distinction in the service and she was at the saine time a person of peculiarly cultivated tastes and habits. In a word, she was one of the truest specimens I ever met of that most charming character--an amiable English gentlewoman, in the decline of life. When such a person is aimable, there is scarcely any one who possesses such extensive and such beneficial influence in society, or who adorns and sweetens it so much.

Mrs. Capel had always idolized her daughter; her animated manners, strongly contrasted as they were with her own mildness, probably delighted her the more for the very contrast. She had been her only campanion for ten years---she had watched every quality of mind, heart, and person, expand from the beautiful bud, and keep, in its ripening, the promise of its early bloom. Fanny, too, regarded her mother as almost something more than of this earth --and powerful indeed must have been that passion which could have induced her thus to leave that mother. But alas! when such passion does supervene---all the milder affections of Auld lang syne' become pale before its fervent heat and radiance.

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Mrs Capel informed me that Sir Edward Vernon had returned into the country about a month before, and renewed his visits at the cottage. His attentions to her daughter had lately become very marked, and she perceived he had acquired an extreme influence over Fanny's mind. She had not spoken to her on the subject, trusting every day that Sir Edward---whom she had believed to be a man of high honour--would declare himself openly. The night but one before, however, she had been alarmed and shocked by the discovery that Fanny was engaged in a clandestine correspondence with him. On that night, after they had separated to retire to rest, Mrs. Capel recollected something she wished in particular to say to her daughter, and, throwing a shawl over her shoulders, she had gone to her room. Fanny was seated on the bed reading a letter with such enthralled attention that she did not hear her mother enter. When she approached her, Fanny hurriedly closed it, and endeavoured to hide it behind her. "This," continued Mrs. Capel, was the first mark of dissimulation I had ever seen in my daughter--and it shocked me proportionately. I spoke to her, I trust without unnecessary harshness or severity, yet in the tone of reproof. I was, in truth, more in sorrow than in anger---and she seemed touched to the soul. I adjured her to abstain from everything clandestine---it was unworthy of her in every shape- it was degrading---it was nearly allied to falsehood. She threw herself into my arms, and sobbed upon my bosom---and promised all clandestine intercourse should cease. But I feel now the real meaning of tones and looks, which then I attributed only to penitence and agitation. I am convinced that her resolve was then taken---that I spoke too late. She exclaimed Oh mother" as she was withdrawing herself from my arms, and again sinking upon my neck, wept as though her heart would break"---and the old lady's own tears began to course each other down her cheeks as she spoke--"I am convinced that she then took her mental farewell of me---she knew that that was her last embrace. Oh God!" she continued in a tone of the bitterest selfreproach" if I had but spoken to her sooner, my child might have been saved it was mistaken forbearance on my part--to spare myself and her a slight

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present pain, I have destroyed her for ever."---Her emotion here choked her utterance---and she wept convulsively. I strove to comfort her, pointing out the extreme improbability of the fears she seemed to entertain being realized. She shook her head mournfully. I asked her if she had seen the letter her daughter was reading. She said she had purposely abstained from doing so, but had requested Lucy to burn it in her presence, which she had done. I then inquired if she had left any letter behind her on her departure--she put into my hand a scrap of paper containing only these words, "I cannot write---I am leaving you for ever-pity and pardon your poor lost child."

I was totally at a loss. To pursue Sir Edward and his victim, or his bride, (which ?) seemed to me to be equally hopeless and vain. She had eloped with him--the evil was done-it lay in his breast to remedy it, and there alone. With bitter anxiety did we expect letters; ---with trembling eagerness we searched the newspapers, day after day, to see if their marriage was announced. Weeks passed, and all was still suspense---and Mrs. Capel's health began to sink under her trials. length the mystery was solved---I received a letter from Vernon dated Lausanne---it was as follows:--

At

"You must think me a villain--and I am so---but I am not one wantonly, as I trust to prove to you, if you will read this through patiently. It will explain all that has happened--I will not spare myself---I have acted shamefully---but who could have withstood the temptation under which I fell? But I will not anticipate. You must have seen---indeed, I am sure you did see---how much I was struck with her beauty when I first saw her; her wild freshness of manner and of spirit next impressed me with an admiration in which surprise and curiosity strongly mingled. I met her frequently, and was prompted by those feelings to search more deeply into her nature. It was something totally new and unknown---I thought my feelings were completely under my controul while I indulged my curiosity, and I strove in no degree to excite in her any sentiments of affection towards myself. But I was self-deceived in both instances. Such constant collison could not continue with impunity. Towards one so fascinating, it was impossible that my manners should not assume, even unconsciously, a degree of tenderness which spoke far more than I had ever meant to do,---and, on the other hand, the continual intercourse with one like her, every day developing some new powers of mind, or qualities of heart, could not but ripen my interest into affection of the strongest and keenest kind, before I knew where I was. word, before I had bestowed a thought upon the folly and wickedness of what I was doing, we both passionately loved--we had both confessed it to each other.

more.

