She did not answer, but led the way to the room where Mrs. Blunden lay. Leaving him outside for a moment, she entered, found Kate in a half stupor, and then returned and admitted him. "Good Heaven!" he cried, when he had felt the patient's pulse, and noted her wasted haggard features, "why did you not let me her before?" "Is she so very ill?” He shook his head. this other of her fondness; how he had gone to this other with her innocent kisses yet warm upon his lips. She sat and saw her old ghostself, and pitied it, and she sighed, "Poor Kate!" She had already written to Blunden, directing to his lawyer's according to her own suggestion : she now wrote again. Kate wished her to write see-begged her to write. All the wife's anger at her husband's desertion, at that cowardly blow, had melted away. She transmuted his baseness into precious metal by that illogical alchemy in which women have intuitive proficiency. "I deserved it," she told May. "I have not your temper, dear; and I drove him from me. I dared him to strike me, and he struck. Oh May! my better angel! write to him, and tell him I'am ill. He will come, I know. He loves me still, May-he always loved me. Forgive; oh! forgive." "May," murmured Kate, rousing, "give me water. My throat is dry-dry." She caught sight of the doctor, and started up, screaming "Not Michael?-My husband, my husband!" Mr. Gerard soothed her. He recognized her, not so much by the face and voice-they were so altered-but by the name Michael; for he remembered the old story. When he and May left the room, he reverently raised her hand to his lips. "God bless you, May!" he said. "She will not die, sir?" she asked. "We will do all that is possible to save her. She is fearfully weak. Cannot you tell Mrs. Meryton? You must tell her. It is impossible to keep it secret. Let me break the ice to morrow?" "She must not be told yet; and if the necessity comes, I will tell her myself," May answered, ungraciously. "You know I am ready to do anything for you. Use me." "I will, if I need help." Kate grew weaker and weaker. The fever clung to her fading body like a wolf. May stayed with her as much as she could; but it was little time she could spare from her mother's side. Often at night, when Mrs. Meryton was asleep, she stole upstairs, and watched through the weary hours, listening to the delirious mutterings of Kate. In that restless, uneasy state, which is neither sleeping nor waking, which weakness and low fever always bring with them, the poor invalid lay night after night. Whether it was the familiar appearance of the room that haunted her memory, or whatever other cause, in these feverish dreams Kate always returned to the time of her girlhoodto the time of that unhappy love. She prattled with Michael Blunden, coquetted with him, expressed her jealousy of May, confessed her passion. Now she talked with Michael of their duplicity, of the discovery that must comebegged of him to fly with her, to save her shame. Now she would mock with him at the absent May, so bitterly deceived; ask which he loved the best, which was the prettiest. Her sister sat by, grim and silent. All the past came before her in these phantasmagorial dreams. Many a scene she had fancied as taking place between the two was realized. In that first bitterest jealousy she had pictured how they had mocked her; how Michael had told "I have forgiven. I will write." Blunden did not come, and there was no answer to the letters. "If he should come?" thought May, every morning. How can I bear to meet this man again?" She pressed her hand on her lean bosom. "How shall I keep his visit secret? This is selfish. She will die; and she shall see him before she dies, if I can accomplish it." Yes; Kate must die. "There is no shadow of hope," said Gerard, the doctor. "She may linger for days or weeks; but she has no strength to rally." "What am I to do? Help me, sir." "She cannot be moved now." "She must die here? It is better." "I will do all I can for you, May. God bless you!" The greatest comfort to May, in these troublous times, was the boy. Stilled into preternatural quietness, never raising his voice above a whisper, crawling downstairs, lest childish trebles and pattering feet should be heard by the paralytic woman in her prison-room, this boy-so tractable, so solemn in his grief and his silence, so loving-grew into May's desolate heart, and filled up in a measure that yawning abyss whence the old love had been rooted out. He clung round May's neck with his small arms, and, pressing against that poor heart, warmed it into unwonted