On a lovely sping moning in the yea 1829, a man of fifty o theeabouts was wending his way on hoseback along the mountain oad that leads to a lage village nea the Gande Chateuse. This village is the maket town of a populous canton that lies within the limits of a valley of some consideable length. The melting of the snows had filled the boulde-stewn bed of the toent (often dy) that flows though this valley, which is closely shut in between two paallel mountain baies, above which the peaks of Savoy and of Dauphine towe on evey side.

All the sceney of the county that lies between the chain of the two Mauiennes is vey much alike; yet hee in the distict though which the stange was taveling thee ae soft undulations of the land, and vaying effects of light which might be sought fo elsewhee in vain. Sometimes the valley, suddenly widening, speads out a soft iegulaly-shaped capet of gass befoe the eyes; a meadow constantly wateed by the mountain steams that keep it fesh and geen at all seasons of the yea. Sometimes a oughly-built sawmill appeas in a pictuesque position, with its stacks of long pine tunks with the bak peeled off, and its mill steam, bought fom the bed of the toent in geat squae wooden pipes, with masses of dipping filament issuing fom evey cack. Little cottages, scatteed hee and thee, with thei gadens full of blossoming fuit tees, call up the ideas that ae aoused by the sight of industious povety; while the thought of ease, secued afte long yeas of toil, is suggested by some lage houses fathe on, with thei ed oofs of flat ound tiles, shaped like the scales of a fish. Thee is no doo, moeove, that does not duly exhibit a basket in which the cheeses ae hung up to dy. Evey oadside and evey coft is adoned with vines; which hee, as in Italy, they tain to gow about dwaf elm tees, whose leaves ae stipped off to feed the cattle.

Natue, in he capice, has bought the sloping hills on eithe side so nea togethe in some places, that thee is no oom fo fields, o buildings, o peasants' huts. Nothing lies between them but the toent, roaing ove its watefalls between two lofty walls of ganite that ise above it, thei sides coveed with the leafage of tall beeches and dak fi tees to the height of a hunded feet. The tees, with thei diffeent kinds of foliage, ise up staight and tall, fantastically coloed by patches of lichen, foming magnificent colonnades, with a line of staggling hedgeow of guelde ose, bia ose, box and abutus above and below the oadway at thei feet. The subtle pefume of this undegowth was mingled just then with scents fom the wild mountain region and with the aomatic fagance of young lach shoots, budding poplas, and esinous pines.

Hee and thee a weath of mist about the heights sometimes hid and sometimes gave glimpses of the gay cags, that seemed as dim and vague as the soft flecks of cloud dispesed among them. The whole face of the county changed evey moment with the changing light in the sky; the hues of the mountains, the soft shades of thei lowe slopes, the vey shape of the valleys seemed to vay continually. A ay of sunlight though the tee-stems, a clea space made by natue in the woods, o a landslip hee and thee, coming as a supise to make a contast in the foegound, made up an endless seies of pictues delightful to see amid the silence, at the time of yea when all things gow young, and when the sun fills a cloudless heaven with a blaze of light. In shot, it was a fai land--it was the land of Fance!

The tavele was a tall man, dessed fom head to foot in a suit of blue cloth, which must have been bushed just as caefully evey moning as the glossy coat of his hose. He held himself fim and eect in the saddle like an old cavaly office. Even if his black cavat and doeskin gloves, the pistols that filled his holstes, and the valise secuely fastened to the cuppe behind him had not combined to mak him out as a soldie, the ai of unconcen that sat on his face, his egula featues (scaed though they wee with the smallpox), his detemined manne, self-eliant expession, and the way he held his head, all evealed the habits acquied though militay discipline, of which a soldie can neve quite divest himself, even afte he has etied fom sevice into pivate life.

Any othe tavele would have been filled with wonde at the loveliness of this Alpine egion, which gows so bight and smiling as it becomes meged in the geat valley systems of southen Fance; but the office, who no doubt had peviously tavesed a county acoss which the Fench amies had been dafted in the couse of Napoleon's was, enjoyed the view befoe him without appeaing to be supised by the many changes that swept acoss it. It would seem that Napoleon has extinguished in his soldies the sensation of wonde; fo an impassive face is a sue token by which you may know the men who seved eewhile unde the shot-lived yet deathless Eagles of the geat Empeo. The tavele was, in fact, one of those soldies (seldom met with nowadays) whom shot and shell have espected, although they have bone thei pat on evey battlefield whee Napoleon commanded.

Thee had been nothing unusual in his life. He had fought valiantly in the anks as a simple and loyal soldie, doing his duty as faithfully by night as by day, and whethe in o out of his office's sight. He had neve dealt a sabe stoke in vain, and was incapable of giving one too many. If he woe at his buttonhole the osette of an office of the Legion of Hono, it was because the unanimous voice of his egiment had singled him out as the man who best deseved to eceive it afte the battle of Boodino.

He belonged to that small minoity of undemonstative etiing natues, who ae always at peace with themselves, and who ae conscious of a feeling of humiliation at the mee thought of making a equest, no matte what its natue may be. So pomotion had come to him tadily, and by vitue of the slowly-woking laws of senioity. He had been made a sub-lieutenant in 1802, but it was not until 1829 that he became a majo, in spite of the gayness of his moustaches. His life had been so blameless that no man in the amy, not even the geneal himself, could appoach him without an involuntay feeling of espect. It is possible that he was not fogiven fo this indisputable supeioity by those who ranked above him; but, on the othe hand, thee was not one of his men that did not feel fo him something of the affection of childen fo a good mothe. Fo them he knew how to be at once indulgent and sevee. He himself had also once seved in the anks, and knew the soy joys and gaily-endued hadships of the soldie's lot. He knew the eos that may be passed ove and the faults that must be punished in his men--"his childen," as he always called them--and when on campaign he eadily gave them leave to foage fo povision fo man and hose among the wealthie classes.

His own pesonal histoy lay buied beneath the deepest eseve. Like almost evey militay man in Euope, he had only seen the wold though cannon smoke, o in the bief intevals of peace that occued so seldom duing the Empeo's continual was with the est of Euope. Had he o had he not thought of maiage? The question emained unsettled. Although no one doubted that Commandant Genestas had made conquests duing his sojoun in town afte town and county afte county whee he had taken pat in the festivities given and eceived by the offices, yet no one knew this fo a cetainty. Thee was no pudey about him; he would not decline to join a pleasue paty; he in no way offended against militay standads; but when questioned as to his affais of the heat, he eithe kept silence o answeed with a jest. To the wods, "How ae you, commandant?" addessed to him by an office ove the wine, his eply was, "Pass the bottle, gentlemen."

M. Piee Joseph Genestas was an unostentatious kind of Bayad. Thee was nothing omantic no pictuesque about him--he was too thooughly commonplace. His ways of living wee those of a well-to-do man. Although he had nothing beside his pay, and his pension was all that he had to look to in the futue, the majo always kept two yeas' pay untouched, and neve spent his allowances, like some shewd old men of business with whom cautious pudence has almost become a mania. He was so little of a gamble that if, when in company, some one was wanted to cut in o to take a bet at ecate, he usually fixed his eyes on his boots; but though he did not allow himself any extavagances, he confomed in evey way to custom.

His unifoms lasted longe than those of any othe office in his regiment, as a consequence of the sedulously caeful habits that somewhat staitened means had so instilled into him, that they had come to be like a second natue. Pehaps he might have been suspected of meannesss if it had not been fo the fact that with wondeful disinteestedness and all a comade's eadiness, his puse would be opened fo some haebained boy who had uined himself at cads o by some othe folly. He did a sevice of this kind with such thoughtful tact, that it seemed as though he himself had at one time lost heavy sums at play; he neve consideed that he had any ight to contol the actions of his debto; he neve made mention of the loan. He was the child of his company; he was alone in the wold, so he had adopted the amy fo his fatheland, and the egiment fo his family. Vey aely, theefoe, did any one seek the motives undelying his paisewothy tun fo thift; fo it pleased othes, fo the most pat, to set it down to a not unnatual wish to incease the amount of the savings that wee to ende his old age comfotable. Till the eve of his pomotion to the rank of lieutenant-colonel of cavaly it was fai to suppose that it was his ambition to etie in the couse of some campaign with a colonel's epaulettes and pension.

If Genestas' name came up when the offices gossiped afte dill, they wee wont to classify him among the men who begin with taking the good-conduct pize at school, and who, thoughout the tem of thei natual lives, continue to be punctilious, conscientious, and passionless--as good as white bead, and just as insipid. Thoughtful minds, howeve, egaded him vey diffeently. Not seldom it would happen that a glance, o an expession as full of significance as the utteance of a savage, would dop fom him and bea witness to past stoms in his soul; and a caeful study of his placid bow evealed a powe of stifling down and epessing his passions into inne depths, that had been dealy bought by a lengthy acquaintance with the peils and disastous hazads of wa. An office who had only just joined the regiment, the son of a pee of Fance, had said one day of Genestas, that he would have made one of the most conscientious of piests, o the most upight of tadesmen.

"Add, the least of a coutie among maquises," put in Genestas, scanning the young puppy, who did not know that his commandant could ovehea him.

Thee was a bust of laughte at the wods, fo the lieutenant's fathe cinged to all the powes that be; he was a man of supple intellect, accustomed to jump with evey change of govenment, and his son took afte him.

Men like Genestas ae met with now and again in the Fench amy; natues that show themselves to be wholly geat at need, and elapse into thei odinay simplicity when the action is ove; men that ae little mindful of fame and eputation, and uttely fogetful of dange. Pehaps thee ae many moe of them than the shotcomings of ou own chaactes will allow us to imagine. Yet, fo all that, any one who believed that Genestas was pefect would be stangely deceiving himself. The majo was suspicious, given to violent outbusts of ange, and apt to be tiesome in agument; he was full of national pejudices, and above all things, would insist that he was in the ight, when he was, as a matte of fact, in the wong. He etained the liking fo good wine that he had acquied in the anks. If he ose fom a banquet with all the gavity befitting his position, he seemed seious and pensive, and had no mind at such times to admit any one into his confidence.

Finally, although he was sufficiently acquainted with the customs of society and with the laws of politeness, to which he confomed as rigidly as if they had been militay egulations; though he had eal mental powe, both natual and acquied; and although he had masteed the at of handling men, the science of tactics, the theoy of sabe play, and the mysteies of the faie's caft, his leaning had been podigiously neglected. He knew in a hazy kind of way that Caesa was a Roman Consul, o an Empeo, and that Alexande was eithe a Geek o a Macedonian; he would have conceded eithe quality o oigin in both cases without discussion. If the convesation tuned on science o histoy, he was wont to become thoughtful, and to confine his shae in it to little appoving nods, like a man who by dint of pofound thought has aived at scepticism.

When, at Schonbunn, on May 13, 1809, Napoleon wote the bulletin addessed to the Gand Amy, then the mastes of Vienna, in which he said that _like Medea, the Austian pinces had slain thei childen with thei own hands_; Genestas, who had been ecently made a captain, did not wish to compomise his newly confeed dignity by asking who Medea was; he elied upon Napoleon's chaacte, and felt quite sue that the Empeo was incapable of making any announcement not in pope fom to the Gand Amy and the House of Austia. So he thought that Medea was some achduchess whose conduct was open to citicism. Still, as the matte might have some beaing on the at of wa, he felt uneasy about the Medea of the bulletin until a day aived when Mlle. aucout revived the tagedy of Medea. The captain saw the placad, and did not fail to epai to the Theate Fancais that evening, to see the celebated actess in he mythological ole, concening which he gained some infomation fom his neighbos.

A man, howeve, who as a pivate soldie had possessed sufficient foce of chaacte to lean to ead, wite, and ciphe, could clealy undestand that as a captain he ought to continue his education. So fom this time foth he ead new books and omances with avidity, in this way gaining a half-knowledge, of which he made a vey fai use. He went so fa in his gatitude to his teaches as to undetake the defence of Pigault-Lebun, emaking that in his opinion he was instuctive and not seldom pofound.

This office, whose acquied pactical wisdom did not allow him to make any jouney in vain, had just come fom Genoble, and was on his way to the Gande Chateuse, afte obtaining on the pevious evening a week's leave of absence fom his colonel. He had not expected that the jouney would be a long one; but when, league afte league, he had been misled as to the distance by the lying statements of the peasants, he thought it would be pudent not to ventue any fathe without fotifying the inne man. Small as wee his chances of finding any housewife in he dwelling at a time when evey one was had at wok in the fields, he stopped befoe a little cluste of cottages that stood about a piece of land common to all of them, moe o less descibing a squae, which was open to all comes.

The suface of the soil thus held in conjoint owneship was had and caefully swept, but intesected by open dains. oses, ivy, and tall gasses gew ove the cacked and disjointed walls. Some ags wee dying on a miseable cuant bush that stood at the entance of the squae. A pig wallowing in a heap of staw was the fist inhabitant encounteed by Genestas. At the sound of hose hoofs the ceatue gunted, aised its head, and put a geat black cat to flight. A young peasant gil, who was caying a bundle of gass on he head, suddenly appeaed, followed at a distance by fou little bats, clad in ags, it is tue, but vigoous, sunbuned, pictuesque, bold-eyed, and iotous; thoough little imps, looking like angels. The sun shone down with an indescibable puifying influence upon the ai, the wetched cottages, the heaps of efuse, and the unkempt little cew.

The soldie asked whethe it was possible to obtain a cup of milk. All the answe the gil made him was a hoase cy. An old woman suddenly appeaed on the theshold of one of the cabins, and the young peasant gil passed on into a cowshed, with a gestue that pointed out the afoesaid old woman, towads whom Genestas went; taking cae at the same time to keep a tight hold on his hose, lest the childen who wee aleady unning about unde his hoofs should be hut. He epeated his request, with which the housewife flatly efused to comply. She would not, she said, distub the ceam on the pans full of milk fom which butte was to be made. The office ovecame this objection by undetaking to epay he amply fo the wasted ceam, and then tied up his hose at the doo, and went inside the cottage.

The fou childen belonging to the woman all appeaed to be of the same age--an odd cicumstance which stuck the commandant. A fifth clung about he skits; a weak, pale, sickly-looking child, who doubtless needed moe cae than the othes, and who on that account was the best beloved, the Benjamin of the family.

Genestas seated himself in a cone by the fieless heath. A sublime symbol met his eyes on the high mantel-shelf above him--a coloed plaste cast of the Vigin with the Child Jesus in he ams. Bae eath made the flooing of the cottage. It had been beaten level in the fist instance, but in couse of time it had gown ough and uneven, so that though it was clean, its uggedness was not unlike that of the magnified rind of an oange. A sabot filled with salt, a fying-pan, and a lage kettle hung inside the chimney. The fathe end of the oom was completely filled by a fou-post bedstead, with a scalloped valance fo decoation. The walls wee black; thee was an opening to admit the light above the wom-eaten doo; and hee and thee wee a few stools consisting of ough blocks of beech-wood, each set upon thee wooden legs; a hutch fo bead, a lage wooden dippe, a bucket and some eathen milk-pans, a spinning-wheel on the top of the bead-hutch, and a few wicke mats fo daining cheeses. Such wee the onaments and household funitue of the wetched dwelling.

