fear the letters might vanish, and reveal something else, or all prove a dream or a fairy delusion. But there they were, written plainly, in large letters. After having convinced myself of the reality, I forthwith proceeded to inform all my friends, high and low, of the extraordinary circumstance, that I, little F. D., with a head barely recovered from some ten years of close cropping, a face where the poppy certainly flourished rather than the rose, a skin well browned by incessantly running out in the hottest sun, hands much stained by grubbing in my little garden and climbing various trees in the park for the purpose of better enacting Romeo and Juliet, a form very plump and round, and broad-shouldered (being very innocent of the restraint of stays), that I was indeed going to Court!

I may have incurred the suspicion of egotism, it is to be feared, by this little sketch of myself, but from which I could not refrain, because, without giving the idea of what a wild romp I was then, no one could conceive the extraordinary contrast, nor the effect of my intention of dressing all at once, from what I was, into a simpering, mincing, young débutante, about to make her appearance in a Court circle. However, with a perfect confidence in my own powers, being at that time utterly unaware of my deficiencies, I set myself to the pleasing task, which my impudence and girlish fun pictured in glowing colours.

Although the hour for our departure was not until the evening, that was of no importance, nor was it even considered; the mighty business of the toilet was an anticipation of the party, so early in the afternoon I set to work to achieve the great change which was to fit me for a Court. Having no lady's maid to assist me, my ideas were very single. and confined to a thoroughly good scrubbing, something in the same style, with flannel and soap, as described in Burns's "Saturday Ni a kind of ablution which brought out my ruddy cheeks in ri seier and certainly was more meritorious in intention than spons as effect. After a considerable time spent in this kind te mislmeniS cleaning, the knotty point of hair was to be considered Las" ins part of the question was indeed fraught with fiary; sur 2 plait, too straight to curl, each particular hair seemed at set 10 1 ieiance, on its own account, to all the efforts of the revman i fremt who came at an appointed hour to dress my many eat. Sue shared in the general feeling of respect to me as beng mou a 13pear in such a circle, and affected to tisk ny bar semarang fne, our i felt the reverse, for, oh! how I sufervi : Fre un via a m