In a

"It was at this time that you took me to town; I saw you suspected my conduct, and this opened my eyes to its atrocity. I left the country without taking any leave at the cottage, and determined to see her no I wrote to her a last (I then truly meant it should be), a last farewell. She answered my letter with all her characteristic frankness, her whole heart was laid bare before me. I could not adhere to the resolution I had formed,---I wrote again: letter followed letter. At last, I went to the country a second time. It was then that my passions had wholly assumed the mastery over reason and principle---it was

then I resolved she should be mine, cost what it might. And now, I must confide to you that which up to that time had been a secret to all the worldI am already married. You will start when I tell you that I was so when you knew me at Oxford. I married during the first term I kept there, and before I was eighteen; I will not enter into the particulars of this hateful subject: suffice it, that the match was of a nature which might be expected from the age at which it took place. My father was informed of it by the parties, and, after finding that it was impossible to break it, the whole affair was hushed up for a certain annual sum; that arrangemeut still continues, and, up to the time of which I speak, there were only three persons in the world, besides myself, who knew the fact. Now, however, I confided it to Fanny, I told her, as was most true, that I might, if I had chosen it, have deceived her I might have married her---for I was certain that, from motives of interest, my secret would have remained safe, But I would not, I could not, act thus. It is ill to trust too fully to the wicked; and it might have happened that, after years of happy marriage, the whole would have been revealed---she would have been dishonoured, and her children bastardized. Moreover, my estate is, as you know, entailed upon the male heir. How could I, as an honest man, allow an illegitimate son of mine to succeed to it? The thought never dwelled upon my mind for a moment. I told Fanny the whole. Of the particulars of the succeeding month I will not speak. I will only say, that it was but two days before she fled with me that she consented to do so, and she almost retracted her consent the day after it was given. At length, your surprising us, as you did on your return from town, hastened her resolve. We both saw our intercourse could not continue as it had done---we met again that evening; the result you know.

It

"Such is, as succinctly as possible, the narrative of our conduct. That I have wronged Fanny grievously, my conscience but too severely reminds me every moment that I live; but, by my future conduct, I trust to make her as happy as she can be in our present position. The chief obstacle to that happiness is her feelings with regard to her mother. The forgiveness of that mother she must ever be wretched without. is through you, my dear friend, that we hope this reconciliation may be effected. It is for that purpose that I have addressed this statement to you. I could not address her, and Fanny dare not. Make of this letter what use you deem most conducive to the end in view. To your friendship for both of us we trust. need not say with what feverish anxiety we shall await your answer. We shall remain here till we receive it." Such was Vernon's letter. I cannot describe the tumultuous crowd of feelings with which I read it. Poor, poor Fanny, I could trace every step in the progress which led to her fall-I could

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I

-see her all the way, And every turn that led her wrong," Her eager and ardent disposition, mistrusting nothing, and sensitively alive to all that seemed generous and amiable, had hurried her away till, almost before she knew her feelings were implicated at all, they were irrecoverably pledged. And, afterwards, her gratitude for her lover's confidence---a confidence which a few weeks before would have made her break from him

for ever---involved her in her final ruin. Her mind had arrived at that "heated state" of which I have spoken, and she could no longer reason justly, she only felt strongly.And Vernon, deep and irreparable as were the injuries he had inflicted upon both mother and daughter, I could not but pity him. His guilt had not been cold-blooded; true it had latterly been premeditated, but then the barb of passion was fixed in his heart equally as in her's---whatever length of line his principles had, at one time, passion, powerful passion, had subdued him at last.

But if I felt compassion for these guilty sufferers, what must I do for her who was innocent? Alas! what a task had I to perform! Yet, as it was to be done, the sooner the better.