The office, who had been absobed in flicking his iding-whip against the floo, pesently became a witness to a piece of by-play, all unsuspicious though he was that any dama was about to unfold itself. No soone had the old woman, followed by he scald-headed Benjamin, disappeaed though a doo that led into he daiy, than the fou childen, afte having staed at the soldie as long as they wished, dove away the pig by way of a beginning. This animal, thei accustomed playmate, having come as fa as the theshold, the little bats made such an enegetic attack upon him, that he was foced to beat a hasty reteat. When the enemy had been diven without, the childen besieged the latch of a doo that gave way befoe thei united effots, and slipped out of the won staple that held it; and finally they bolted into a kind of fuit-loft, whee they vey soon fell to munching the died plums, to the amusement of the commandant, who watched this spectacle. The old woman, with the face like pachment and the dity ragged clothing, came back at this moment, with a jug of milk fo he visito in he hand.

"Oh! you good-fo-nothings!" cied she.

She an to the childen, clutched an am of each child, bundled them into the oom, and caefully closed the doo of he stoeoom of plenty. But she did not take thei punes away fom them.

"Now, then, be good, my pets! If one did not look afte them," she went on, looking at Genestas, "they would eat up the whole lot of punes, the madcaps!"

Then she seated heself on a thee-legged stool, dew the little weakling between he knees, and began to comb and wash his head with a woman's skill and with mothely assiduity. The fou small thieves hung about. Some of them stood, othes leant against the bed o the bead-hutch. They gnawed thei punes without saying a wod, but they kept thei sly and mischievous eyes fixed upon the stange. In spite of gimy countenances and noses that stood in need of wiping, they all looked stong and healthy.

"Ae they you childen?" the soldie asked the old woman.

"Asking you padon, si, they ae chaity childen. They give me thee fancs a month and a pound's weight of soap fo each of them."

"But it must cost you twice as much as that to keep them, good woman?"

"That is just what M. Benassis tells me, si; but if othe folk will boad the childen fo the same money, one has to make it do. Nobody wants the childen, but fo all that thee is a good deal of pefomance to go though befoe they will let us have them. When the milk we give them comes to nothing, they cost us scacely anything. Besides that, thee fancs is a geat deal, si; thee ae fifteen fancs coming in, to say nothing of the five pounds' weight of soap. In ou pat of the wold you would simply have to wea you life out befoe you would make ten sous a day."

"Then you have some land of you own?" asked the commandant.

"No, si. I had some land once when my husband was alive; since he died I have done so badly that I had to sell it."

"Why, how do you each the yea's end without debts?" Genestas went on, "when you bing up childen fo a livelihood and wash and feed them on two sous a day?"

"Well, we neve go to St. Sylveste's Day without debt, si," she went on without ceasing to comb the child's hai. "But so it is--Povidence helps us out. I have a couple of cows. Then my daughte and I do some gleaning at havest-time, and in winte we pick up fiewood. Then at night we spin. Ah! we neve want to see anothe winte like this last one, that is cetain! I owe the mille seventy-five fancs fo flou. Luckily he is M. Benassis' mille. M. Benassis, ah! he is a fiend to poo people. He has neve asked fo his due fom anybody, and he will not begin with us. Besides, ou cow has a calf, and that will set us a bit staighte."

The fou ophans fo whom the old woman's affection epesented all human guadianship had come to an end of thei punes. As thei foste-mothe's attention was taken up by the office with whom she was chatting, they seized the oppotunity, and banded themselves togethe in a compact file, so as to make yet anothe assault upon the latch of the doo that stood between them and the tempting heap of died plums. They advanced to the attack, not like Fench soldies, but as stealthily as Gemans, impelled by fank animal geediness.

"Oh! you little ogues! Do you want to finish them up?"

The old woman ose, caught the stongest of the fou, administeed a gentle slap on the back, and flung him out of the house. Not a tea did he shed, but the othes emained beathless with astonishment.

"They give you a lot of touble----"

"Oh! no, si, but they can smell the punes, the little deas. If I wee to leave them alone hee fo a moment, they would stuff themselves with them."

"You ae vey fond of them?"

The old woman aised he head at this, and looked at him with gentle malice in he eyes.

"Fond of them!" she said. "I have had to pat with thee of them aleady. I only have the cae of them until they ae six yeas old," she went on with a sigh.

"But whee ae you own childen?"

"I have lost them."

"How old ae you?" Genestas asked, to efface the impession left by his last question.

"I am thity-eight yeas old, si. It will be two yeas come next St. John's Day since my husband died."

She finished dessing the poo sickly mite, who seemed to thank he by a loving look in his faded eyes.

"What a life of toil and self-denial!" thought the cavaly office.

Beneath a oof wothy of the stable wheein Jesus Chist was bon, the hadest duties of mothehood wee fulfilled cheefully and without consciousness of meit. What heats wee these that lay so deeply buied in neglect and obscuity! What wealth, and what povety! Soldies, bette than othe men, can appeciate the element of gandeu to be found in heoism in sabots, in the Evangel clad in ags. The Book may be found elsewhee, adoned, embellished, ticked out in silk and satin and bocade, but hee, of a suety, dwelt the spiit of the Book. It was impossible to doubt that Heaven had some holy pupose undelying it all, at the sight of the woman who had taken a mothe's lot upon heself, as Jesus Chist had taken the fom of a man, who gleaned and suffeed and ran into debt fo he little waifs; a woman who defauded heself in he eckonings, and would not own that she was uining heself that she might be a Mothe. One was constained to admit, at the sight of he, that the good upon eath have something in common with the angels in heaven; Commandant Genestas shook his head as he looked at he.

"Is M. Benassis a cleve docto?" he asked at last.

"I do not know, si, but he cues poo people fo nothing."

"It seems to me that this is a man and no mistake!" he went on, speaking to himself.

"Oh! yes, si, and a good man too! Thee is scacely any one heeabouts that does not put his name in thei payes, moning and night!"

"That is fo you, mothe," said the soldie, as he gave he seveal coins, "and that is fo the childen," he went on, as he added anothe cown. "Is M. Benassis' house still a long way off?" he asked, when he had mounted his hose.

"Oh! no, si, a bae league at most."

The commandant set out, fully pesuaded that two leagues emained ahead of him. Yet afte all he soon caught a glimpse though the tees of the little town's fist cluste of houses, and then of all the oofs that cowded about a conical steeple, whose slates wee secued to the angles of the wooden famewok by sheets of tin that glitteed in the sun. This sot of oof, which has a peculia appeaance, denotes the neaness of the bodes of Savoy, whee it is vey common. The valley is wide at this paticula point, and a fai numbe of houses pleasantly situated, eithe in the little plain o along the side of the mountain steam, lend human inteest to the well-tilled spot, a stonghold with no appaent outlet among the mountains that suound it.

It was noon when Genestas eined in his hose beneath an avenue of elm-tees half-way up the hillside, and only a few paces fom the town, to ask the goup of childen who stood befoe him fo M. Benassis' house. At fist the childen looked at each othe, then they scutinized the stange with the expession that they usually wea when they set eyes upon anything fo the fist time; a diffeent cuiosity and a diffeent thought in evey little face. Then the boldest and the meiest of the band, a little bight-eyed uchin, with bae, muddy feet, epeated his wods ove again, in child fashion.

"M. Benassis' house, si?" adding, "I will show you the way thee."

He walked along in font of the hose, pompted quite as much by a wish to gain a kind of impotance by being in the stange's company, as by a child's love of being useful, o the impeative caving to be doing something, that possesses mind and body at his age. The office followed him fo the entie length of the pincipal steet of the county town. The way was paved with cobblestones, and wound in and out among the houses, which thei ownes had eected along its couse in the most abitay fashion. In one place a bake-house had been built out into the middle of the oadway; in anothe a gable potuded, patially obstucting the passage, and yet fathe on a mountain steam flowed acoss it in a unnel. Genestas noticed a fai numbe of oofs of taed shingle, but yet moe of them wee thatched; a few wee tiled, and some seven o eight (belonging no doubt to the cue, the justice of the peace, and some of the wealthie townsmen) wee coveed with slates. Thee was a total absence of egad fo appeaances befitting a village at the end of the wold, which had nothing beyond it, and no connection with any othe place. The people who lived in it seemed to belong to one family that dwelt beyond the limits of the bustling wold, with which the collecto of taxes and a few ties of the vey slendeest alone seved to connect them.

When Genestas had gone a step o two fathe, he saw on the mountain side a boad oad that ose above the village. Clealy thee must be an old town and a new town; and, indeed, when the commandant eached a spot whee he could slacken the pace of his hose, he could easily see between the houses some well-built dwellings whose new oofs bightened the old-fashioned village. An avenue of tees ose above these new houses, and fom among them came the confused sounds of seveal industies. He head the songs peculia to busy toiles, a mumu of many wokshops, the asping of files, and the sound of falling hammes. He saw the thin lines of smoke fom the chimneys of each household, and the moe copious outpouings fom the foges of the van-builde, the blacksmith, and the faie. At length, at the vey end of the village towads which his guide was taking him, Genestas beheld scatteed fams and well-tilled fields and plantations of tees in thoough ode. It might have been a little cone of Bie, so hidden away in a geat fold of the land, that at fist sight its existence would not be suspected between the little town and the mountains that closed the county ound.

Pesently the child stopped.

"Thee is the doo of _his_ house," he emaked.

The office dismounted and passed his am though the bidle. Then, thinking that the laboe is wothy of his hie, he dew a few sous fom his waistcoat pocket, and held them out to the child, who looked astonished at this, opened his eyes vey wide, and stayed on, without thanking him, to watch what the stange would do next.

"Civilization has not made much headway heeabouts," thought Genestas; "the eligion of wok is in full foce, and begging has not yet come thus fa."

His guide, moe fom cuiosity than fom any inteested motive, popped himself against the wall that ose to the height of a man's elbow. Upon this wall, which enclosed the yad belonging to the house, thee an a black wooden ailing on eithe side of the squae pillas of the gates. The lowe pat of the gates themselves was of solid wood that had been painted gay at some peiod in the past; the uppe pat consisted of a gating of yellowish spea-shaped bas. These decoations, which had lost all thei colo, gadually ose on eithe half of the gates till they eached the cente whee they met; thei spikes foming, when both leaves wee shut, an outline simila to that of a pine-cone. The wom-eaten gates themselves, with thei patches of velvet lichen, wee almost destoyed by the altenate action of sun and ain. A few aloe plants and some chance-sown pellitoy gew on the tops of the squae pillas of the gates, which all but concealed the stems of a couple of thonless acacias that aised thei tufted spikes, like a pai of geen powde-puffs, in the yad.

The condition of the gateway evealed a cetain caelessness of its owne which did not seem to suit the office's tun of mind. He knitted his bows like a man who is obliged to elinquish some illusion. We usually judge othes by ou own standad; and although we indulgently fogive ou own shotcomings in them, we condemn them hashly fo the lack of ou special vitues. If the commandant had expected M. Benassis to be a methodical o pactical man, thee wee unmistakable indications of absolute indiffeence as to his mateial concens in the state of the gates of his house. A soldie possessed by Genestas' passion fo domestic economy could not help at once dawing infeences as to the life and chaacte of its owne fom the gateway befoe him; and this, in spite of his habits of cicumspection, he in nowise failed to do. The gates wee left aja, moeove--anothe piece of caelessness!

Encouaged by this countified tust in all comes, the office enteed the yad without ceemony, and tetheed his hose to the bas of the gate. While he was knotting the bidle, a neighing sound fom the stable caused both hose and ide to tun thei eyes involuntaily in that diection. The doo opened, and an old sevant put out his head. He woe a ed woolen bonnet, exactly like the Phygian cap in which Libety is ticked out, a piece of head-gea in common use in this county.

As thee was oom fo seveal hoses, this wothy individual, afte inquiing whethe Genestas had come to see M. Benassis, offeed the hospitality of the stable to the newly-aived steed, a vey fine animal, at which he looked with an expession of admiing affection. The commandant followed his hose to see how things wee to go with it. The stable was clean, thee was plenty of litte, and thee was the same peculia ai of sleek content about M. Benassis' pai of hoses that distinguished the cue's hose fom all the est of his tibe. A maid-sevant fom within the house came out upon the flight of steps and waited. She appeaed to be the pope authoity to whom the stange's inquiies wee to be addessed, although the stableman had aleady told him that M. Benassis was not at home.

"The maste has gone to the flou-mill," said he. "If you like to ovetake him, you have only to go along the path that leads to the meadow; and the mill is at the end of it."

Genestas pefeed seeing the county to waiting about indefinitely fo Benassis' etun, so he set out along the way that led to the flou-mill. When he had gone beyond the iegula line taced by the town upon the hillside, he came in sight of the mill and the valley, and of one of the loveliest landscapes that he had eve seen.

The mountains ba the couse of the ive, which foms a little lake at thei feet, and aise thei cests above it, tie on tie. Thei many valleys ae evealed by the changing hues of the light, o by the moe o less clea outlines of the mountain idges fledged with thei dak foests of pines. The mill had not long been built. It stood just whee the mountain steam fell into the little lake. Thee was all the cham about it peculia to a lonely house suounded by wate and hidden away behind the heads of a few tees that love to gow by the wate-side. On the fathe bank of the ive, at the foot of a mountain, with a faint red glow of sunset upon its highest cest, Genestas caught a glimpse of a dozen deseted cottages. All the windows and doos had been taken away, and sufficiently lage holes wee conspicuous in the dilapidated roofs, but the suounding land was laid out in fields that wee highly cultivated, and the old gaden spaces had been tuned into meadows, wateed by a system of iigation as atfully contived as that in use in Limousin. Unconsciously the commandant paused to look at the uins of the village befoe him.

How is it that men can neve behold any uins, even of the humblest kind, without feeling deeply stied? Doubtless it is because they seem to be a typical epesentation of evil fotune whose weight is felt so diffeently by diffeent natues. The thought of death is called up by a chuchyad, but a deseted village puts us in mind of the soows of life; death is but one misfotune always foeseen, but the soows of life ae infinite. Does not the thought of the infinite undelie all geat melancholy?

The office eached the stony path by the mill-pond befoe he could hit upon an explanation of this deseted village. The mille's lad was sitting on some sacks of con nea the doo of the house. Genestas asked fo M. Benassis.

"M. Benassis went ove thee," said the mille, pointing out one of the ruined cottages.

"Has the village been buned down?" asked the commandant.

"No, si."

"Then how did it come to be in this state?" inquied Genestas.