beatings. Him, however, May was to lose. The enforced stillness and imprisonment were not good for the child; and beyond this, it was better that he should be separated from his mother. Mr. Gerard took charge of him; and people wondered whence the bachelor-doctor had got this child. In vain May attempted to soften her mother's hate, and thus to open the way for a confession of her terrible secret. "Kate is dying, mother!" she said, one day, in her quiet voice. "I hope she has repented?" "Have not you repented? Will you not let me tell her you forgive her?" "I will not!" It was hopeless. May nerved herself for the duties that lay before her. "A woman of no feeling, this; of coarse na ture, lacking sensitiveness"! you might have said, had you seen her calm mien at this time. She looked a little older; her face took a leaden tinge from want of proper sleep; her eyes were red-it might be from watching, it might be from weeping. She was not a heroine, to whom tears added a new charm. She performed her customary duties about her mother in her customary manner; read the daily services and the appointed lessons in her ordinary voice; worked with a hand not more trembling than usual. Into the room of the dying woman we will not penetrate the story-teller's art has no business there. Listening at the door, we might hear sobs and prayers. : Michael Blunden neither came nor wrote: his wife ceased to hope to see him; indeed, towards the last she lay constantly in a stupor, and was not troubled by such disappointments. Why should we linger over these scenes? why play with skulls and cross-bones, and beat idle tunes upon coffins ? Kate died, and was buried; and her stepmother, who so hated her, never dreamed of what had taken place within the same house. "Another funeral, May!" she said, as the tolling of the bell reached her ear. "Ah! it will be my turn soon!" "Yes, mamma," said May, using that more tender word instead of mother-" yes, mamma, a funeral. Let me kiss you, dear mamma. Do you know poor Kate is dead? I will read the burial-service: listen." The first days of sorrow were over. May, after her hard life of penuriousness and imprisonment, found herself rich, and at liberty. As she wandered, on summer mornings, through the garden, sombrous with ancient trees, a very wilderness of untrimmed shrubs and flowers, it seemed to her that she had entered into another world and a new life. She never tired of the open air. The sounds of the rustling leaves, of the wind, of birds and insects, of distant cattle; the scents of flowers and of hay, the sight of the sun playing through green leaves, of the blue sky with its gliding clouds, of the shadows changing on the shadowy hills-all these charms of Nature were literally enchantments round her. Oh this beneficent Nature! How we countryfolks, who lie in her very bosom, and might feel the beatings of her mighty heart, ignore her influences, and are blind and deaf, and altogether senseless! May, after her long captivity in that darkened room, felt the smallest common-place as a miracle. She could watch some tiny insect crawling through the grass-blades for hours together. The monotonous whistling of the wind through the rank grasses of the church-yard played, to her ear, elaborate fugues; and to watch the changes of the church, how portions went back into shadow, and portions came forward into light, as the sun swept round the heavens, was an endless study. This out-door life recalled her girlhood, when, from morning till night, she had lived among the flowers as the butterflies did-recalled her love, recalled her sorrow; but the sorrow was chastened and subdued, and only harmonized her serenity of heart as shadow harmonizes light. She had her boy constantly prattling about her. That shrill laugh of childhood, when it began to break forth unrestrained, startled her at first almost into tears; but she learned to listen for it, to call it forth, to love it as she had never loved anything, save a low, sweet, lying voice years ago. This boy grew into her heart more and more, striking down firm fibres, newed the worn and weary soil in which they whose youth and sweetness and strength rerooted. Her heart learned to bound and thrill and tremble, waking, as it were, from the dead. when the spring foliage has been blasted in its A second summer came to her. Sometimes, prime by winds or storms or blights, out of the blossoms come upon the trees, with new promise withered leaves new buds will burgeon, fresh of fruit. Very different from spring, but still a renewal; of soberer tint, of fainter