I found Mrs. Capel sitting with her knitting in her hands, but not working---her eyes fixed, and swimming in tears. There was a picture, which hung opposite to her, of her daughter, when a cherub of five years old, playing with an orange; and I could see that she was gazing upon the joyous smile of sinless infancy which the countenance bore, with feelings of a deep, despairing sadness, which none but a bereaved mother can know. A person of sterner temperament would have had this picture removed---but she kept it there, and gazed on it.

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at once."

The moment I entered, she saw I had something to communicate. She saw, also, that it was of an afflicting nature. Oh God! tell me"--she exclaimed--any thing is better than suspense---tell me the worst I then informed her that I had received a letter from Sir Edward Vernon---and by degrees made known to her its whole substance. She seemed heartstricken by this confirmation of her worst forebodings. "Forgive her!--aye, indeed, poor, lost, dear, ever dearest child, I do forgive her-from my heart!but I cannot see her," she exclaimed abruptly, "I' cannot see her while she lives in infamy-that I can't do -tell her, Sir, I forgive her from my heart-or bring me your letter, and I will write just those words at the bottom of it--and now, Sir, leave me. I must seek consolation, where alone it is to be found."

I did not see Mrs. Capel again till the day but one afterwards. On the intervening day, I had merely sent to enquire after her health, and to say I should call on the morrow. When I saw her, I was shocked at the awful change which those eight-and-forty hours had worked upon her ;---despair was seated in her sunken eyes, and death, the death of a broken heart, had laid his finger upon her cheek. She asked me if I had written-I answered I had---"Give me your paper," she said-I placed the sheet before her, with a pen. She wrote with a trembling hand, these words--" Iforgive you, Fanny-God Almighty bless you, my only, my dear child--and may He bring you back to the paths of virtue!" She laid down the pen, and sunk back quite exhausted upon her seat.

In concluding my letter to Sir Edward Vernon, I did not conceal from him the state of Mrs. Capel's health." If any thing can save her," I added, "it is the restoration of her daughter. Vernon, your heart used to be tender and compassionate---unless it be changed to very stone, you cannot resist this appeal. This unhappy woman is dying---and, gracious God! from what cause: Hasten, I implore you, as you value future peace of mind for ever, to make the misera

your

ble reparation which is yet in your power---bring back Fanny to her mother."

But Mrs. Capel's malady was beyond the reach of help or hope. I could not, without some assurance from Sir Edward, venture to hold out to her any prospect of her daughter's return ;---and, as day after day passed, and still the time was distant when I could receive Vernon's answer, I saw that when it did come it must be too late. She declined gradually, but rapidly: every day she became more and more feeble--she spoke but little---she did not complain---but death had, manifestly, fixed upon her his icy grasp---he could not be far distant. Accordingly, about three weeks after the time when I had communicated to her the contents of Sir Edward's letter, she died. Her end was calm, and she breathed her last, imploring the mercy of heaven upon her daughter!

I attended her funeral to the grave. Her circle of friends in the country had been very limited---and every circumstance rendered it fitting that the ceremony should be as private as possible. There were, as mourners, only her medical attendant, her favourite maid (who had been Fanny's nurse), and myself. The church-yard stands at the extremity of the lane in which Mrs. Capel's cottage is situated. The little procession was just turning in at the gate when the rattling of wheels was heard behind us,---and we saw a carriage and four driving furiously up the lane. The truth flashed across me in a moment---I trembled all over, but I said nothing---I might be mistaken.

I was not :---as the procession, arrived at the grave, the carriage reached the churchyard gate---the door was flung open, and a female figure, which we all knew in a moment, rushed up the pathway and threw herself, with an agonizing scream, upon the coffin, We hastened to raise her up; she was senseless. Alas! poor Fanny, she has never recovered those senses since!

FEMALE CONVICTS.

WHEN a female convict-ship arrives in the harbaur, the circumstance is duly announced in the Government Gazette, and families requiring female servants are invited to make application according to a prescribed form.

The applications are generally more numerous than the government can meet, and the females are assigned only to reputable families, according to the best judgment of the board appointed for the purpose. Many of them make good servants, and in due time get well married-chiefly to emancipated convicts, living either as agriculturalists in the country or in one or other of the various capacities in which the lower classes are employed in towns,; the colonial government being always willing to grant permission for the marriage of a female convict; provided she is either a spinster or a widow, and provided the intended husband is a freeman and able to maintain a family.

