CHAPTER XXIV.

THE TWO PRIESTS.

FIVE years-how soon they are passed! That is as age advances. In infancy five years is a lifetime: who amongst us, even the most friendless, the least cared for, does not look back to a period when the longest summer's day brought no tediousness, and the night was a season only of perfect repose or happy dreams? Who cannot recall bright mornings, ushering in hours each replete with some new delight? Who cannot remember thinking of "yesterday" as a golden thread strung with bright-coloured beads; of "to-morrow" as an inexhaustible mine? At an age when the very consciousness of living was itself an ever-recurrent delight, how exhaustless seemed the pleasures that might be crowded into one day's, nay, one hour's, compass!

But what to childhood appears interminable, becomes a mere span to advancing life. The dial marks on with its relentless finger; but only while watching its progress do we realise the practical lesson it teaches. Suffering, it is true that suffering which is inseparable from maturity, passes over usa ponderous Juggernaut, crushing the palpitating frame with slow and gradual cruelty but oh! the chariot of Love, the shadowy-we had almost said, the impalpable-car of Happiness, floats above, wafted on violet clouds, swift rushing, and before we are conscious of its presence, the hour and the vision are alike flown!

Five years have made a considerable alteration in the hero of this story, the little forsaken protégé of the Enfants Trouvés. And five years have also altered Marcelline Dubois, but not to the same extent. Her beauty is greatly mellowed and improved; the impress of resignation is upon her features, but a darker light may be traced within her eyes, a deeper crimson on her cheek. Her figure, too, is become a shade less slight; the life of alternate labour and

VOL. II.-NO. XIV.

healthful repose she leads evidently agrees with her. But despite these signs of well-being, there is something scarcely natural in the glance of doubt, even dread, she turns occasionally around her; she seems to fear the approach of some one- -the sound of a voice wont to evoke anxiety, it might be terror.

They are standing on a plot of verdant grass in front of one of those pretty little dwellings which French taste and French ingenuity know how to construct from the most humble materials. The cottage consists of three rooms only (all upon the ground-floor), and a little verandah running round it covered with rosesfor the time is the early autumn-gives an air of lightness, while the deep châletlike eaves suggest coolness and repose.

Almost wholly encircled in trees, there is yet an idea of sublimity given by the appearance of two or three rugged rocks which peep out here and there. In one direction the eye catches a glimpse of the surrounding country, and looks apparently from something of an elevation across flat, fertile lands, watered with an occasional silver line, towards Paris, We are on the outskirts of the forest of Fontainbleau.

"And thou art going this morning again?" inquired Marcelline tenderly, stroking back as she spoke the curly head of the child, while the fingers of the other hand entwined about his tiny palm.

The little Raymond (so had he been named by his benefactors of the institution) was simply, though anything but meanly dressed in a coloured blouse and holland trowsers, and wore the usual sabots instead of shoes. His head was bare, permitting the childish features to be freely scanned; and a pleasant survey it was, for mingled with the hues of health and the outlines of beauty, that must, indeed, have been a careless eye which recognised not an expression as frankly intelligent as could well be met with in one of so tender an age.

He lifted his head and looked into the

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