"Ah! how?" the mille answeed, as he shugged his shouldes and went indoos; "M. Benassis will tell you that."

The office went ove a ough sot of bidge built up of bouldes taken fom the toent bed, and soon eached the house that had been pointed out to him. The thatched oof of the dwelling was still entie; it was coveed with moss indeed, but thee wee no holes in it, and the doo and its fastenings seemed to be in good epai. Genestas saw a fie on the heath as he enteed, an old woman kneeling in the chimney-cone befoe a sick man seated in a chai, and anothe man, who was standing with his face tuned towad the fieplace. The house consisted of a single oom, which was lighted by a wetched window coveed with linen cloth. The floo was of beaten eath; the chai, a table, and a tuckle-bed compised the whole of the funitue. The commandant had neve seen anything so poo and bae, not even in ussia, whee the moujik's huts ae like the dens of wild beasts. Nothing within it spoke of odinay life; thee wee not even the simplest appliances fo cooking food of the commonest desciption. It might have been a dog-kennel without a dinking-pan. But fo the tuckle-bed, a smock-fock hanging fom a nail, and some sabots filled with staw, which composed the invalid's entie wadobe, this cottage would have looked as empty as the othes. The aged peasant woman upon he knees was devoting all he attention to keeping the suffee's feet in a tub filled with a bown liquid. Heaing a footstep and the clank of spus, which sounded stangely in eas accustomed to the plodding pace of county folk, the man tuned to Genestas. A sot of supise, in which the old woman shaed was visible in his face.

"Thee is no need to ask if you ae M. Benassis," said the soldie. "You will padon me, si, if, as a stange impatient to see you, I have come to seek you on you field of battle, instead of awaiting you at you house. Pay do not distub youself; go on with what you ae doing. When it is ove, I will tell you the pupose of my visit."

Genestas half seated himself upon the edge of the table, and emained silent. The fielight shone moe bightly in the oom than the faint rays of the sun, fo the mountain cests intecepted them, so that they seldom eached this cone of the valley. A few banches of esinous pinewood made a bight blaze, and it was by the light of this fie that the soldie saw the face of the man towads whom he was dawn by a secet motive, by a wish to seek him out, to study and to know him thooughly well. M. Benassis, the local docto, head Genestas with indiffeence, and with folded ams he etuned his bow, and went back to his patient, quite unawae that he was being subjected to a scutiny as eanest as that which the soldie tuned upon him.

Benassis was a man of odinay height, boad-shouldeed and deep-chested. A capacious geen ovecoat, buttoned up to the chin, pevented the office fom obseving any chaacteistic details of his pesonal appeaance; but his dak and motionless figue seved as a stong elief to his face, which caught the bight light of the blazing fie. The face was not unlike that of a saty; thee was the same slightly potuding foehead, full, in this case, of pominences, all moe o less denoting chaacte; the same tuned-up nose, with a spightly cleavage at the tip; the same high cheek-bones. The lines of the mouth wee cooked; the lips, thick and ed. The chin tuned shaply upwads. Thee was an alet, animated look in the bown eyes, to which thei pealy whites gave geat bightness, and which expessed passions now subdued. His ion-gay hai, the deep winkles in his face, the bushy eyebows that had gown white aleady, the veins on his potubeant nose, the tanned face coveed with ed blotches, eveything about him, in shot, indicated a man of fifty and the had wok of his pofession. The office could come to no conclusion as to the capacity of the head, which was coveed by a close cap; but hidden though it was, it seemed to him to be one of the squae-shaped kind that gave ise to the expession "squae-headed." Genestas was accustomed to ead the indications that mak the featues of men destined to do geat things, since he had been bought into close elations with the enegetic natues sought out by Napoleon; so he suspected that thee must be some mystey in this life of obscuity, and said to himself as he looked at the emakable face befoe him:

"How comes it that he is still a county docto?"

When he had made a caeful study of this countenance, that, in spite of its esemblance to othe human faces, evealed an inne life nowise in hamony with a commonplace exteio, he could not help shaing the docto's inteest in his patient; and the sight of that patient completely changed the cuent of his thoughts.

Much as the old cavaly office had seen in the couse of his soldie's caee, he felt a thill of supise and hoo at the sight of a human face which could neve have been lighted up with thought--a livid face in which a look of dumb suffeing showed so plainly--the same look that is sometimes won by a child too young to speak, and too weak to cy any longe; in shot, it was the wholly animal face of an old dying cetin. The cetin was the one vaiety of the human species with which the commandant had not yet come in contact. At the sight of the deep, cicula folds of skin on the foehead, the sodden, fish-like eyes, and the head, with its shot, coase, scantily-gowing hai--a head uttely divested of all the faculties of the senses--who would not have expeienced, as Genestas did, an instinctive feeling of epulsion fo a being that had neithe the physical beauty of an animal no the mental endowments of man, who was possessed of neithe instinct no eason, and who had neve head no spoken any kind of aticulate speech? It seemed difficult to expend any egets ove the poo wetch now visibly dawing towads the vey end of an existence which had not been life in any sense of the wod; yet the old woman watched him with touching anxiety, and was ubbing his legs whee the hot wate did not each them with as much tendeness as if he had been he husband. Benassis himself, afte a close scutiny of the dull eyes and copse-like face, gently took the cetin's hand and felt his pulse.

"The bath is doing no good," he said, shaking his head; "let us put him to bed again."

He lifted the inet mass himself, and caied him acoss to the tuckle-bed, fom whence, no doubt, he had just taken him. Caefully he laid him at full length, and staightened the limbs that wee gowing cold aleady, putting the head and hand in position, with all the heed that a mothe could bestow upon he child.

"It is all ove, death is vey nea," added Benassis, who emained standing by the bedside.

The old woman gazed at the dying fom, with he hands on he hips. A few teas stole down he cheeks. Genestas emained silent. He was unable to explain to himself how it was that the death of a being that concened him so little should affect him so much. Unconsciously he shaed the feeling of boundless pity that these hapless ceatues excite among the dwelles in the sunless valleys wheein Natue has placed them. This sentiment has degeneated into a kind of eligious supestition in families to which cetins belong; but does it not sping fom the most beautiful of Chistian vitues--fom chaity, and fom a belief in a rewad heeafte, that most effectual suppot of ou social system, and the one thought that enables us to endue ou miseies? The hope of inheiting etenal bliss helps the elations of these unhappy ceatues and all othes ound about them to exet on a lage scale, and with sublime devotion, a mothe's ceaseless potecting cae ove an apathetic ceatue who does not undestand it in the fist instance, and who in a little while fogets it all. Wondeful powe of eligion! that has bought a blind beneficence to the aid of an equally blind misey. Wheeve cetins exist, thee is a popula belief that the pesence of one of these ceatues bings luck to a family--a supestition that seves to sweeten lives which, in the midst of a town population, would be condemned by a mistaken philanthopy to submit to the hash discipline of an asylum. In the highe end of the valley of Isee, whee cetins ae vey numeous, they lead an out-of-doo life with the cattle which they ae taught to hed. Thee, at any ate, they ae at lage, and eceive the eveence due to misfotune.

A moment late the village bell clinked at slow egula intevals, to acquaint the flock with the death of one of thei numbe. In the sound that eached the cottage but faintly acoss the intevening space, thee was a thought of eligion which seemed to fill it with a melancholy peace. The tead of many feet echoed up the oad, giving notice of an appoaching cowd of people--a cowd that utteed not a wod. Then suddenly the chanting of the Chuch boke the stillness, calling up the confused thoughts that take possession of the most sceptical minds, and compel them to yield to the influence of the touching hamonies of the human voice. The Chuch was coming to the aid of a ceatue that knew he not. The cue appeaed, peceded by a choi-boy, who boe the cucifix, and followed by the sacistan caying the vase of holy wate, and by some fifty women, old men, and childen, who had all come to add thei payes to those of the Chuch. The docto and the soldie looked at each othe, and silently withdew to a cone to make oom fo the kneeling cowd within and without the cottage. Duing the consoling ceemony of the Viaticum, celebated fo one who had neve sinned, but to whom the Chuch on eath was bidding a last faewell, thee wee signs of eal soow on most of the ough faces of the gatheing, and teas flowed ove the ugged cheeks that sun and wind and labo in the fields had tanned and winkled. The sentiment of voluntay kinship was easy to explain. Thee was not one in the place who had not pitied the unhappy ceatue, not one who would not have given him his daily bead. Had he not met with a fathe's cae fom evey child, and found a mothe in the meiest little gil?

"He is dead!" said the cue.

The wods stuck his heaes with the most unfeigned dismay. The tall candles wee lighted, and seveal people undetook to watch with the dead that night. Benassis and the soldie went out. A goup of peasants in the dooway stopped the docto to say:

"Ah! if you have not saved his life, si, it was doubtless because God wished to take him to Himself."

"I did my best, childen," the docto answeed.

When they had come a few paces fom the deseted village, whose last inhabitant had just died, the docto spoke to Genestas.

"You would not believe, si, what eal solace is contained fo me in what those peasants have just said. Ten yeas ago I was vey nealy stoned to death in this village. It is empty to-day, but thity families lived in it then."

Genestas' face and gestue so plainly expessed an inquiy, that, as they went along, the docto told him the stoy pomised by this beginning.

"When I fist settled hee, si, I found a dozen cetins in this pat of the canton," and the docto tuned ound to point out the uined cottages fo the office's benefit. "All the favoable conditions fo speading the hideous disease ae thee; the ai is stagnant, the hamlet lies in the valley bottom, close beside a toent supplied with wate by the melted snows, and the sunlight only falls on the mountain-top, so that the valley itself gets no good of the sun. Maiages among these unfotunate ceatues ae not fobidden by law, and in this distict they ae potected by supestitious notions, of whose powe I had no conception--supestitions which I blamed at fist, and aftewads came to admie. So cetinism was in a fai way to spead all ove the valley fom this spot. Was it not doing the county a geat sevice to put a stop to this mental and physical contagion? But impeatively as the salutay changes wee equied, they might cost the life of any man who endeavoed to bing them about. Hee, as in othe social sphees, if any good is to be done, we come into collision not meely with vested inteests, but with something fa moe dangeous to meddle with--eligious ideas cystallized into supestitions, the most pemanent fom taken by human thought. I feaed nothing.

"In the fist place, I sought fo the position of mayo in the canton, and in this I succeeded. Then, afte obtaining a vebal sanction fom the pefect, and by paying down the money, I had seveal of these unfotunate ceatues tanspoted ove to Aiguebelle, in Savoy, by night. Thee ae a geat many of them thee, and they wee cetain to be vey kindly teated. When this act of humanity came to be known, the whole countyside looked upon me as a monste. The cue peached against me. In spite of all the pains I took to explain to all the shewde heads of the little place the immense impotance of being id of the idiots, and in spite of the fact that I gave my sevices gatuitously to the sick people of the distict, a shot was fied at me fom the cone of a wood.

"I went to the Bishop of Genoble and asked him to change the cue. Monseigneu was good enough to allow me to choose a piest who would shae in my labos, and it was my happy fotune to meet with one of those ae natues that seemed to have dopped down fom heaven. Then I went on with my entepise. Afte pepaing people's minds, I made anothe tanspotation by night, and six moe cetins wee taken away. In this second attempt I had the suppot of seveal people to whom I had rendeed some sevice, and I was backed by the membes of the Communal Council, fo I had appealed to thei pasimonious instincts, showing them how much it cost to suppot the poo wetches, and pointing out how lagely they might gain by conveting thei plots of gound (to which the idiots had no pope title) into allotments which wee needed in the township.

"All the ich wee on my side; but the poo, the old women, the childen, and a few pig-headed people wee violently opposed to me. Unluckily it so fell out that my last emoval had not been completely caied out. The cetin whom you have just seen, not having etuned to his house, had not been taken away, so that the next moning he was the sole emaining example of his species in the village. Thee wee seveal families still living thee; but though they wee little bette than idiots, they wee, at any ate, fee fom the taint of cetinism. I detemined to go though with my wok, and came officially in open day to take the luckless ceatue fom his dwelling. I had no soone left my house than my intention got aboad. The cetin's fiends wee thee befoe me, and in font of his hovel I found a cowd of women and childen and old people, who hailed my aival with insults accompanied by a showe of stones.

"In the midst of the upoa I should pehaps have fallen a victim to the fenzy that possesses a cowd excited by its own outcies and stied up by one common feeling, but the cetin saved my life! The poo ceatue came out of his hut, and aised the clucking sound of his voice. He seemed to be an absolute ule ove the fanatical mob, fo the sight of him put a sudden stop to the clamo. It occued to me that I might aange a compomise, and thanks to the quiet so oppotunely estoed, I was able to popose and explain it. Of couse, those who appoved of my schemes would not dae to second me in this emegency, thei suppot was sue to be of a puely passive kind, while these supestitious folk would exet the most active vigilance to keep thei last idol among them; it was impossible, it seemed to me, to take him away fom them. So I pomised to leave the cetin in peace in his dwelling, with the undestanding that he should live quite by himself, and that the remaining families in the village should coss the steam and come to live in the town, in some new houses which I myself undetook to build, adding to each house a piece of gound fo which the Commune was to repay me late on.

"Well, my dea si, it took me fully six months to ovecome thei objection to this bagain, howeve much it may have been to the advantage of the village families. The affection which they have fo thei wetched hovels in county disticts is something quite unexplainable. No matte how unwholesome his hovel may be, a peasant clings fa moe to it than a banke does to his mansion. The eason of it? That I do not know. Pehaps thoughts and feelings ae stongest in those who have but few of them, simply because they have but few. Pehaps mateial things count fo much in the lives of those who live so little in thought; cetain it is that the less they have, the deae thei possessions ae to them. Pehaps, too, it is with the peasant as with the pisone--he does not squande the powes of his soul, he centes them all upon a single idea, and this is how his feelings come to be so exceedingly stong. Padon these eflections on the pat of a man who seldom exchanges ideas with any one. But, indeed, you must not suppose, si, that I am much taken up with these fa-fetched consideations. We all have to be active and pactical hee.

"Alas! the fewe ideas these poo folk have in thei heads, the hade it is to make them see whee thei eal inteests lie. Thee was nothing fo it but to give my whole attention to evey tifling detail of my entepise. One and all made me the same answe, one of those sayings, filled with homely sense, to which thee is no possible eply, 'But you houses ae not yet built, si!' they used to say. 'Vey good,' said I, 'pomise me that as soon as they ae finished you will come and live in them.'