vividity, to the spring exuberance "as moonlight unto sunlight, and as water unto wine"-but still a re newal. ing over the boy, who lay asleep upon the lawn, On a hot summer afternoon, as she was bend, humbly, at the distance of some feet from her. soft feet crept over the grass, and stopped "Miss Meryton-May!" whispered a trembling voice. "My God!" she started to her feet gasping, pressing her clenched hands upon her heart. There he stood. "I will go," he said, sadly, turning but lingering. "Where is my wife's grave? Tell me. Is that my child?" Very poorly clad, his shabby hat in his hand, of woe-begone countenance, wrecks of his beauty showed still about his mouth and his downcast eyes. She stifled her emotion. "Why do you come here? It is too late to come now!" He told a long lying tale-how he had not received the letters; how he had been abroad-of She was not troubled by him again—simply for the reason that soon after he was transported for some base transaction or other, and did not live to return. May had another offer of marriage about this time. "Miss May," said the doctor, one day, "you are an heiress; I am not a rich man. You are as near to an angel as any mortal can be: I am selfish, sour-tempered, as weak and wicked as most men. Will you marry me?" "My dear, dear friend; I thank you from my heart," said May, taking both his hands; "but I shall never marry: you know I shall not. Do not ask me this question again." "We are to be friends?" "Always-for ever!" LOST AT SEA. BY ADA TREVANION. Where art thou-where? Had I but pressed I would have culled all pallid flowers With which the Spring the green earth dowers, White violets from the vernal woods, Frail wind-flowers, and faint May-buds Should have enwreathed thy shining hair: The cypress I had gathered too, The willow-boughs which ever weep, And rosemary, and sable yew, To shade thy last, cold, dreamless sleep. But thou art lying far away, Where Love no farewell-gifts may shed; Thy dirge the dashing of the spray, The moan of billows o'er thee spread. The sweeping floods the grey rocks lave Whereon thou hast in beauty roved; That waste of waters is thy grave, Thou who wast fairest and most loved! Ramsgate, April 14th, 1859. THE BIRTH OF THE FLOWERS. A soft rain fell, ere morning came And the streams began to flow: The blackbird took a mate, and made With the bleat of lambs and sheep: The flowers began to peep. Kiss'd by the beams of the morning sun, On every wind that blew : Put on their sunset hue, The nightingale came back, and sang Was fraught with dewy showers, MOUNTAIN SHADOWS. Through the pleasant summer-weather, All day long, we walked together; Up and down amidst the heather Of the Eildon hills. There we watched the distant river Through the corn-sheaves glint and quiver, Like a sunbeam, flashing ever Through the Eildon hills. Where, through all that pleasant weather, Blue-bell, fern, and purple heather Blend in melody together On the Eildon hills; There we watched the shadows sleeping, Wakening now, and pausing, creeping, And anon in glory sweeping O'er the Eildon hills. Sometimes gathering, darkening wholly For the shadows, off the height So for days that, cold and dreary, P. 8 TOULON; OR, A WALK IN THE VAR. I sent you a few pages not long since, giving some details of that now highly interesting and vastly progressing city, Marseilles-the Liverpool of France, and the pride of eastern commerce. A railway, now open to the public, has joined that city to the maritime port and arsenal of Toulon-a most practical and desirable undertaking-thus joining the capital of France with one of its most important marine ports. At the period my pen writes these lines, though far from the pleasant lands of southern France, war and rumours of war-the march of contending arinies in fact already on the move-❘ appears the sole topic of all.* May God, I say, still avert the reopening of wounds scarcely healed in the memory of the past by renewed bloodshed of the present! Should war, however, be inevitable-and the bugle may indeed have already blown the call to arms ere these lines reach my Fatherland-the railway to which I have alluded, and by which I am about to lead you from Marseilles to pleasant scenes of Nature -God's beauteous vales and flowery meadswill be a source of immense utility to the government. Put aside, however, for the moment, all thoughts of the battle field and its horrors, and follow my footsteps to more peaceful scenes of interest and labour. The county or department called Provence, by which Toulon is surrounded, is not only one of the most beautiful, but one of the most productive, in fruit, wine, and oil, of Southern France. Toulon itself, built on the slope and base of high and rocky hills or mountains, by which it is protected from the keen northern blasts of winter, reposes as it were in a luxuriant vale, washed by the blue waters of the Mediterranean Sea, which, there formed into a capacious bay, protected by an island and the projecting mainland, is ever placid. Its port, in fact, is one of the most vast and safe in Europe, defended by innumerable forts on the heights and above the city. It is divided as it were into two ports-a naval and commercial port, joined by a canal. 