It sometimes unfortunately happens, however, that the female-convict, who has an opportunity of forming an eligible connection in this way, and thereby acquir ing her immediate liberty, has a husband alive in England,

is the usual account of the matter,) as a married woman. In such cases, it becomes a matter of importance to prove either the death or the non-entity of the English husband, and the expedients that are resorted to with this view are often highly ingenious. About seven years ago, I solemnized a marriage between a reputable young man, a native of the colony, and a female-convict who had been transported from Paisley, in the west of Scotland, for some mal-practices in a manufacturing establishment in which she had been employed. The young man was a carpenter, and it seemed his Scotch wife turned out so much to his satisfaction, that his brother was induced to think seriously of espousing another Scotch female-convict who had arrived by the same vessel from the same part of Scotland. The brother's intended was the assigned servant of a respectable Scotch family residing near Sydney, and was naturally enough desirous of being on her own hands, as the wife of a free mechanic who could earn from thirty shillings to two pounds stirling a-week; but she had a husband in Paisley, and how to get him disposed of was the difficulty, for she had duly informed the government of her being a married woman on her arrival in the colony. The difficulty, however, was not too great to be surmounted at least the parties thought so-and a letter was accordingly written, purporting to have come from some relative of the female's in Paisley, and communicating the distressing intelligence of the Scotch. husband's death. The letter was brought me for my perusal by the two brothers, with a view to my soliciting permission from government (which must uniformly be obtained in the first instance by some clergyman of the territory, in the case of either party being a convict for the publication of banns). I observed to the young men, before reading the letter, that it had no postmark; but they readily explained that circumstance, by informing me that it had been brought out by the Scocth carpenter of a convict-ship lately arrived, who knew the parties; and, indeed, the exterior of it bore the appearance of its having been for wonths in a carpenter's tool-chest, or in some situation it which it would have been equally soiled. The letter was dated sufficiently far back for the accomplishment of a voyage to New South Wales in the interval, and was written with great ingenuity. It communicated a variety of particulars relative to persons and events in the town of Paisley, which in any ordinary case would have given it the indiputable character of a genuine letter. There were even a few incidental notices respecting one of the ministers of Paisley, wich were exceedingly well conceived for the purpose of practising on clerical gullibility. Unfortuately, however, in lamenting, towards the close of the letter, that the female-convict to whom it was addressed was destined to spend the remainder of her days in so distant a part of the earth, the letterwriter had written the word earth in the cockney style ---hearth. It immediately struck me that this peculiarly English species of bad-spelling could not have occurred so far north as the town of Paisley, where the vowelsound commencing a word is never aspirated; and I, therefore, returned the letter to the young men, telling them that I was persuaded that it had been written in the colony, and that no such marriage as they contemplated would be allowed by the government. A few weeks thereafter, the woman absconded from her master's service, and was married to the currency-lad, by an

episcopal clergyman in the interior, as a free-woman," As her flight, however was immediately reported to the authorities, she was traced, apprehended, and sent to the third class in the factory--the place of punishment for female-convicts---the marriage being null and void.

Many of the female convicts conduct themselves in an unexceptionable manner, and rear large families of interesting and promising children, when reputably married in the colony; for it is not an unusual case for a woman, who had been exceedingly depraved and absolutely unmanageable in a single state, to conduct herself with propriety when advantageously married. Others, however, are indifferent enough in either condition, and when assigned as servants to respectable families are got rid of and returned to Government with all convenient speed. But the fault is by no means uniformly on the side of the convict. A remark---which I recollect having heard the eccentric, but truly apostolic, Rowland Hill, make at a public meeting of the friends of a Femal Penitentiary Society in London many years ago-is unfortunately too well suited to the meridian of New South Wales," Mistresses are always complaining," said the venerable old man, of their having bad servants; but I will tell you what, ladies, there are a great many bad mistresses too."