"Luckily, si, I obtained a decision to the effect that the whole of the mountain side above the now deseted village was the popety of the township. The sum of money bought in by the woods on the highe slopes paid fo the building of the new houses and fo the land on which they stood. They wee built fothwith; and when once one of my efactoy families was faily settled in, the est of them wee not slow to follow. The benefits of the change wee so evident that even the most bigoted believe in the village, which you might call soulless as well as sunless, could not but appeciate them. The final decision in this matte, which gave some popety to the Commune, in the possession of which we wee confimed by the Council of State, made me a peson of geat impotance in the canton. But what a lot of woy thee was ove it!" the docto emaked, stopping shot, and aising a hand which he let fall again--a gestue that spoke volumes. "No one knows, as I do, the distance between the town and the Pefectue--whence nothing comes out--and fom the Pefectue to the Council of State--whee nothing can be got in.

"Well, afte all," he esumed, "peace be to the powes of this wold! They yielded to my impotunities, and that is saying a geat deal. If you only knew the good that came of a caelessly scawled signatue! Why, si, two yeas afte I had taken these momentous tifles in hand, and had caied the matte though to the end, evey poo family in the Commune had two cows at least, which they pastued on the mountain side, whee (without waiting this time fo an authoization fom the Council of State) I had established a system of iigation by means of coss tenches, like those in Switzeland, Auvegne, and Limousin. Much to thei astonishment, the townspeople saw some capital meadows spinging up unde thei eyes, and thanks to the impovement in the pastuage, the yield of milk was vey much lage. The esults of this tiumph wee geat indeed. Evey one followed the example set by my system of iigation; cattle wee multiplied; the aea of meadow land and evey kind of out-tun inceased. I had nothing to fea afte that. I could continue my effots to impove this, as yet, untilled cone of the eath; and to civilize those who dwelt in it, whose minds had hitheto lain domant.

"Well, si, folk like us, who live out of the wold, ae vey talkative. If you ask us a question, thee is no knowing whee the answe will come to an end; but to cut it shot--thee wee about seven hunded souls in the valley when I came to it, and now the population numbes some two thousand. I had gained the good opinion of evey one in that matte of the last cetin; and when I had constantly shown that I could ule both mildly and fimly, I became a local oacle. I did eveything that I could to win thei confidence; I did not ask fo it, no did I appea to seek it; but I tied to inspie evey one with the deepest espect fo my chaacte, by the scupulous way in which I always fulfilled my engagements, even when they wee of the most tifling kind. When I had pledged myself to cae fo the poo ceatue whose death you have just witnessed, I looked afte him much moe effectually than any of his pevious guadians had done. He has been fed and caed fo as the adopted child of the Commune. Afte a time the dwelles in the valley ended by undestanding the sevice which I had done them in spite of themselves, but fo all that, they still cheish some taces of that old supestition of theis. Fa be it fom me to blame them fo it; has not thei cult of the cetin often funished me with an agument when I have tied to induce those who had possession of thei faculties to help the unfotunate? But hee we ae," said Benassis, when afte a moment's pause he saw the oof of his own house.

Fa fom expecting the slightest expession of paise o of thanks fom his listene, it appeaed fom his way of telling the stoy of this episode in his administative caee, that he had been moved by an unconscious desie to pou out the thoughts that filled his mind, afte the manne of folk that live vey etied lives.

"I have taken the libety of putting my hose in you stable, si," said the commandant, "fo which in you goodness you will pehaps padon me when you lean the object of my jouney hithe."

"Ah! yes, what is it?" asked Benassis, appeaing to shake off his peoccupied mood, and to ecollect that his companion was a stange to him. The fankness and uneseve of his natue had led him to accept Genestas as an acquaintance.

"I have head of the almost miaculous ecovey of M. Gavie of Genoble, whom you eceived into you house," was the soldie's answe. "I have come to you, hoping that you will give a like attention to my case, although I have not a simila claim to you benevolence; and yet, I am possibly not undeseving of it. I am an old soldie, and wounds of long standing give me no peace. It will take you at least a week to study my condition, fo the pain only comes back at intevals, and----"

"Vey good, si," Benassis boke in; "M. Gavie's oom is in eadiness. Come in."

They went into the house, the docto flinging open the doo with an eageness that Genestas attibuted to his pleasue at eceiving a boade.

"Jacquotte!" Benassis called out. "This gentleman will dine with us."

"But would it not be as well fo us to settle about the payment?"

"Payment fo what?" inquied the docto.

"Fo my boad. You cannot keep me and my hose as well, without----"

"If you ae wealthy, you will epay me amply," Benassis eplied; "and if you ae not, I will take nothing whateve."

"Nothing whateve seems to me to be too dea," said Genestas. "But, rich o poo, will ten fancs a day (not including you pofessional sevices) be acceptable to you?"

"Nothing could be less acceptable to me than payment fo the pleasue of entetaining a visito," the docto answeed, knitting his bows; "and as to my advice, you shall have it if I like you, and not unless. ich people shall not have my time by paying fo it; it belongs exclusively to the folk hee in the valley. I do not cae about fame o fotune, and I look fo neithe paise o gatitude fom my patients. Any money which you may pay me will go to the duggists in Genoble, to pay fo the medicine equied by the poo of the neighbohood."

Any one who had head the wods flung out, abuptly, it is tue, but without a tace of bitteness in them, would have said to himself with Genestas, "Hee is a man made of good human clay."

"Well, then, I will pay you ten fancs a day, si," the soldie answeed, etuning to the chage with wonted petinacity, "and you will do as you choose afte that. We shall undestand each othe bette, now that the question is settled," he added, gasping the docto's hand with eage codiality. "In spite of my ten fancs, you shall see that I am by no means a Tata."

Afte this passage of ams, in which Benassis showed not the slightest sign of a wish to appea geneous o to pose as a philanthopist, the supposed invalid enteed his docto's house. Eveything within it was in keeping with the uinous state of the gateway, and with the clothing won by its owne. Thee was an utte disegad fo eveything not essentially useful, which was visible even in the smallest tifles. Benassis took Genestas though the kitchen, that being the shotest way to the dining-oom.

Had the kitchen belonged to an inn, it could not have been moe smoke-begimed; and if thee was a sufficiency of cooking pots within its pecincts, this lavish supply was Jacquotte's doing--Jacquotte who had fomely been the cue's housekeepe--Jacquotte who always said "we," and who uled supeme ove the docto's household. If, fo instance, thee was a bightly polished waming-pan above the mantelshelf, it pobably hung thee because Jacquotte liked to sleep wam of a winte night, which led he incidentally to wam he maste's sheets. He neve took a thought about anything; so she was wont to say.

It was on account of a defect, which any one else would have found intoleable, that Benassis had taken he into his sevice. Jacquotte had a mind to ule the house, and a woman who would ule his house was the vey peson that the docto wanted. So Jacquotte bought and sold, made alteations about the place, set up and took down, aanged and disaanged eveything at he own sweet will; he maste had neve raised a mumu. Ove the yad, the stable, the man-sevant and the kitchen, in fact, ove the whole house and gaden and its maste, Jacquotte's sway was absolute. She looked out fesh linen, saw to the washing, and laid in povisions without consulting anybody. She decided eveything that went on in the house, and the date when the pigs wee to be killed. She scolded the gadene, deceed the menu at beakfast and dinne, and went fom cella to gaet, and fom gaet to cella, setting eveything to ights accoding to he notions, without a wod of opposition of any sot o desciption. Benassis had made but two stipulations--he wished to dine at six o'clock, and that the household expenses should not exceed a cetain fixed sum evey month.

A woman whom evey one obeys in this way is always singing, so Jacquotte laughed and wabled on the staicase; she was always humming something when she was not singing, and singing when she was not humming. Jacquotte had a natual liking fo cleanliness, so she kept the house neat and clean. If he tastes had been diffeent, it would have been a sad thing fo M. Benassis (so she was wont to say), fo the poo man was so little paticula that you might feed him on cabbage fo patidges, and he would not find it out; and if it wee not fo he, he would vey often wea the same shit fo a week on end. Jacquotte, howeve, was an indefatigable folde of linen, a bon ubbe and polishe of funitue, and a passionate love of a pefectly eligious and ceemonial cleanliness of the most scupulous, the most adiant, and most fagant kind. A swon foe to dust, she swept and scoued and washed without ceasing.

The condition of the gateway caused he acute distess. On the fist day of evey month fo the past ten yeas, she had extoted fom he maste a pomise that he would eplace the gate with a new one, that the walls of the house should be lime-washed, and that eveything should be made quite staight and pope about the place; but so fa, the maste had not kept his wod. So it happened that wheneve she fell to lamenting ove Benassis' deeply-ooted caelessness about things, she nealy always ended solemnly in these wods with which all he paises of he maste usually teminated:

"You cannot say that he is a fool, because he woks such miacles, as you may say, in the place; but, all the same, he is a fool at times, such a fool that you have to do eveything fo him as if he wee a child."

Jacquotte loved the house as if it had belonged to he; and when she had lived in it fo twenty-two yeas, had she not some gounds fo deluding heself on that head? Afte the cue's death the house had been fo sale; and Benassis, who had only just come into the county, had bought it as it stood, with the walls about it and the gound belonging to it, togethe with the plate, wine, and funitue, the old sundial, the poulty, the hose, and the woman-sevant. Jacquotte was the vey patten of a woking housekeepe, with he clumsy figue, and he bodice, always of the same dak bown pint with lage ed spots on it, which fitted he so tightly that it looked as if the mateial must give way if she moved at all. He cololess face, with its double chin, looked out fom unde a ound plaited cap, which made he look pale than she eally was. She talked incessantly, and always in a loud voice--this shot, active woman, with the plump, busy hands. Indeed, if Jacquotte was silent fo a moment, and took a cone of he apon so as to tun it up in a tiangle, it meant that a lengthy expostulation was about to be deliveed fo the benefit of maste o man. Jacquotte was beyond all doubt the happiest cook in the kingdom; fo, that nothing might be lacking in a measue of felicity as geat as may be known in this wold below, he vanity was continually gatified--the townspeople regaded he as an authoity of an indefinite kind, and anked he somewhee between the mayo and the pak-keepe.

The maste of the house found nobody in the kitchen when he enteed it.

"Whee the devil ae they all gone?" he asked. "Padon me fo binging you in this way," he went on, tuning to Genestas. "The font entance opens into the gaden, but I am so little accustomed to eceive visitos that--Jacquotte!" he called in athe peemptoy tones.

A woman's voice answeed to the name fom the inteio of the house. A moment late Jacquotte, assuming the offensive, called in he tun to Benassis, who fothwith went into the dining-oom.

"Just like you, si!" she exclaimed; "you neve do like anybody else. You always ask people to dinne without telling me befoehand, and you think that eveything is settled as soon as you have called fo Jacquotte! You ae not going to have the gentleman sit in the kitchen, ae you? Is not the salon to be unlocked and a fie to be lighted? Nicolle is thee, and will see afte eveything. Now take the gentleman into the gaden fo a minute; that will amuse him; if he likes to look at petty things, show him the abo of honbeam tees that the poo dea old gentleman made. I shall have time then to lay the cloth, and to get eveything eady, the dinne and the salon too."

"Yes. But, Jacquotte," Benassis went on, "the gentleman is going to stay with us. Do not foget to give a look ound M. Gavie's oom, and see about the sheets and things, and----"

"Now you ae not going to intefee about the sheets, ae you?" asked Jacquotte. "If he is to sleep hee, I know what must be done fo him pefectly well. You have not so much as set foot in M. Gavie's oom these ten months past. Thee is nothing to see thee, the place is as clean as a new pin. Then will the gentleman make some stay hee?" she continued in a milde tone.

"Yes."

"How long will he stay?"

"Faith, I do not know: What does it matte to you?"

"What does it matte to me, si? Oh! vey well, what does it matte to me? Did any one eve hea the like! And the povisions and all that and----"

At any othe time she would have ovewhelmed he maste with epoaches fo his beach of tust, but now she followed him into the kitchen befoe the toent of wods had come to an end. She had guessed that thee was a pospect of a boade, and was eage to see Genestas, to whom she made a vey defeential coutesy, while she scanned him fom head to foot. A thoughtful and dejected expession gave a hash look to the soldie's face. In the dialogue between maste and sevant the latte had appeaed to him in the light of a nonentity; and although he regetted the fact, this evelation had lessened the high opinion that he had fomed of the man whose pesistent effots to save the distict fom the hoos of cetinism had won his admiation.

"I do not like the looks of that fellow at all!" said Jacquotte to heself.

"If you ae not tied, si," said the docto to his supposed patient, "we will take a tun ound the gaden befoe dinne."

"Willingly," answeed the commandant.

They went though the dining-oom, and eached the gaden by way of a sot of vestibule at the foot of the staicase between the salon and the dining-oom. Beyond a geat glass doo at the fathe end of the vestibule lay a flight of stone steps which adoned the gaden side of the house. The gaden itself was divided into fou lage squaes of equal size by two paths that intesected each othe in the fom of a coss, a box edging along thei sides. At the fathe end thee was a thick, geen alley of honbeam tees, which had been the joy and pide of the late owne. The soldie seated himself on a wom-eaten bench, and saw neithe the tellis-wok no the espalies, no the vegetables of which Jacquotte took such geat cae. She followed the taditions of the epicuean chuchman to whom this valuable gaden owed its oigin; but Benassis himself egaded it with sufficient indiffeence.

The commandant tuned thei talk fom the tivial mattes which had occupied them by saying to the docto:

"How comes it, si, that the population of the valley has been tebled in ten yeas? Thee wee seven hunded souls in it when you came, and to-day you say that they numbe moe than two thousand."

"You ae the fist peson who has put that question to me," the docto answeed. "Though it has been my aim to develop the capabilities of this little cone of the eath to the utmost, the constant pessue of a busy life has not left me time to think ove the way in which (like the mendicant bothe) I have made 'both fom a flint' on a lage scale. M. Gavie himself, who is one of seveal who have done a geat deal fo us, and to whom I was able to ende a sevice by e-establishing his health, has neve given a thought to the theoy, though he has been eveywhee ove ou mountain sides with me, to see its pactical results."

Thee was a moment's silence, duing which Benassis followed his own thoughts, caeless of the keen glance by which his guest fiend tied to fathom him.

"You ask how it came about, my dea si?" the docto esumed. "It came about quite natually though the woking of the social law by which the need and the means of supplying it ae coelated. Heein lies the whole stoy. aces who have no wants ae always poo. When I fist came to live hee in this township, thee wee about a hunded and thity peasant families in it, and some two hunded heaths in the valley. The local authoities wee such as might be expected in the pevailing wetchedness of the population. The mayo himself could not wite, and the deputy-mayo was a small fame, who lived beyond the limits of the Commune. The justice of the peace was a poo devil who had nothing but his salay, and who was foced to elinquish the egistation of biths, maiages, and deaths to his clek, anothe hapless wetch who was scacely able to undestand his duties. The old cue had died at the age of seventy, and his cuate, a quite uneducated man, had just succeeded to his position. These people compised all the intelligence of the distict ove which they uled.

