In this manner the little prattler conversed with herself while she filled her apron with the marguerites. In the mean time, a soft languor, occasioned by the heat, stole over her limbs, and the gentle rustling of the leaves, with the rush of distant waterfalls, worked so effectually upon her senses, that her head gradually sank back on the green bank; the flowers fell from her lap; her hand relaxed from the halter with which she had hitherto retained the quiet cow; and the waving woods and shadowy glades around her passed from her view, or were represented only in the visions of sleep.

Thus the little girl, being laid asleep, was retained under its soft influence by the gentle murmurs which had first composed her lullaby. The zephyrs continued to play among the leaves, and the distant waterfalls still rushed from rock to rock; and, although the voice of the blackbird, or the ringdove, from time to time interrupted this gentle monotony of rural murmurs, yet were these interruptions so soft and tempered that they by no means troubled the little sleeper.

In the mean time the cow kept grazing along the woodway path, unchecked by the dimpled hand which she had been accustomed implicitly to obey, dragging her rope after her, and gradually withdrawing herself from her little keeper as she was attracted by fresh and tempting herbage. At length, arriving at a point of the wood from which she could distinguish the tempting brook and cool waterfall, either by the eye or other sense, such as cows use on these occasions, she proceeded, with slow but determined step towards them, regardless of any anxiety which her absence might occasion to her little keeper. When arrived at the brook, she satisfied her thirst; and, having cooled her feet in the running stream, she came out upon the bank on the opposite side from that on which she entered the brook, and browsing as she ascended a high and open point of land, which rose immediately in that place from the brook, she made her way to the top of the hill, on the summit of which were situated the ruins of the village church, and there lay down to repose herself on the shady side of a little brake.

While Lucie and her cow were thus passing their time in the forest, Florentin had finished what he had to do for Agnace du Bois, and was come in quest of his sister. He sought her in several of her usual haunts, and at

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length came to the place where she still lay sleeping. At sight of her he started, and stood still.

She was dressed, as the peasants of Normandy commonly are, in a full blue petticoat and short jacket; but the red handkerchief in which her head was usually enveloped had fallen off, and her fair hair fell in curls upon her brow and neck. A more than ordinary flush had overspread her cheeks, and a sweet composure rested on her features. The place of her repose was shady; but a dancing light, occasioned by the gentle motion of the branches which formed her canopy, played over her whole form.

Florentin looked at her for a moment; and then his dark, quick eye glanced around in search of the cowbut no cow was to be seen. Whereupon he addressed his sister in the following manner, at the same time stooping, and gently taking her hand.

"Where, Lucie," said he, "where have you left the cow?" The little girl sat up, and, removing the hair which had fallen over her face, looked round her with amazement.

"You have fallen asleep, sister, and allowed the cow to stray," said Florentin. By this time Lucie had risen and replaced her cap, and began to follow her brother with her utmost speed; for Florentin had already quitted the spot where he had found his sister asleep, in order to seek the lost animal.

I cannot pretend to describe the many turnings and windings among the trees made by Florentin; nor the efforts which little Lucie made to keep him in sight, not daring to turn her steps towards home till the cow was found.

At length Florentin reached that part of the wood where four straight roads met each other, one of which was terminated by the gates of the château. Here he stopped, and considered for a while which way he should take; then, recollecting that he had lately taken the animal several times in the direction of the château, he turned his swift steps towards it, while his little sister followed at a distance.

The gateway of the château consisted of pillars of stone of considerable strength and magnitude. There had formerly been large folding wooden doors between these pillars, wide enough to receive a carriage; but, during the confusion which had followed the departure

of the baron, these gates had been torn from their hinges, and from that time the entrance had been entirely left open, or slightly barricaded by laying the mutilated doors across the doorway; but at the moment I am speaking of, the way was open from the forest to the château; and Florentin, supposing that the cow might have been tempted to enter within the walls by the fresh and untouched herbage which presented itself within, entered the gates, and passed along the avenue which led to the front of the house.

Lucie still pursued her brother; and, at the moment she passed the gateway, she saw him on the summit of the high flight of steps which led to the door of the hall, taking advantage of that exalted situation in order the better to explore with his eye the extent of garden to the right and left. The little girl hastened forward through the silent and solitary avenue; but before she had reached the steps above mentioned, Florentin was gone, and was no longer to be seen.