66 means without interest. When this pleasant season arrives, the proprietors of the olive groves collect a number of chosen men, women, and children, male and female, to aid in the gathering. The men are prepared with long willow wands, and are called, according to Provençal language, “aquanairé," the women and children ramassuroz"-the former, in plain English, being "knockers down," the latter " up.' pickers The men receive a shilling or fifteenpence a-day and their food, or 18. 8d. a-day without food for their work; the women and children from 8d. to 10d. with food, or 1s. 3d. without. All being engaged, they proceed to the gathering under the superintendence of the owner, or some one deputed by him, to prevent idleness and pillage; and thus the olive harvest commences. Sailcloths or other cloths are spread beneath the trees to catch the fruit which the men mounted in the trees knock down with their willow wands, while the women and children gather them into baskets. This operation terminated, they are carried to the crushing mill, and then arrives the period when the owner is most anxious his work should be well performed. Previous to its commencement, however, all engaged are invited to a sort of harvest home, though somewhat dissimilar to that pleasant hearty feast prepared on similar occasions in old England, and certainly not giving one an idea of the effect it is intended to produce, viz., additional strength to the employed; it being the hope of the proprietor, who attends the feast in person by way of encouragement, to obtain every possible drop of oil from the fruit. This feast consists simply of fish, garlic, and oil, so mixed as to give it the appearance of a dish of pomatum. At Toulon this dish is called a 66 gangasse;" at Paris, where it may be also eaten, a "brandade." Strange as it may appear, there are gourmets to whom it is by no means unpalatable. Being a partaker, all that is necessary is, I imagine, to keep as far as may be from any other human being in civilized life, as the odour is detestable. At Toulon, In 1793 Toulon was occupied by the English, however, all the world appear to be "gourmets" which subsequently they abandoned; and it in the question of garlic-the exception is rare, was here, according to French history and asser-indeed very rare. Garlic is eaten, and appation, that commenced the "glory" of Napoleon the First. It is not, however, of Napoleon's glory" or feats of arms that I am desirous to speak, but of a subject far more pleasing-the natural produce of a beautiful and luxuriant province. 66 rently enjoyed by all. Different sorts of fish may be used in its composition; also vegetables, such as potatoes, and dried beans soaked in oil; but garlic is the beginning and end of all the dishes and all the seasonings in Provence. For those who like garlic-which I do not-go to Provence. The olive tree may be justly termed one of the richest products of Provence. They abound Besides the olive season, there is another in the neighbourhood of Toulon; and the mode gathering in the neighbourhood of Toulon, unand manner of gathering them in and convert-doubtedly of less, far less importance; but still ing the ripe fruit into oil in due season is by no *This paper was received some months back, and before the war in Italy had become inevitable.