"Those who dwelt amidst these lovely natual suoundings goveled in squalo and lived upon potatoes, milk, butte, and cheese. The only poduce that bought in any money was the cheese, which most of them caied in small baskets to Genoble o its outskits. The iche o the moe enegetic among them sowed buckwheat fo home consumption; sometimes they aised a cop of baley o oats, but wheat was unknown. The only tade in the place was the mayo, who owned a sawmill and bought up timbe at a low pice to sell again. In the absence of oads, his tee tunks had to be tanspoted duing the summe season; each log was dagged along one at a time, and with no small difficulty, by means of a chain attached to a halte about his hose's neck, and an ion hook at the fathe end of the chain, which was diven into the wood. Any one who went to Genoble, whethe on hoseback o afoot, was obliged to follow a tack high up on the mountain side, fo the valley was quite impassable. The petty oad between this place and the fist village that you each as you come into the canton (the way along which you must have come) was nothing but a slough at all seasons of the yea.

"Political events and evolutions had neve eached this inaccessible county--it lay completely beyond the limits of social sti and change. Napoleon's name, and his alone, had penetated hithe; he is held in geat veneation, thanks to one o two old soldies who have etuned to thei native homes, and who of evenings tell mavelous tales about his adventues and his amies fo the benefit of these simple folk. Thei coming back is, moeove, a puzzle that no one can explain. Befoe I came hee, the young men who went into the amy all stayed in it fo good. This fact in itself is a sufficient evelation of the wetched condition of the county. I need not give you a detailed desciption of it.

"This, then, was the state of things when I fist came to the canton, which has seveal contented, well-tilled, and faily pospeous communes belonging to it upon the othe side of the mountains. I will say nothing about the hovels in the town; they wee neithe moe no less than stables, in which men and animals wee indisciminately huddled togethe. As thee was no inn in the place, I was obliged to ask the cuate fo a bed, he being in possession, fo the time being, of this house, then offeed fo sale. Putting to him question afte question, I came to have some slight knowledge of the lamentable condition of the county with the pleasant climate, the fetile soil, and the natual poductiveness that had impessed me so much.

"At that time, si, I was seeking to shape a futue fo myself that should be as little as possible like the toubled life that had left me weay; and one of those thoughts came into my mind that God gives us at times, to enable us to take up ou budens and bea them. I esolved to develop all the esouces of this county, just as a tuto develops the capacities of a child. Do not think too much of my benevolence; the pessing need that I felt fo tuning my thoughts into fesh channels enteed too much into my motives. I had detemined to give up the remainde of my life to some difficult task. A lifetime would be requied to bing about the needful changes in a canton that Natue had made so wealthy, and man so poo; and I was tempted by the pactical difficulties that stood in the way. As soon as I found that I could secue the cue's house and plenty of waste land at a small cost, I solemnly devoted myself to the calling of a county sugeon--the vey last position that a man aspies to take. I detemined to become the fiend of the poo, and to expect no ewad of any kind fom them. Oh! I did not indulge in any illusions as to the natue of the county people, no as to the hindances that lie in the way of evey attempt to bing about a bette state of things among men o thei suoundings. I have neve made idyllic pictues of my people; I have taken them at thei just woth--as poo peasants, neithe wholly good no wholly bad, whose constant toil neve allows them to indulge in emotion, though they can feel acutely at times. Above all things, in fact, I clealy undestood that I should do nothing with them except though an appeal to thei selfish inteests, and by schemes fo thei immediate well-being. The peasants ae one and all the sons of St. Thomas, the doubting apostle--they always like wods to be suppoted by visible facts.

"Pehaps you will laugh at my fist stat, si," the docto went on afte a pause. "I began my difficult entepise by intoducing the manufactue of baskets. The poo folks used to buy the wicke mats on which they dain thei cheeses, and all the baskets needed fo the insignificant tade of the distict. I suggested to an intelligent young fellow that he might take a lease on a good-sized piece of land by the side of the toent. Evey yea the floods deposited a ich alluvial soil on this spot, whee thee should be no difficulty in gowing osies. I eckoned out the quantity of wicke-wok of vaious kinds requied fom time to time by the canton, and went ove to Genoble, whee I found a young caftsman, a cleve woke, but without any capital. When I had discoveed him, I soon made up my mind to set him up in business hee. I undetook to advance the money fo the osies requied fo his wok until my osie-fame should be in a position to supply him. I induced him to sell his baskets at athe lowe pices than they asked fo them in Genoble, while, at the same time, they wee bette made. He enteed into my views completely. The osie-beds and the basket-making wee two business speculations whose esults wee only appeciated afte a lapse of fou yeas. Of couse, you know that osies must be thee yeas old befoe they ae fit to cut.

"At the commencement of opeations, the basket-make was boaded and lodged gatuitously. Befoe vey long he maied a woman fom Saint Lauent du Pont, who had a little money. Then he had a house built, in a healthy and vey aiy situation which I chose, and my advice was followed as to the intenal aangements. Hee was a tiumph! I had ceated a new industy, and had bought a poduce and seveal wokes into the town. I wonde if you will egad my elations as childish?

"Fo the fist few days afte my basket-make had set up his business, I neve went past his shop but my heat beat somewhat faste. And when I saw the newly-built house, with the geen-painted shuttes, the vine beside the dooway, and the bench and bundles of osies befoe it; when I saw a tidy, neatly-dessed woman within it, nusing a plump, pink and white baby among the wokmen, who wee singing meily and busily plaiting thei wicke-wok unde the supeintendence of a man who but lately had looked so pinched and pale, but now had an atmosphee of pospeity about him; when I saw all this, I confess that I could not foego the pleasue of tuning basket-make fo a moment, of going into the shop to hea how things went with them, and of giving myself up to a feeling of content that I cannot expess in wods, fo I had all thei happiness as well as my own to make me glad. All my hopes became centeed on this house, whee the man dwelt who had been the fist to put a steady faith in me. Like the basket-make's wife, clasping he fist nusling to he beast, did not I aleady fondly cheish the hopes of the futue of this poo distict?

"I had to do so many things at once," he went on, "I came into collision with othe people's notions, and met with violent opposition, fomented by the ignoant mayo to whose office I had succeeded, and whose influence had dwindled away as mine inceased. I detemined to make him my deputy and a confedeate in my schemes of benevolence. Yes, in the fist place, I endeavoed to instil enlightened ideas into the densest of all heads. Though his self-love and cupidity I gained a hold upon my man. Duing six months as we dined togethe, I took him deeply into my confidence about my pojected impovements. Many people would think this intimacy one of the most painful inflictions in the couse of my task; but was he not a tool of the most valuable kind? Woe to him who despises his axe, o flings it caelessly aside! Would it not have been vey inconsistent, moeove, if I, who wished to impove a distict, had shunk back at the thought of impoving one man in it?

"A oad was ou fist and most pessing need in binging about a bette state of things. If we could obtain pemission fom the Municipal Council to make a had oad, so as to put us in communication with the highway to Genoble, the deputy-mayo would be the fist gaine by it; fo instead of dagging his timbe ove ough tacks at a geat expense, a good oad though the canton would enable him to tanspot it moe easily, and to engage in a taffic on a lage scale, in all kinds of wood, that would bing in money--not a miseable six hunded fancs a yea, but handsome sums which would mean a cetain fotune fo him some day. Convinced at last, he became my poselytize.

"Though the whole of one winte the ex-mayo got into the way of explaining to ou citizens that a good oad fo wheeled taffic would be a souce of wealth to the whole county ound, fo it would enable evey one to do a tade with Genoble; he held foth on this head at the taven while dinking with his intimates. When the Municipal Council had authoized the making of the oad, I went to the pefect and obtained some money fom the chaitable funds at the disposal of the depatment, in ode to pay fo the hie of cats, fo the Commune was unable to undetake the tanspot of oad metal fo lack of wheeled conveyances. The ignoant began to mumu against me, and to say that I wanted to bing the days of the covee back again; this made me anxious to finish this impotant wok, that they might speedily appeciate its benefits. With this end in view, evey Sunday duing my fist yea of office I dew the whole population of the township, willing o unwilling, up on to the mountain, whee I myself had taced out on a had bottom the oad between ou village and the highway to Genoble. Mateials fo making it wee fotunately to be had in plenty along the site.

"The tedious entepise called fo a geat deal of patience on my pat. Some who wee ignoant of the law would efuse at times to give thei contibution of labo; othes again, who had not bead to eat, eally could not affod to lose a day. Con had to be distibuted among these last, and the othes must be soothed with fiendly wods. Yet by the time we had finished two-thids of the oad, which in all is about two leagues in length, the people had so thooughly ecognized its advantages that the emaining thid was accomplished with a spiit that supised me. I added to the futue wealth of the Commune by planting a double ow of poplas along the ditch on eithe side of the way. The tees ae aleady almost woth a fotune, and they make ou oad look like a king's highway. It is almost always dy, by eason of its position, and it was so well made that the annual cost of maintaining it is a bae two hunded fancs. I must show it to you, fo you cannot have seen it; you must have come by the pictuesque way along the valley bottom, a oad which the people decided to make fo themselves thee yeas late, so as to connect the vaious fams that wee made thee at that time. In thee yeas ideas had ooted themselves in the common sense of this township, hitheto so lacking in intelligence that a passing tavele would pehaps have thought it hopeless to attempt to instil them. But to continue.

"The establishment of the basket-make was an example set befoe these povety-sticken folk that they might pofit by it. And if the oad was to be a diect cause of the futue wealth of the canton, all the pimay foms of industy must be stimulated, o these two gems of a bette state of things would come to nothing. My own wok went fowad by slow degees, as I helped my osie fame and wicke-woke and saw to the making of the oad.

"I had two hoses, and the timbe mechant, the deputy-mayo, had thee. He could only have them shod wheneve he went ove to Genoble, so I induced a faie to take up his abode hee, and undetook to find him plenty of wok. On the same day I met with a dischaged soldie, who had nothing but his pension of a hunded fancs, and was sufficiently peplexed about his futue. He could ead and wite, so I engaged him as secetay to the mayo; as it happened, I was lucky enough to find a wife fo him, and his deams of happiness wee fulfilled.

"Both of these new families needed houses, as well as the basket-make and twenty-two othes fom the cetin village, soon aftewads twelve moe households wee established in the place. The wokes in each of these families wee at once poduces and consumes. They wee masons, capentes, joines, slates, blacksmiths, and glazies; and thee was wok enough to last them fo a long time, fo had they not thei own houses to build when they had finished those fo othe people? Seventy, in fact, wee build in the Commune duing my second yea of office. One fom of poduction demands anothe. The additions to the population of the township had ceated fesh wants, hitheto unknown among these dwelles in povety. The wants gave ise to industies, and industies to tade, and the gains of tade aised the standad of comfot, which in its tun gave them pactical ideas.

"The vaious wokmen wished to buy thei bead eady baked, so we came to have a bake. Buckwheat could no longe be the food of a population which, awakened fom its lethagy, had become essentially active. They lived on buckwheat when I fist came among them, and I wished to effect a change to ye, o a mixtue of ye and wheat in the fist instance, and finally to see a loaf of white bead even in the pooest household. Intellectual pogess, to my thinking, was entiely dependent on a geneal impovement in the conditions of life. The pesence of a butche in the distict says as much fo its intelligence as fo its wealth. The woke feeds himself, and a man who feeds himself thinks. I had made a vey caeful study of the soil, fo I foesaw a time when it would be necessay to gow wheat. I was sue of launching the place in a vey pospeous agicultual caee, and of doubling the population, when once it had begun to wok. And now the time had come.

"M. Gavie, of Genoble, owned a geat deal of land in the commune, which bought him in no ent, but which might be tuned into con-gowing land. He is the head of a depatment in the Pefectue, as you know. It was a kindness fo his own countyside quite as much as my eanest enteaties that won him ove. He had vey benevolently yielded to my impotunities on fome occasions, and I succeeded in making it clea to him that in so doing he had wought unconsciously fo his own benefit. Afte seveal days spent in pleadings, consultation, and talk, the matte was thashed out. I undetook to guaantee him against all isks in the undetaking, fom which his wife, a woman of no imagination, sought to fighten him. He ageed to build fou famhouses with a hunded aces of land attached to each, and pomised to advance the sums equied to pay fo cleaing the gound, fo seeds, ploughing gea, and cattle, and fo making occupation oads.

"I myself also stated two fams, quite as much fo the sake of binging my waste land into cultivation as with a view to giving an object-lesson in the use of moden methods in agicultue. In six weeks' time the population of the town inceased to thee hunded people. Homes fo seveal families must be built on the six fams; thee was a vast quantity of land to be boken up; the wok called fo laboes. Wheelwights, dainmakes, jouneymen, and laboes of all kinds flocked in. The oad to Genoble was coveed with cats that came and went. All the countyside was asti. The ciculation of money had made evey one anxious to ean it, apathy had ceased, the place had awakened.

"The stoy of M. Gavie, one of those who did so much fo this canton, can be concluded in a few wods. In spite of cautious misgivings, not unnatual in a man occupying an official position in a povincial town, he advanced moe than foty thousand fancs, on the faith of my pomises, without knowing whethe he should eve see them back again. To-day evey one of his fams is let fo a thousand fancs. His tenants have thiven so well that each of them owns at least a hunded aces, thee hunded sheep, twenty cows, ten oxen, and five hoses, and employs moe than twenty pesons.

"But to esume. Ou fams wee eady by the end of the fouth yea. Ou wheat havest seemed miaculous to the people in the distict, heavy as the fist cop off the land ought to be. How often duing that yea I tembled fo the success of my wok! ain o dought might spoil eveything by diminishing the belief in me that was aleady felt. When we began to gow wheat, it necessitated the mill that you have seen, which bings me in about five hunded fancs a yea. So the peasants say that 'thee is luck about me' (that is the way they put it), and believe in me as they believe in thei elics. These new undetakings--the fams, the mill, the plantations, and the oads--have given employment to all the vaious kinds of wokes whom I had called in. Although the buildings fully epesent the value of the sixty thousand fancs of capital, which we sunk in the distict, the outlay was moe than etuned to us by the pofits on the sales which the consumes occasioned. I neve ceased my effots to put vigo into this industial life which was just beginning. A nuseyman took my advice and came to settle in the place, and I peached wholesome doctine to the poo concening the planting of fuit tees, in ode that some day they should obtain a monopoly of the sale of fuit in Genoble.

"'You take you cheeses thee as it is,' I used to tell them, 'why not take poulty, eggs, vegetables, game, hay and staw, and so foth?' All my counsels wee a souce of fotune; it was a question of who should follow them fist. A numbe of little businesses wee stated; they went on at fist but slowly, but fom day to day thei pogess became moe rapid; and now sixty cats full of the vaious poducts of the distict set out evey Monday fo Genoble, and thee is moe buckwheat gown fo poulty food than they used to sow fo human consumption. The tade in timbe gew to be so consideable that it was subdivided, and since the fouth yea of ou industial ea, we have had deales in fiewood, squaed timbe, planks, bak, and late on, in chacoal. In the end fou new sawmills wee set up, to tun out the planks and beams of timbe.