There are instances of persons of the industrious classes of society, who have arrived free in the colony, marrying female convicts, and having no reason subsequently to regret the step they have taken. The experiment, however, is a dangerous one, and is sometimes attended with a different result. About seven years ago, a reputable Scotch mechanic, who was able shortly after his arrival in the colony to take jobs on his own account, was infatuated enough to marry a female convict of prepossessing appearance, but unfortunately of little else to recommend her. Previous to his marriage, he had been regular in his attendance on the ordinances of religion; but his wife had various other more eligible modes of spending the Sabbath than going to church, and he had accordingly to accompany her on Sundayexcursions of pleasure to the country. Unfortunately, however, his wife very soon got into trouble, as it is technically termed in the colony; i.e. into the commission of some crime or misdemeanour, which issues in the individual's flagellation, or imprisonment, or transportation, or death by law-- for the phrase is sufficiently extensive in its signification. She had been concerned in a riot, which two free persons lodging in her husband's cottage had raised during his absence, and was immediately carried by the constables before the police magistrate of Sydney, who decides in a summary. manner in all cases in which convicts, whether married or not, are concerned. The offender was in this instance sentenced to three months confinement, in the third or lowest class in the factory at Paramatta. One of the rules of that institution is, that no female shall be admitted into the third class without having previously undergone the operation of shaving the head; and the poor husband was in this instance so much distressed at the very appearance which he thought his wife would exhibit, when divested of her hair, that he actually called at my house to request that I would forward a petition which he had prepared to the authorities that the operation might for once be dispensed with in his wife's favour. During the conversation that took place on the occasion, I took an opportunity to remind the

Scotchman of his recent neglect of the ordinances of religion, and I saw him in church for a few Sabbaths thereafter. His wife, however, returned to him again at the expiration of her sentence, and I saw him no

more.

When female convicts are returned to Government by the families to which they have been assigned, or are sentenced to punishment by the magistrates for petty misdemeanours, they are forwarded in a covered wag, gon to a sort of Bridewell at Paramatta, called the Female Factory, in which there are generally from two to five hundred female convicts, under the charge of a respectable matron and the superintendence of a committee of management. They are divided into three classes. The First Class consists of those who from particular circumstances have not been assigned as maidservants to private families on their arrival in the colony, or of those whose good conduct has merited their elevation from the inferior classes. All the females of this class are assigned as maid-servants, on being applied for by reputable persons, in the same way as on the arrival of a female convict-ship, the state of the Factory being announced weekly for the information of the public in the Government Gazette. The Third Class consists of incorrigible females, or of those who have been sentenced to a certain period of penal confinement in the Factory on account of some misdemeanour; and The Second Class consists of those who have served out their period of sentence in the Third, and who are undergoing probation ere they are again advanced to the First. The inmates of the Factory are employed variously, according to their characters and stations in the establishment, but chiefly in the processes connected with the manufacture of coarse woollen cloth, called Paramotta cloth, of which blankets and slop-clothing are made for the convict-servants of settlers throughout the territory.

With a view to disperse the female convicts more widely over the territory, and to enable respectable families in the interior to procure female servants with greater facility, the present Governor has established subordinate factories at Bathurst and Hunter's River, to which a proportion of the female convicts from each ship are forwarded on their arrival, and in which those that have been returned to Government by their masters are kept for re-assignment in the district; and I am happy to add that the measure is likely to be attended with great benefit. Indeed, the system of management pursued for a long time previons, in regard to that portion of the prison-population of the colony, was obviously and outrageously preposterous. For instead of adopting every possible means to effect the dispersion of female convicts, that they might at least have some chance of getting reputably settled, and even winking at pettier peccadilloes for the accomplishment of so important an object, they were generally immured, to the number of five or six hundred, within stone-walls and iron-gates. The impolicy of such a system will appear from the following consideration, in addition to various others that will naturally suggest themselves to the reader, viz., that there are frequent instances in the colony, as I have already had occasion to observe, of females who had been perfectly unmanageable when imprisoned in the Factory, subsequently becoming remarkably quiet and well-behaved wives and mothers of children.