-ED, most curious, as evincing the strange variety of agricultural, or rather floricultural produce. Few would believe that the little dry flower called in England, I fancy, the "everlasting flower," and in France "L'immortelle," and which has of late been creeping so prettily into our winter bouquets, in the neighbourhood of Toulon alone should create employment and produce a net return of £4,000 annually: such nevertheless is the case. This little flower, used in France to deck the graves, affords employment to numerous girls at the little village of Olioulles, in Var, Provence, who sit together in numbers, singing and laughing, while they form the wreaths or crowns, seen in numbers in Père la Chaise, as around the splendid monument in the Place Vendome. Nevertheless, all are not made into crowns at Olioulles; for the most part, the flowers are culled, placed in boxes, and sent to Paris, Lyons, and even to Bordeaux, for exportation to Russia. In the month of June, if I may so term it, the flower harvest commences. First they are placed in boxes to dry; then women and children are employed to separate the corymbose heads of downy flowers; which operation being concluded, they are placed in other boxes, the price of which varies from fifteen to thirty centimes. One hundred boxes form a case, composing the annual produce of the canton, which, as I have already said, amounts to about £4,000. Olioulles is a small and prettily situated village, at the entrance of a picturesque valley, called the Gorge of Olioulles. This valley is inclosed by rough and sharp rocks, burned by the sun, and absolutely sterile, is, nevertheless, singularly picturesque. When there, I heard a tale, worthy of being repeated here. A monk, who carried a considerable sum of money from his convent, when crossing the Valley of Olioulles, met with two highwaymen, who demanded his money or his life. "I prefer," said he, "to give you all I possess, rather than my life; but you are unacquainted with monks; you know not how suspicious they are. If I return and tell them I have been robbed, without offering any proof of the fact, save their loss, they will not believe me, but accuse me of the theft. Who knows the persecution to which I shall be subject to, or what will be my sufferings? Surely you would not desire that I should be thus re warded for having enriched you without an effort to defend myself." "What then?" said the robbers. "Nevertheless, tell us what we can do to prevent your being punished." "It is at least necessary," replied the monk, "that I should show some signs of having received ill treatment. Here is my cloak: I see that you are armed, fire a shot or two into it. Then I shall be enabled to convince them that my life was nearly sacrificed in their service." The robbers consented; but when the monk, who was a brave and athletic man, found their fire-arms were discharged, he fell upon them with a thick stick, and causing them to fly, went his way with his money in safety. The shopkeepers and inhabitants of Toulon are in the habit of taking their wives and children, each saint-day or holiday, to eat onion salads, by way of a treat, in the neighbouring villages; on such occasions the cavalcade is somewhat curious. The wife is mounted on a donkey. Two large baskets, one on each side of the animal, contain the lady's legs, a child or two, and various provisions to be enjoyed with the salad; while the husband, with a large stick, walks behind, the maid-of-all-work at his side, who sometimes, indeed not seldom, holds two children by the hand, while two others drag on to papa's coat tails, who is thus prevented from mopping his perspiring forehead, while he breasts the mountain side. Pleasure, joy, and contentment are visible on every countenance. They arrive, they eat, they enjoy for hours the fresh breeze of the mountain side; and when the cool of the evening arrives, they return a happy family to the heated city, with renewed health, and renewed hopes that the day will soon come round again for another onion salad, to which, for the most part, is added a trifle of garlic. Surely their pleasures are sufficiently innocent. Who can envy them, or desire to deprive them of it? After naming these country pleasures, which appear to be enjoyed by all classes, the hill sides of Toulon being scattered over with innumerable villas, which for the most part command splendid sea views, I may add that without, the houses of the peasantry and farm houses, are scarcely less attractive and picturesque. The walls are thick, the rooms being evidently built, as far as possible, to protect the inmates from the heat of the summer sun. In other parts of Provence, on the contrary, the cold is most feared, and there, as in the Valley of the Loire, the peasantry for the most part inhabit mere caves, dug in the mountain sides. I only regret that my pencil is not permitted to illustrate, in the pages of this magazine, that which my pen has feebly depicted, while steaming over the ever dark-blue, but unquestionably not the ever calm Mediterranean. "THE POOR MAN AND THE THIEF." (A Sketch.) BY F. LOUIS JAQUERod. At midnight hour-their course when felons steer- |