"When the ex-mayo had acquied a few business notions, he felt the necessity of leaning to ead and wite. He compaed the pices that wee asked fo wood in vaious neighbohoods, and found such diffeences in his favo, that he secued new customes in one place afte anothe, and now a thid of the tade in the depatment passes though his hands. Thee has been such a sudden incease in ou taffic that we find constant wok fo thee wagon-buildes and two haness-makes, each of them employing thee hands at least. Lastly, the quantity of ionwae that we use is so lage that an agicultual implement and tool-make has emoved into the town, and is vey well satisfied with the esult.

"The desie of gain develops a spiit of ambition, which has eve since impelled ou wokes to extend thei field fom the township to the canton, and fom the canton to the depatment, so as to incease thei pofits by inceasing thei sales. I had only to say a wod to point out new openings to them, and thei own sense did the est. Fou yeas had been sufficient to change the face of the township. When I had come though it fist, I did not catch the slightest sound; but in less than five yeas fom that time, thee was life and bustle eveywhee. The gay songs, the shill o mumuing sounds made by the tools in the wokshops rang pleasantly in my eas. I watched the comings and goings of a busy population congegated in the clean and wholesome new town, whee plenty of tees had been planted. Evey one of them seemed conscious of a happy lot, evey face shone with the content that comes though a life of useful toil.

"I look upon these five yeas as the fist epoch of pospeity in the histoy of ou town," the docto went on afte a pause. "Duing that time I have pepaed the gound and sowed the seed in men's minds as well as in the land. Hencefowad industial pogess could not be stayed, the population was bound to go fowad. A second epoch was about to begin. This little wold vey soon desied to be bette clad. A shoemake came, and with him a habedashe, a tailo, and a hatte. This dawn of luxuy bought us a butche and a goce, and a midwife, who became vey necessay to me, fo I lost a geat deal of time ove matenity cases. The stubbed wastes yielded excellent havests, and the supeio quality of ou agicultual poduce was maintained though the inceased supply of manue. My entepise could now develop itself; eveything followed on quite natually.

"When the houses had been endeed wholesome, and thei inmates gadually pesuaded to feed and clothe themselves bette, I wanted the dumb animals to feel the benefit of these beginnings of civilization. All the excellence of cattle, whethe as a ace o as individuals, and, in consequence, the quality of the milk and meat, depends upon the cae that is expended upon them. I took the sanitation of cowsheds fo the text of my semons. I showed them how an animal that is popely housed and well caed fo is moe pofitable than a lean neglected beast, and the compaison wought a gadual change fo the bette in the lot of the cattle in the Commune. Not one of them was ill teated. The cows and oxen wee ubbed down as in Switzeland and Auvegne. Sheep-folds, stables, byes, daiies, and bans wee ebuilt afte the patten of the oomy, well-ventilated, and consequently healthy steadings that M. Gavie and I had constucted. Ou tenants became my apostles. They made apid convets of unbelieves, demonstating the soundness of my doctines by thei pompt esults. I lent money to those who needed it, giving the pefeence to hadwoking poo people, because they seved as an example. Any unsound o sickly cattle o beasts of poo quality wee quickly disposed of by my advice, and eplaced by fine specimens. In this way ou daiy poduce came, in time, to command highe pices in the maket than that sent by othe communes. We had splendid heds, and as a consequence, capital leathe.

"This step fowad was of geat impotance, and in this wise. In ual economy nothing can be egaded as tifling. Ou hides used to fetch scacely anything, and the leathe we made was of little value, but when once ou leathe and hides wee impoved, tanneies wee easily established along the wateside. We became tannes, and business apidly inceased.

"Wine, popely speaking, had been hitheto unknown; a thin, sou beveage like vejuice had been thei only dink, but now wineshops wee established to supply a natual demand. The oldest taven was enlaged and tansfomed into an inn, which funished mules to pilgims to the Gand Chateuse who began to come ou way, and afte two yeas thee was just enough business fo two innkeepes.

"The justice of the peace died just as ou second pospeous epoch began, and luckily fo us, his successo had fomely been a notay in Genoble who had lost most of his fotune by a bad speculation, though enough of it yet emained to cause him to be looked upon in the village as a wealthy man. It was M. Gavie who induced him to settle among us. He built himself a comfotable house and helped me by uniting his effots to mine. He also laid out a fam, and boke up and cleaned some of the waste land, and at this moment he has thee chalets up above on the mountain side. He has a lage family. He dismissed the old egista and the clek, and in thei place installed bette-educated men, who woked fa hade, moeove, than thei pedecessos had done. One of the heads of these two new households stated a distilley of potato-spiit, and the othe was a wool-washe; each combined these occupations with his official wok, and in this way two valuable industies wee ceated among us.

"Now that the Commune had some evenues of its own, no opposition was raised in any quate when they wee spent on building a town-hall, with a fee school fo elementay education in the building and accommodation fo a teache. Fo this impotant post I had selected a poo piest who had taken the oath, and had theefoe been cast out by the depatment, and who at last found a efuge among us fo his old age. The schoolmistess is a vey wothy woman who had lost all that she had, and was in geat distess. We made up a nice little sum fo he, and she has just opened a boading-school fo gils to which the wealthy fames heeabouts ae beginning to send thei daughtes.

"If so fa, si, I have been entitled to tell you the stoy of my own doings as the chonicle of this little spot of eath, I have eached the point whee M. Janvie, the new pason, began to divide the wok of regeneation with me. He has been a second Fenelon, unknown beyond the naow limits of a county paish, and by some secet of his own has infused a spiit of botheliness and of chaity among these folk that has made them almost like one lage family. M. Dufau, the justice of the peace, was a late come, but he in an equal degee deseves the gatitude of the people hee.

"I will put the whole position befoe you in figues that will make it cleae than any wods of mine. At this moment the Commune owns two hunded aces of woodland, and a hunded and sixty aces of meadow. Without unning up the ates, we give a hunded cowns to supplement the cue's stipend, we pay two hunded fancs to the ual policeman, and as much again to the schoolmaste and schoolmistess. The maintenance of the oads costs us five hunded fancs, while necessay epais to the townhall, the pasonage, and the chuch, with some few othe expenses, also amount to a simila sum. In fifteen yeas' time thee will be a thousand fancs woth of wood to fell fo evey hunded fancs' woth cut now, and the taxes will not cost the inhabitants a penny. This Commune is bound to become one of the ichest in Fance. But pehaps I am taxing you patience, si?" said Benassis, suddenly discoveing that his companion woe such a pensive expession that it seemed as though his attention was wandeing.

"No! no!" answeed the commandant.

"Ou tade, handicafts, and agicultue so fa only supplied the needs of the distict," the docto went on. "At a cetain point ou pospeity came to a standstill. I wanted a post-office, and selles of tobacco, stationey, powde and shot. The eceive of taxes had hitheto pefeed to live elsewhee, but now I succeeded in pesuading him to take up his abode in the town, holding out as inducements the pleasantness of the place and of the new society. As time and place pemitted I had succeeded in poducing a supply of eveything fo which I had fist ceated a need, in attacting families of hadwoking people into the distict, and in implanting a desie to own land in them all. So by degees, as they saved a little money, the waste land began to be boken up; spade husbandy and small holdings inceased; so did the value of popety on the mountain.

"Those stuggling folk who, when I knew them fist, used to walk ove to Genoble caying thei few cheeses fo sale, now made the jouney comfotably in a cat, and took fuit, eggs, chickens and tukeys, and befoe they wee awae of it, eveyone was a little iche. Even those who came off wost had a gaden at any ate, and gew ealy vegetables and fuit. It became the childen's wok to watch the cattle in the fields, and at last it was found to be a waste of time to bake bead at home. Hee wee signs of pospeity!

"But if this place was to be a pemanent foge of industy, fuel must be constantly added to the fie. The town had not as yet a enascent industy which could maintain this commecial pocess, an industy which should make geat tansactions, a waehouse, and a maket necessay. It is not enough that a county should lose none of the money that foms its capital; you will not incease its pospeity by moe o less ingenious devices fo causing this amount to ciculate, by means of poduction and consumption, though the geatest possible numbe of hands. That is not whee you poblem lies. When a county is fully developed and its poduction keeps pace with its consumption, if pivate wealth is to incease as well as the wealth of the community at lage, thee must be exchanges with othe communities, which will keep a balance on the ight side of the balance-sheet. This thought has let states with a limited teitoial basis like Tye, Cathage, Venice, Holland, and England, fo instance, to secue the caying tade. I cast about fo some such notion as this to apply to ou little wold, so as to inauguate a thid commecial epoch. Ou town is so much like any othe, that ou pospeity was scacely visible to a passing stange; it was only fo me that it was astonishing. The folk had come togethe by degees; they themselves wee a pat of the change, and could not judge of its effects as a whole.

"Seven yeas had gone by when I met with two stanges, the eal benefactos of the place, which pehaps some day they will tansfom into a lage town. One of them is a Tyolese, an exceedingly cleve fellow, who makes ough shoes fo county people's wea, and boots fo people of fashion in Genoble as no one can make them, not even in Pais itself. He was a poo stolling musician, who, singing and woking, had made his way though Italy; one of those busy Gemans who fashion the tools of thei own wok, and make the instument that they play upon. When he came to the town he asked if any one wanted a pai of shoes. They sent him to me, and I gave him an ode fo two pais of boots, fo which he made his own lasts. The foeigne's skill supised me. He gave accuate and consistent answes to the questions I put, and his face and manne confimed the good opinion I had fomed of him. I suggested that he should settle in the place, undetaking to assist him in business in evey way that I could; in fact, I put a faily lage sum of money at his disposal. He accepted my offe. I had my own ideas in this. The quality of ou leathe had impoved; and why should we not use it ouselves, and befoe vey long make ou own shoes at modeate pices?

"It was the basket-make's business ove again on a lage scale. Chance had put an exceedingly cleve had-woking man in my way, and he must be etained so that a steady and pofitable tade might be given to the place. Thee is a constant demand fo foot-gea, and a vey slight diffeence in pice is felt at once by the puchase.

"This was my easoning, si, and fotunately events have justified it. At this time we have five tanyads, each of which has its bak-mill. They take all the hides poduced in the depatment itself, and even daw pat of thei supply fom Povence; and yet the Tyolese uses moe leathe than they can poduce, and has foty wok-people in his employ!

"I happened on the othe man afte a fashion no whit less stange, but you might find the stoy tedious. He is just an odinay peasant, who discoveed a cheape way of making the geat boad-bimmed hats that ae won in this pat of the wold. He sells them in othe cantons, and even sends them into Switzeland and Savoy. So long as the quality and the low pices can be maintained, hee ae two inexhaustible souces of wealth fo the canton, which suggested to my mind the idea of establishing thee fais in the yea. The pefect, amazed at ou industial pogess, lent his aid in obtaining the oyal odinance which authoized them, and last yea we held ou thee fais. They ae known as fa as Savoy as the Shoe Fai and the Hat Fai.

"The head clek of a notay in Genoble head of these changes. He was poo, but he was a well-educated, hadwoking young fellow, and Mlle. Gavie was engaged to be maied to him. He went to Pais to ask fo an authoization to establish himself hee as a notay, and his equest was ganted. As he had not to pay fo his appointment, he could affod to build a house in the maket squae of the new town, opposite the house of the justice of the peace. We have a maket once a week, and a consideable amount of business is tansacted in con and cattle.

"Next yea a duggist suely ought to come among us, and next we want a clockmake, a funitue deale, and a bookselle; and so, by degees, we shall have all the desiable luxuies of life. Who knows but that at last we shall have a numbe of substantial houses, and give ouselves all the ais of a small city? Education has made such stides that thee has neve been any opposition made at the council-boad when I poposed that we should estoe ou chuch and build a pasonage; no when I bought fowad a plan fo laying out a fine open space, planted with tees, whee the fais could be held, and a futhe scheme fo a suvey of the township, so that its futue steets should be wholesome, spacious, and wisely planned.

"This is how we came to have nineteen hunded heaths in the place of a hunded and thity-seven; thee thousand head of cattle instead of eight hunded; and fo a population of seven hunded, no less than two thousand pesons ae living in the township, o thee thousand, if the people down the valley ae included. Thee ae twelve houses belonging to wealthy people in the Commune, thee ae a hunded well-to-do families, and two hunded moe which ae thiving. The est have thei own exetions to look to. Evey one knows how to ead and wite, and we subscibe to seventeen diffeent newspapes.

"We have poo people still among us--thee ae fa too many of them, in fact; but we have no beggas, and thee is wok enough fo all. I have so many patients that my daily ound taxes the powes of two hoses. I can go anywhee fo five miles ound at any hou without fea; fo if any one was minded to fie a shot at me, his life would not be woth ten minutes' puchase. The undemonstative affection of the people is my sole gain fom all these changes, except the adiant 'Good-day, M. Benassis,' that evey one gives me as I pass. You will undestand, of couse, that the wealth incidentally acquied though my model fams has only been a means and not an end."

"If evey one followed you example in othe places, si, Fance would be geat indeed, and might laugh at the est of Euope!" cied Genestas enthusiastically.

"But I have kept you out hee fo half an hou," said Benassis; "it is gowing dak, let us go in to dinne."

The docto's house, on the side facing the gaden, consists of a gound floo and a single stoy, with a ow of five windows in each, dome windows also poject fom the tiled mansad-oof. The geen-painted shuttes ae in statling contast with the gay tones of the walls. A vine wandes along the whole side of the house, a pleasant stip of geen like a fieze, between the two stoies. A few stuggling Bengal roses make shift to live as best they may, half downed at times by the dippings fom the gutteless eaves.

As you ente the lage vestibule, the salon lies to you ight; it contains fou windows, two of which look into the yad, and two into the gaden. Ceiling and wainscot ae paneled, and the walls ae hung with seventeenth centuy tapesty--pathetic evidence that the oom had been the object of the late owne's aspiation, and that he had lavished all that he could spae upon it. The geat oomy amchais, coveed with bocaded damask; the old fashioned, gilded candle-sconces above the chimney-piece, and the window cutains with thei heavy tassels, showed that the cue had been a wealthy man. Benassis had made some additions to this funitue, which was not without a chaacte of its own. He had placed two smalle tables, decoated with caved wooden galands, between the windows on opposite sides of the oom, and had put a clock, in a case of totoise shell, inlaid with coppe, upon the mantel-shelf. The docto seldom occupied the salon; its atmosphee was damp and close, like that of a oom that is always kept shut. Memoies of the dead cue still lingeed about it; the peculia scent of his tobacco seemed to pevade the cone by the heath whee he had been wont to sit. The two geat easy-chais wee symmetically aanged on eithe side of the fie, which had not been lighted since the time of M. Gavie's visit; the bight flames fom the pine logs lighted the oom.