Lucie ascended the steps, as her brother had before done, and, standing upon the platform on their summit, looked eagerly around her; having now transferred her anxiety for the cow to her own solitary situation, for she had never yet been so far from home and quite alone.

She looked around her; first, on the long avenue of limes which she had thus hastily run over. The road between these trees was entirely covered with grass and weeds; and a few stone benches, which had been placed here and there along the avenue, were quite green with damp and disuse. She turned then to her right and to her left, and saw the wide-extended gardens, which had once been laid out in trim parterres and neat alleys, but which now presented one continued scene of ruin and neglect. In one place, the rampant weeds had almost entirely covered a figure of bronze, larger than life; and in another, a statue had been broken from its pedestal, and lay, together with it, on the ground. But, amid this wide extent of wilderness, no Florentin appeared to Lucie, neither did the most distant sound of his voice reach her ears.

Lucie then turned round to look up to the house under which she stood.

The château had been built at that period when the high roofs were so extremely sloped as to admit two

tiers of apartments within them; the windows of which apartments appeared in two distinct rows above each other among the dark gray slate.

The higher tier of these windows had never been glazed, nor otherwise closed but by wooden shutters, long since broken; hence these high apartments afforded a convenient resort for many daws, and owls, and bats, and other birds of the same nature, which had now for some years past remained in them unmolested. It was a time of day when owls and bats do not appear; but the daws were flying backwards and forwards from their haunts in the roof to the summits of the trees which composed the avenue, filling the air with their solemn cries, while the little girl stood on the steps below.

Such was the roof of this house, and such were its inhabitants; but all the lower parts of the fabric, which was of stone, were shut up with white shutters on the outside; and a deep stillness sat on every part, excepting when now and then the breeze swept through the wide halls within, and shook some ill-closed shutter or ill-fitting door.

Lucie looked up towards the busy world of daws above her head; and then endeavoured to peep into the mansion through a broken corner of a window-shutter, and was lost in admiration of a large hall and wide staircase beyond, on which light was thrown from a skylight; when, being aroused from her dream of wonder by the voice of Florentin, who called her to follow him, she sprang down the steps and retraced the avenue, still following her brother, who, having been unsuccessful in his search for the cow in the gardens and court of the château, was once again going to pursue his search in the woods.

As rest, however, was needful to him, he waited for her at the gate of the château; and there the brother and sister sat down to recover breath on the trunk of a tree, which lay right across the way.

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Lucie," said Florentin, as he wiped away the perspiration which flowed abundantly down his polished brow, "how could you fall asleep and let the cow stray from you?"

Lucie made no reply, but burst into tears.

"I did not mean to pain you, my little sister," said Florentin, observing her tears: “why should I give pain to you, who alone remain to me of all my family!"

"Your family, brother!" said the child: "have we not our kind nurse left to us?"

"Yes," said Florentin, "our nurse is spared: and may she long be spared! but she is not of our family; neither is there any one here who is related to us."

Lucie looked earnestly at her brother, and with an air of perplexity. She had never yet considered who or what she was. And though she had been often taken to scatter flowers over the grave of her mother, whose remains were laid within the precincts of the ruined chapel, yet she had never inquired who this mother was, or what (if any) relation she had been to Agnace du Bois. She now, however, put these questions to Florentin.

"Who are we, brother?" she said: "who were our parents? and why are we living in this wood?"

Florentin then told her the melancholy history of her father and forefathers, and pointed out the château just before her, where her ancestors had dwelt for more than a century.

The little girl listened with innocent wonder; and, though she comprehended but half her brother told her, when he ceased to speak she burst into tears, and threw her arms round his neck, thus addressing him :

"Oh! Florentin," she said, "why should we grieve? Do not these woods still remain to us, and the cottage in which we were brought up? and do we not live together? and wherefore, then, should we be sorrowful? If you were to leave me, beloved brother, I might indeed be unhappy; but, when you are with me, what more can I require ?"

Florentin put his arm round the waist of his little sister, and, kissing her cheek, he suddenly arose, and began to renew his search for the animal which had strayed, in other directions of the forest.

And now, as it happened (if aught can be said to be the work of chance), he took the way towards that part of the brook near which the lost animal was in fact lying, at her ease, in the shade of a little brake.

It was impossible for the little steps of Lucie to equal those of her brother: however, she did her best; and pursuing the same path which he had chosen, arrived at the brook a few minutes after him. Nevertheless, he was out of sight when she reached the water side, neither could she hear the sound of his foot.

VOL. II.-M