There are comparatively few instances of female convicts committing capital offences in New South Wales. An instance of the kind, however, happened to fall under my own observation several years ago, in the following rather singular way. I was proceeding alone in a gig one Monday morning to solemnize a marriage at a considerable distance in the interior, when a young man, decently attired in the garb of a sailor or ship carpenter, who was walking towards Sydney, requested to know whether I was some other person whom he named. There was a feeling of distress evidently pourtrayed in the young man's countenance, that induced me to ask him some question that immediately elicited his affecting story He had arrived in the colony a few months before, as the carpenter of a convict ship, and finding that he could obtain eligible employment in Sydney, had obtained his discharge from the vessel, and remained on shore. On the Saturday evening previous, he was sitting in his lodging after having finished his week's labour, when some person, entering the house, incidentally mentioned that he had just been at the Supreme Court, and had heard sentence of death pronounced on a man and woman for robbing their master, a respectable settler residing about forty miles from Sydney. The name of the woman, which the stranger also mentioned at the time, coinciding with that of a sister of his own, who had suddenly disappeared from her father's house in London about two or three years before, and never afterwards been heard of by her relatives, it immediately struck him that the woman might possibly be his lost sister. He accordingly went forthwith to the jail, and having obtained admittance, found to his inexpressible grief, that the woman under sentence of death was actually his own sister. His parents, he told me, were poor, but honest people, who had reared a large family of eight or nine children, and she was the only one of the number who had gone astray. On consulting some person as to what was proper for him to do in such circumstances, he was told to get a memorial to the governor, drawn up on his sister's behalf, and to have it recommended, if possible, by her master. He, therefore, went forthwith to a person in Sydney who wrote memorials for hire, and got a document of the kind drawn up. The writer was an emancipated convict, and the memorial was written in the usual style of such writers---taking for granted, as a matter of course, and strongly protesting the innocence of the criminal, and insinuating that her present situation is the result of misfortune rather than of misconduct. It was eleven o'clock at night before the precious document, which cost, if I recollect aright, two dollars, was finished; but, as soon as it was completed, the young man, who had never been a mile out of Sydney, before, instantly set off alone and on foot through the gloomy forest to the residence of his sister's late master, to request him to recommend the memorial. He had reached his destination, and had got about half-way to Sydney on his return, when I met him on the following Monday morning. On reading the memorial, I was apprehensive it would rather do harm than good, and therefore desired the young man to accompany me to a house a little way on, where we could obtain materials for writing, and where I should write something, which I had reason to hope would be of more service to him. The young man gladly accepted of my offer; and I accordingly wrote a short account of the manner in

which he had discovered, and the anxiety he had manifested on her behalf, soliciting that if the ends of justice could possibly be attained by a milder punishment, the feelings of the community might not be outraged by the execution of a female, who had probably been herself the unhappy victim of some unprincipled seducer. The young man was extremely grateful for the little service done him, and I was happy to learn afterwards that his unfortunate sister's sentence of death was commuted into a milder punishment.

From Dr. Lang's "Historical and Statistical Account of New South Wales."

THE FESTIVAL OF THE ROSE.

IT was in the latter part of May, that the Festival of the Rose was held in the little village of Alliére, in Provence. It had been the custom for years, many more than the memory of any inhabitant of the country could remember, to hold a sort of rustic revel under this name, where the fairest and most virtuous of the village maidens was adorned by her unenvying companions with that symbol of purity and loveliness—a white rose. It is not consistent with our present purpose to trace the origin of a ceremony which is as old perhaps as the barbarian inhabitants of the land, and which, at least, may be considered as one of the first indications of civilization. In the year 1234 the Count Raimond Allière had resolved to celebrate it with more than usual pomp, for his niece, the daughter of a beloved brother who had died in the Holy Land, had just quitted the neighbouring convent in which she had been educated, and was about to become the mistress and the ornament of her doting uncle's castle. day on which the Festival of the Rose was to be held was that of her nativity, and her uncle intended that she should offer herself as a competitor for the prize. Perhaps even if she had been less unequivocally entitled to it her claim would have been allowed; but she had no need to call to her aid the advantages of her station. Her charms spoke for themselves, and her benevolence had been so often exercised upon the poor villagers, that they looked upon her as one of those beneficent beings of another world, which the imaginations of poets feign to come down to earth sometimes for the succour of its suffering children. Still, in the count's offering his niece as a candidate for the white rose, there was a proof of that simplicity which was a part of his character, and which was so often, at the period of which we speak, to be found in company with the sterner virtues,

The

Perhaps, too there was another motive which was not without its influence in the old man's mind. It had been the dying wish of his neice's father that she should marry the son of his companion in arms, Gui de Besancour; and when the beautiful Claude had attained that age at which it was thought time to fix her future destiny, this proposition was made to the young heir of Besancour. He bore his father's name of Gui, and had given fair earnest of keeping that name no less illustrious than it had been made by a long line of ancestors. He had gained honour beyond his years in the battles of his country, and perhaps some of the