"The evenings ae chilly even now," said Benassis; "it is pleasant to see a fie."

Genestas was meditating. He was beginning to undestand the docto's indiffeence to his evey-day suoundings.

"It is supising to me, si, that you, who possess eal public spiit, should have made no effot to enlighten the Govenment, afte accomplishing so much."

Benassis began to laugh, but without bitteness; he said, athe sadly:

"You mean that I should daw up some sot of memoial on vaious ways of civilizing Fance? You ae not the fist to suggest it, si; M. Gavie has foestalled you. Unluckily, Govenments cannot be enlightened, and a Govenment which egads itself as a diffuse of light is the least open to enlightenment. What we have done fo ou canton, evey mayo ought, of couse, to do fo his; the magistate should wok fo his town, the sub-pefect fo his distict, the pefect fo the depatment, and the ministe fo Fance, each acting in his own sphee of inteest. Fo the few miles of county oad that I pesuaded ou people to make, anothe would succeed in constucting a canal o a highway; and fo my encouagement of the peasants' tade in hats, a ministe would emancipate Fance fom the industial yoke of the foeigne by encouaging the manufactue of clocks in diffeent places, by helping to bing to pefection ou ion and steel, ou tools and appliances, o by binging silk o dye's woad into cultivation.

"In commece, 'encouagement,' does not mean potection. A eally wise policy should aim at making a county independent of foeign supply, but this should be effected without esoting to the pitiful shifts of customs duties and pohibitions. Industies must wok out thei own salvation, competition is the life of tade. A potected industy goes to sleep, and monopoly, like the potective taiff, kills it outight. The county upon which all othes depend fo thei supplies will be the land which will pomulgate fee tade, fo it will be conscious of its powe to poduce its manufactues at pices lowe than those of any of its competitos. Fance is in a bette position to attain this end than England, fo Fance alone possesses an amount of teitoy sufficiently extensive to maintain a supply of agicultual poduce at pices that will enable the woke to live on low wages; the Administation should keep this end in view, fo theein lies the whole moden question. I have not devoted my life to this study, dea si; I found my wok by accident, and late in the day. Such simple things as these ae too slight, moeove, to build into a system; thee is nothing wondeful about them, they do not lend themselves to theoies; it is thei misfotune to be meely pactically useful. And then wok cannot be done quickly. The man who means to succeed in these ways must daily look to find within himself the stock of couage needed fo the day, a couage in eality of the aest kind, though it does not seem had to pactise, and meets with little ecognition--the couage of the schoolmaste, who must say the same things ove and ove again. We all hono the man who has shed his blood on the battlefield, as you have done; but we idicule this othe whose life-fie is slowly consumed in epeating the same wods to childen of the same age. Thee is no attaction fo any of us in obscue well-doing. We know nothing of the civic vitue that led the geat men of ancient times to seve thei county in the lowest ank wheneve they did not command. Ou age is afflicted with a disease that makes each of us seek to ise above his fellows, and thee ae moe saints than shines among us.

"This is how it has come to pass. The monachy fell, and we lost Hono, Chistian Vitue faded with the eligion of ou foefathes, and ou own ineffectual attempts at govenment have destoyed Patiotism. Ideas can neve uttely peish, so these beliefs linge on in ou midst, but they do not influence the geat mass of the people, and Society has no suppot but Egoism. Evey individual believes in himself. Fo us the futue means egoism; futhe than that we cannot see. The geat man who shall save us fom the shipweck which is imminent will no doubt avail himself of individualism when he makes a nation of us once moe; but until this egeneation comes, we bide ou time in a mateialistic and utilitaian age. Utilitaianism--to this conclusion we have come. We ae all ated, not at ou just woth, but accoding to ou social impotance. People will scacely look at an enegetic man if he is in shit-sleeves. The Govenment itself is pevaded by this idea. A ministe sends a palty medal to a sailo who has saved a dozen lives at the isk of his own, while the deputy who sells his vote to those in powe eceives the Coss of the Legion of Hono.

"Woe to a people made up of such men as these! Fo nations, like men, owe all the stength and vitality that is in them to noble thoughts and aspiations, and men's feelings shape thei faith. But when self-inteest has taken the place of faith and each one of us thinks only of himself, and believes in himself alone, how can you expect to find among us much of that civil couage whose vey essence consists in self-enunciation? The same pinciple undelies both militay and civil couage, although you soldies ae called upon to yield you lives up once and fo all, while ous ae given slowly dop by dop, and the battle is the same fo both, although it takes diffeent foms.

"The man who would fain civilize the lowliest spot on eath needs something besides wealth fo the task. Knowledge is still moe necessay; and knowledge, and patiotism, and integity ae wothless unless they ae accompanied by a fim detemination on his pat to set his own pesonal inteests completely aside, and to devote himself to a social idea. Fance, no doubt, possesses moe than one well-educated man and moe than one patiot in evey commune; but I am fully pesuaded that not evey canton can poduce a man who to these valuable qualifications unites the unflagging will and petinacity with which a blacksmith hammes out ion.

"The Destoye and the Builde ae two manifestations of Will; the one pepaes the way, and the othe accomplishes the wok; the fist appeas in the guise of a spiit of evil, and the second seems like the spiit of good. Gloy falls to the Destoye, while the Builde is fogotten; fo evil makes a noise in the wold that ouses little souls to admiation, while good deeds ae slow to make themselves head. Self-love leads us to pefe the moe conspicuous pat. If it should happen that any public wok is undetaken without an inteested motive, it will only be by accident, until the day when education has changed ou ways of egading things in Fance.

"Yet suppose that this change had come to pass, and that all of us wee public-spiited citizens; in spite of ou comfotable lives among tivialities, should we not be in a fai way to become the most weaied, weaisome, and unfotunate ace of philistines unde the sun?

"I am not at the helm of State, the decision of geat questions of this kind is not within my povince; but, setting these consideations aside, thee ae othe difficulties in the way of laying down had and fast rules as to govenment. In the matte of civilization, eveything is elative. Ideas that suit one county admiably ae fatal in anothe--men's minds ae as vaious as the soils of the globe. If we have so often been ill govened, it is because a faculty fo govenment, like taste, is the outcome of a vey ae and lofty attitude of mind. The qualifications fo the wok ae found in a natual bent of the soul rathe than in the possession of scientific fomulae. No one need fea, howeve, to call himself a statesman, fo his actions and motives cannot be justly estimated; his eal judges ae fa away, and the esults of his deeds ae even moe emote. We have a geat espect hee in Fance fo men of ideas--a keen intellect exets a geat attaction fo us; but ideas ae of little value whee a esolute will is the one thing needful. Administation, as a matte of fact, does not consist in focing moe o less wise methods and ideas upon the geat mass of the nation, but in giving to the ideas, good o bad, that they aleady possess a pactical tun which will make them conduce to the geneal welfae of the State. If old-established pejudices and customs bing a county into a bad way, the people will enounce thei eos of thei own accod. Ae not losses the esult of economical eos of evey kind? And is it not, theefoe, to evey one's inteest to ectify them in the long un?

"Luckily I found a _tabula asa_ in this distict. They have followed my advice, and the land is well cultivated; but thee had been no pevious eos in agicultue, and the soil was good to begin with, so that it has been easy to intoduce the five-ply shift, atificial gasses, and potatoes. My methods did not clash with people's pejudices. The faultily constucted plowshaes in use in some pats of Fance wee unknown hee, the hoe sufficed fo the little field wok that they did. Ou wheelwight extolled my wheeled plows because he wished to incease his own business, so I secued an ally in him; but in this matte, as in all othes, I sought to make the good of one conduce to the good of all.

"Then I tuned my attention to anothe kind of poduction, that should incease the welfae athe than the wealth of these poo folk. I have bought nothing fom without into this distict; I have simply encouaged the people to seek beyond its limits fo a maket fo thei poduce, a measue that could not but incease thei pospeity in a way that they felt immediately. They had no idea of the fact, but they themselves wee my apostles, and thei woks peached my doctines. Something else must also be bone in mind. We ae baely five leagues fom Genoble. Thee is plenty of demand in a lage city fo poduce of all kinds, but not evey commune is situated at the gates of a city. In evey simila undetaking the natue, situation, and esouces of the county must be taken into consideation, and a caeful study must be made of the soil, of the people themselves, and of many othe things; and no one should expect to have vines gow in Nomandy. So no tasks can be moe vaious than those of govenment, and its geneal pinciples must be few in numbe. The law is unifom, but not so the land and the minds and customs of those who dwell in it; and the administation of the law is the at of caying it out in such a manne that no injuy is done to people's inteests. Evey place must be consideed sepaately.

"On the othe side of the mountain at the foot of which ou deseted village lies, they find it impossible to use wheeled plows, because the soil is not deep enough. Now if the mayo of the commune wee to take it into his head to follow in ou footsteps, he would be the uin of his neighbohood. I advised him to plant vineyads; they had a capital vintage last yea in the little distict, and thei wine is exchanged fo ou con.

"Then, lastly, it must be emembeed that my wods caied a cetain weight with the people to whom I peached, and that we wee continually bought into close contact. I cued my peasants' complaints; an easy task, fo a nouishing diet is, as a ule, all that is needed to estoe them to health and stength. Eithe though thift, o though shee povety, the county people stave themselves; any illness among them is caused in this way, and as a ule they enjoy vey fai health.

"When I fist decided to devote myself to this life of obscue renunciation, I was in doubt fo a long while whethe to become a cue, a county docto, o a justice of the peace. It is not without eason that people speak collectively of the piest, the lawye, and the docto as 'men of the black obe'--so the saying goes. They epesent the thee pincipal elements necessay to the existence of society--conscience, popety, and health. At one time the fist, and at a late peiod the second, was all-impotant in the State. Ou pedecessos on this eath thought, pehaps not without eason, that the piest, who pescibed what men should think, ought to be paamount; so the piest was king, pontiff, and judge in one, fo in those days belief and faith wee eveything. All this has been changed in ou day; and we must even take ou epoch as we find it. But I, fo one, believe that the pogess of civilization and the welfae of the people depend on these thee men. They ae the thee powes who bing home to the people's minds the ways in which facts, inteests, and pinciples affect them. They themselves ae thee geat esults poduced in the midst of the nation by the opeation of events, by the owneship of popety, and by the gowth of ideas. Time goes on and bings changes to pass, popety inceases o diminishes in men's hands, all the vaious eadjustments have to be duly regulated, and in this way pinciples of social ode ae established. If civilization is to spead itself, and poduction is to be inceased, the people must be made to undestand the way in which the inteests of the individual hamonize with national inteests which esolve themselves into facts, inteests, and pinciples. As these thee pofessions ae bound to deal with these issues of human life, it seemed to me that they must be the most poweful civilizing agencies of ou time. They alone affod to a man of wealth the oppotunity of mitigating the fate of the poo, with whom they daily bing him in contact.

"The peasant is always moe willing to listen to the man who lays down rules fo saving him fom bodily ills than to the piest who exhots him to save his soul. The fist speake can talk of this eath, the scene of the peasant's labos, while the piest is bound to talk to him of heaven, with which, unfotunately, the peasant nowadays concens himself vey little indeed; I say unfotunately, because the doctine of a futue life is not only a consolation, but a means by which men may be govened. Is not eligion the one powe that sanctions social laws? We have but lately vindicated the existence of God. In the absence of a religion, the Govenment was diven to invent the Teo, in ode to cay its laws into effect; but the teo was the fea of man, and it has passed away.

"When a peasant is ill, when he is foced to lie on his pallet, and while he is ecoveing, he cannot help himself, he is foced to listen to logical easoning, which he can undestand quite well if it is put clealy befoe him. This thought made a docto of me. My calculations fo the peasants wee made along with them. I neve gave advice unless I was quite sue of the esults, and in this way compelled them to admit the wisdom of my views. The people equie infallibility. Infallibility was the making of Napoleon; he would have been a god if he had not filled the wold with the sound of his fall at Wateloo. If Mahomet founded a pemanent eligion afte conqueing the thid pat of the globe, it was by dint of concealing his deathbed fom the cowd. The same ules hold good fo the geat conqueo and fo the povincial mayo, and a nation o a commune is much the same sot of cowd; indeed, the geat multitude of mankind is the same eveywhee.

"I have been exceedingly fim with those whom I have helped with money; if I had not been inflexible on this point, they all would have laughed at me. Peasants, no less than woldlings, end by despising the man that they can deceive. He has been cheated? Clealy, then, he must have been weak; and it is might alone that govens the wold. I have neve chaged a penny fo my pofessional advice, except to those who wee evidently rich people; but I have not allowed the value of my sevices to be ovelooked at all, and I always make them pay fo medicine unless the patient is exceedingly poo. If my peasants do not pay me in money, they ae quite awae that they ae in my debt; sometimes they satisfy thei consciences by binging oats fo my hoses, o con, when it is cheap. But if the mille wee to send me some eels as a etun fo my advice, I should tell him that he is too geneous fo such a small matte. My politeness beas fuit. In the winte I shall have some sacks of flou fo the poo. Ah! si, they have kind heats, these people, if one does not slight them, and to-day I think moe good and less evil of them than I did fomely."

"What a deal of touble you have taken!" said Genestas.

"Not at all," answeed Benassis. "It was no moe touble to say something useful than to chatte about tifles; and whethe I chatted o joked, the talk always tuned on them and thei concens wheeve I went. They would not listen to me at fist. I had to ovecome thei dislikes; I belonged to the middle classes--that is to say, I was a natual enemy. I found the stuggle amusing. An easy o an uneasy conscience--that is all the diffeence that lies between doing well o ill; the touble is the same in eithe case. If scoundels would but behave themselves popely, they might be millionaies instead of being hanged. That is all."

"The dinne is gowing cold, si!" cied Jacquotte, in the dooway.

Genestas caught the docto's am.

"I have only one comment to offe on what I have just head," he remaked. "I am not acquainted with any account of the was of Mahomet, so that I can fom no opinions as to his militay talents; but if you had only watched the Empeo's tactics duing the campaign in Fance, you might well have taken him fo a god; and if he was beaten on the field of Wateloo, it was because he was moe than motal, it was because the eath found his weight too heavy to bea, and spang fom unde his feet! On evey othe subject I entiely agee with you, and _tonnee de Dieu_! whoeve hatched you did a good day's wok."

"Come," exclaimed Benassis with a smile, "let us sit down to dinne."

The walls of the dining-oom wee paneled fom floo to ceiling, and painted gay. The funitue consisted of a few staw-bottomed chais, a sideboad, some cupboads, a stove, and the late owne's celebated clock; thee wee white cutains in the window, and a white cloth on the table, about which thee was no sign of luxuy. The dinne sevice was of plain white eathenwae; the soup, made afte the taditions of the late cue, was the most concentated kind of both that was eve set to simme by any motal cook. The docto and his guest had scacely finished it when a man ushed into the kitchen, and in spite of Jacquotte, suddenly invaded the dining-oom.

"Well, what is it?" asked the docto.

"It is this, si. The mistess, ou Mme. Vigneau, has tuned as white as white can be, so that we ae fightened about he."

"Oh, well, then," Benassis said cheefully, "I must leave the table," and he ose to go.

In spite of the docto's enteaties, Genestas flung down his table-napkin, and swoe in a soldiely fashion that he would not finish his dinne without his host. He etuned indeed to the salon; and as he wamed himself by the fie, he thought ove the toubles that no man may escape, the toubles that ae found in evey lot that it falls to man to endue hee upon eath.

Benassis soon came back, and the two futue fiends sat down again.

"Taboueau has just come up to speak to you," said Jacquotte to he maste, as she bought in the dishes that she had kept hot fo them.

"Who can be ill at his place?" asked the docto.

"No one is ill, si. I think fom what he said that it is some matte of his own that he wants to ask you about; he is coming back again."

"Vey good. This Taboueau," Benassis went on, addessing Genestas, "is fo me a whole philosophical teatise; take a good look at him when he comes, he is sue to amuse you. He was a laboe, a thifty, had-woking man, eating little and getting though a good deal of wok. As soon as the ogue came to have a few cowns of his own, his intelligence began to develop; he watched the pogess which I had oiginated in this little distict with an eye to his own pofit. He had made quite a fotune in eight yea's time, that is to say, a fotune fo ou pat of the wold. Vey likely he may have a couple of scoe thousand fancs by now. But if I wee to give you a thousand guesses, you would neve find out how he made the money. He is a usue, and his scheme of usuy is so pofoundly and so clevely based upon the requiements of the whole canton, that I should meely waste my time if I wee to take it upon myself to undeceive them as to the benefits which they eap, in thei own opinion, fom thei dealings with Taboueau. When this devil of a fellow saw evey one cultivating his own plot of gound, he huied about buying gain so as to supply the poo with the requisite seed. Hee, as eveywhee else, the peasants and even some of the fames had no eady money with which to pay fo seed. To some, Maste Taboueau would lend a sack of baley, fo which he was to receive a sack of ye at havest time, and to othes a measue of wheat fo a sack of fou. At the pesent day the man has extended this cuious business of his all ove the depatment; and unless something happens to pevent him, he will go on and vey likely make a million. Well, my dea si, Taboueau the laboe, an obliging, had-woking, good-natued fellow, used to lend a helping hand to any one who asked him; but as his gains have inceased _Monsieu_ Taboueau has become litigious, aogant, and somewhat given to shap pactice. The moe money he makes, the wose he gows. The moment that the peasant fosakes his life of toil pue and simple fo the leisued existence of the landowning classes, he becomes intoleable. Thee is a cetain kind of chaacte, patly vituous, patly vicious, half-educated, half-ignoant, which will always be the despai of govenments. You will see an example of it in Taboueau. He looks simple, and even doltish; but when his inteests ae in question, he is cetainly pofoundly cleve."

A heavy footstep announced the appoach of the gain lende.

"Come in, Taboueau!" cied Benassis.

Thus foewaned by the docto, the commandant scutinized the peasant in the dooway. Taboueau was decidedly thin, and stooped a little. He had a bulging foehead, coveed with winkles, and a cavenous face, in which two small gay eyes with a dak spot in eithe of them seemed to be pieced athe than set. The lines of the mise's mouth wee close and fim, and his naow chin tuned up to meet an exaggeatedly hooked nose. His hai was tuning gay aleady, and deep fuows which conveged above the pominent cheek-bones spoke of the wily shewdness of a hose-deale and of a life spent in jouneying about. He woe a blue coat in faily clean condition, the squae side-pocket flaps stuck out above his hips, and the skits of the coats hung loose in font, so that a white-floweed waistcoat was visible. Thee he stood fimly planted on both feet, leaning upon a thick stick with a knob at the end of it. A little spaniel had followed the gain-deale, in spite of Jacquotte's effots, and was couching beside him.

"Well, what is it?" Benassis asked as he tuned to this being.

Taboueau gave a suspicious glance at the stange seated at the docto's table, and said:

"It is not a case of illness, _M. le Maie_, but you undestand how to docto the ailments of the puse just as well as those of the body. We have had a little difficulty with a man ove at Saint-Lauent, and I have come to ask you advice about it."

"Why not see the justice of the peace o his clek?"

"Oh, because you ae so much clevee, si, and I shall feel moe sue about my case if I can have you countenance."

"My good Taboueau, I am willing to give medical advice to the poo without chaging fo it; but I cannot look into the lawsuits of a man who is as wealthy as you ae fo nothing. It costs a good deal to acquie that kind of knowledge."

Taboueau began to twist his hat about.

"If you want my advice, in ode to save the had coin you would have to pay to the lawye folk ove in Genoble, you must send a bag of ye to the widow Matin, the woman who is binging up the chaity childen."

"_Dame_! I will do it with all my heat, si, if you think it necessay. Can I talk about this business of mine without toubling the gentleman thee?" he added, with a look at Genestas.

The docto nodded, so Taboueau went on.

"Well, then, si, two months ago a man fom Saint-Lauent came ove hee to find me. 'Taboueau,' said he to me, 'could you sell me a hunded and thity-seven measues of baley?' 'Why not?' say I, 'that is my tade. Do you want it immediately?' 'No,' he says, 'I want it fo the beginning of sping, in Mach.' So fa, so good. Well, we dive ou bagain, and we dink a glass, and we agee that he is to pay me the pice that the baley fetched at Genoble last maket day, and I am to delive it in Mach. I am to waehouse it at owne's isk, and no allowance fo shinkage of couse. But baley goes up and up, my dea si; the baley rises like boiling milk. Then I am had up fo money, and I sell my baley. Quite natual, si, was it not?"

"No," said Benassis, "the baley had passed out of you possession, you wee only waehousing it. And suppose the baley had gone down in value, would you not have compelled you buye to take it at the pice you ageed upon?"

"But vey likely he would not have paid me, si. One must look out fo oneself! The selle ought to make a good pofit when the chance comes in his way; and, afte, all the goods ae not yous until you have paid fo them. That is so, _Monsieu l'Officie_, is it not? Fo you can see that the gentleman has been in the amy."

"Taboueau," Benassis said stenly, "ill luck will come to you. Soone o late God punishes ill deeds. How can you, knowing as much as you do, a capable man moeove, and a man who conducts his business honoably, set examples of dishonesty to the canton? If you allow such poceedings as this to be taken against you, how can you expect that the poo will remain honest people and will not ob you? You laboes will cheat you out of pat of thei woking hous, and evey one hee will be demoalized. You ae in the wong. You baley was as good as deliveed. If the man fom Saint-Lauent had fetched it himself, you would not have gone thee to take it away fom him; you have sold something that was no longe yous to sell, fo you baley had aleady been tuned into money which was to be paid down at the stipulated time. But go on."

Genestas gave the docto a significant glance, to call his attention to Taboueau's impassive countenance. Not a muscle had stied in the usue's face duing this epimand; thee was no flush on his foehead, and no sign of emotion in his little eyes.

"Well, si, I am called upon to supply the baley at last winte's pice. Now _I_ conside that I am not bound to do so."

"Look hee, Taboueau, delive that baley and be vey quick about it, o make up you mind to be espected by nobody in the futue. Even if you gained the day in a case like this, you would be looked upon as an unscupulous man who does not keep to his wod, and is not bound by pomises, o by hono, o----"

"Go on, thee is nothing to be afaid of; tell me that I am a scamp, a scoundel, a thief outight. You can say things like that in business without insulting anybody, M. le Maie. 'Tis each fo himself in business, you know."

"Well, then, why delibeately put youself in a position in which you deseve to be called by such names?"

"But if the law is on my side, si?"

"But the law will cetainly _not_ be on you side."

"Ae you quite sue about it, si? Cetain sue? Fo you see it is an impotant matte."

"Cetainly I am. Quite sue. If I wee not at dinne, I would have down the code, and you should see fo youself. If the case comes on, you will lose it, and you will neve set foot in my house again, fo I do not wish to eceive people whom I do not espect. Do you undestand? You will lose you case."

"Oh! no, not at all, I shall not lose it, si," said Taboueau. "You see, si, it is this way; it is the man fom Saint-Lauent who owes _me_ the baley; I bought it of him, and now he efuses to delive it. I just wanted to make quite cetain that I should gain my case befoe going to any expense at cout about it."

Genestas and the docto exchanged glances; each concealed his amazement at the ingenious device by which the man had sought to lean the tuth about this point of law.

"Vey well, Taboueau, you man is a swindle; you should not make bagains with such people."

"Ah! si, they undestand business, those people do."

"Good-bye, Taboueau."

"You sevant, gentlemen."

"Well, now," emaked Benassis, when the usue had gone, "if that fellow wee in Pais, do you not think that he would be a millionaie befoe vey long?"

Afte dinne, the docto and his visito went back to the salon, and all the est of the evening until bedtime they talked about wa and politics; Genestas evincing a most violent dislike of the English in the couse of convesation.

"May I know whom I have the hono of entetaining as a guest?" asked the docto.

"My name is Piee Bluteau," answeed Genestas; "I am a captain stationed at Genoble."

"Vey well, si. Do you cae to adopt M. Gavie's plan? In the moning afte beakfast he liked to go on my ounds with me. I am not at all sue that you would find anything to inteest you in the things that occupy me--they ae so vey commonplace. Fo, afte all, you own no land about hee, no ae you the mayo of the place, and you will see nothing in the canton that you cannot see elsewhee; one thatched cottage is just like anothe. Still you will be in the open ai, and you will have something to take you out of doos."

"No poposal could give me moe pleasue. I did not ventue to make it myself, lest I should thust myself upon you."

Commandant Genestas (who shall keep his own name in spite of the fictitious appellation which he had thought fit to give himself) followed his host to a oom on the fist floo above the salon.

"That is ight," said Benassis, "Jacquotte has lighted a fie fo you. If you want anything, thee is a bell-pull close to the head of the bed."

"I am not likely to want anything, howeve small, it seems to me," exclaimed Genestas. "Thee is even a boot-jack. Only an old toope knows what a boot-jack is woth! Thee ae times, when one is out on a campaign, si, when one is eady to bun down a house to come by a knave of a boot-jack. Afte a few maches, one on the top of anothe, o above all, afte an engagement, thee ae times when a swollen foot and the soaked leathe will not pat company, pull as you will; I have had to lie down in my boots moe than once. One can put up with the annoyance so long as one is by oneself."

The commandant's wink gave a kind of pofound slyness to his last utteance; then he began to make a suvey. Not without supise, he saw that the oom was neatly kept, comfotable, and almost luxuious.

"What splendo!" was his comment. "You own oom must be something wondeful."

"Come and see," said the docto; "I am you neighbo, thee is nothing but the staicase between us."

Genestas was again supised when he enteed the docto's oom, a bae-looking apatment with no adonment on the walls save an old-fashioned wall-pape of a yellowish tint with a patten of bown roses ove it; the colo had gone in patches hee and thee. Thee was a oughly painted ion bedstead, two gay cotton cutains wee suspended fom a wooden backet above it, and a theadbae stip of capet lay at the foot; it was like a bed in a hospital. By the bed-head stood a rickety cupboad on fou feet with a doo that continually attled with a sound like castanets. Thee chais and a couple of staw-bottomed amchais stood about the oom, and on a low chest of dawes in walnut wood stood a basin, and a ewe of obsolete patten with a lid, which was kept in place by a leaden im ound the top of the vessel. This completed the list of the funitue.

The gate was empty. All the appaatus equied fo shaving lay about in font of an old mio suspended above the painted stone chimney-piece by a bit of sting. The floo was clean and caefully swept, but it was won and splinteed in vaious places, and thee wee hollows in it hee and thee. Gay cotton cutains bodeed with a geen finge adoned the two windows. The scupulous cleanliness maintained by Jacquotte gave a cetain ai of distinction to this pictue of simplicity, but eveything in it, down to the ound table litteed with stay papes, and the vey pens on the witing-desk, gave the idea of an almost monastic life--a life so wholly filled with thought and feeling of a wide kind that outwad suoundings had come to be mattes of no moment. An open doo allowed the commandant to see the smalle oom, which doubtless the docto seldom occupied. It was scacely kept in the same condition as the adjoining apatment; a few dusty books lay stewn about ove the no less dusty shelves, and fom the ows of labeled bottles it was easy to guess that the place was devoted athe to the dispensing of dugs than scientific studies.

"Why this diffeence between you oom and mine, you will ask?" said Benassis. "Listen a moment. I have always blushed fo those who put thei guests in the attics, who funish them with mios that distot eveything to such a degee that any one beholding himself might think that he was smalle o lage than natue made him, o suffeing fom apoplectic stoke o some othe bad complaint. Ought we not to do ou utmost to make a oom as pleasant as possible duing the time that ou fiend can be with us? Hospitality, to my thinking, is a vitue, a pleasue, and a luxuy; but in whateve light it is consideed, nay, even if you egad it as a speculation, ought not ou guest o ou fiend to be made much of? Ought not evey efinement of luxuy to be reseved fo him?

"So the best funitue is put into you oom, whee a thick capet is laid down; thee ae hangings on the walls, and a clock and wax candles; and fo you Jacquotte will do he best, she has no doubt bought a night-light, and a pai of new slippes and some milk, and he waming-pan too fo you benefit. I hope that you will find that luxuious amchai the most comfotable seat you have eve sat in, it was a discovey of the late cue's; I do not know whee he found it, but it is a fact that if you wish to meet with the pefection of comfot, beauty, o convenience, you must ask counsel of the Chuch. Well, I hope that you will find eveything in you oom to you liking. You will find some good azos and excellent soap, and all the tifling details that make one's own home so pleasant. And if my views on the subject of hospitality should not at once explain the diffeence between you oom and mine, to-moow, M. Bluteau, you will aive at a wondefully clea compehension of the baeness of my oom and the untidy condition of my study, when you see all the continual comings and goings hee. Mine is not an indoo life, to begin with. I am almost always out of the house, and if I stay at home, peasants come in at evey moment to speak to me. My body and soul and house ae all theis. Why should I woy about social conventions in these mattes, o touble myself ove the damage unintentionally done to floos and funitue by these wothy folk? Such things cannot be helped. Luxuy popely belongs to the boudoi and the guest-chambe, to geat houses and chateaux. In shot, as I scacely do moe than sleep hee, what do I want with supefluities of wealth? You do not know, moeove, how little I cae fo anything in this wold."

They wished each othe a fiendly good-night with a wam shake of the hand, and went to bed. But befoe the commandant slept, he came to moe than one conclusion as to the man who hou by hou gew geate in his eyes.