"Surrender! surrender!" she screamed; "this is another revolt of the negroes! Think of my poor father and mother whom they murdered in St. Domingo!"

Alexandre owned that the lady's mistake was excusable, considering his own natural tint, deepened by exposure to the sun and the peculiar character of his hair and voice. One might wonder at the insensibility to ridicule which could prompt him to set down such a jest at his own expense,1 were not his overweening vanity a matter of such notoriety. At all events, the commandant could not resist his wife, and Dumas, declaring that he had infinite respect for the lady still, entreated her husband to send her away, and let the men finish their business.

Protesting that he would involve his self-respect by yielding to a single man, the commandant firmly refused to sign. Dumas then offered to sign a paper to the effect that the order had been extorted by threats "at the mouth of the pistol barrel.' "Or would you prefer," he said, "that I should fetch one or two of my companions, so that you should seem to have yielded to a respectable number?" This latter proposal, meeting the commandant's approval, Alexandre left, after making the whole party give their parole of honor that they would remain exactly where they were and silent.

"Oh! Yes, yes," assented the lady.

Our hero, making her a low bow, declared that it was not her parole that was required, and her husband, acquiescing in the demand made, Alexandre hurried away and speedily returned with two or three men whom he placed in the court. From the window of the commandant's room he

"O, mon ami, cède! c'est une seconde révolte des nègres."

bade them stand ready, a command followed by the significant sound of the cocking of guns. This accomplished, the commandant formally wrote out an order which was duly signed and presented to M. Dumas.

After this the rest was comparatively easy. Carts were procured, the magazine despoiled, and five o'clock saw the whole party outside the town. Dumas was so exhausted as to fall asleep by the roadside, and during the return journey to VillersCotterets he could hardly be roused. Here a jovial meal and the enthusiastic congratulations of his astonished friends put new life into him, and by three o'clock next morning the cortege arrived in Paris, where at sunrise he presented himself with his spoil at the Hôtel de Ville, having triumphantly accomplished his brilliant exploit.

Twenty years afterward, when his memoirs were published, the son of the commandant Liniers came forward with an indignant "reclamation” to clear the memory of his father; but his testimony, for he was actually present at the scene in the commandant's office, only confirms Dumas's account, which is a perfectly true statement, abating some harmless exaggerations. The purport of the son's letter was to show that the town (Soissons) was already ripe for revolt, that the National Guard were known to be disaffected, that Dumas and his friends were assumed to be their chief, with an overpowering force behind them, and that the commandant yielded not to Dumas so much as to circumstance. It cannot disprove, however, the truth of the brilliant exploit, which may be accepted in all faith, and which may be acknowledged to be one of the most dashing and extraordinary that pluck and the love of adventure ever planned or carried out.

ROSES, withered now and dead,
All their ancient sweetness fled
With their ancient splendor.
As I bend above, I feel

A vague fragrance from them steal,
Like a mem'ry tender

Of their olden pleasant days, When the sun's rich golden blaze

Kissed their cheeks to glory. Ah! the pain these mem'ries give!

Ah! the pain that one must live
When our life's sweet story
Holds no more the olden joy!
Of what use a valued toy,

When its charm is broken? When the sun has lost his light, When the fall of Winter's night Our Autumn-tide o'erclosesCall we then the mem'ries sweet Of those vanished moments fleetAshes of Youth's roses ?

CHAPTER XXII.—AN OLD WIFE'S TALE.

THE evening at Yoresett House passed with its usual monotonous quietness. Mrs. Conisbrough, weary, and dejected too, now that she was at home again-now that Aglionby had gone away, without saying one word of coming again, without holding out a single hope that he would deal generously, or, as it seemed to her, even justly, by her and hers-went to bed early, hoping to find rest and forgetfulness. She took a stronger dose than usual of her calming mixture, and was soon asleep. Rhoda was not long in following her example. The two elder girls were left alone. They chatted in a desultory manner, with long pauses, about all the trivial events which had happened during Judith's absence. If there were anything remarkable about their conversation, it was, that neither Bernard Aglionby's name, nor that of Randulf Danesdale, was so much as mentioned. By degrees their voices ceased entirely; silence had fallen upon them for some time before they at last went to their bedrooms. How different the feelings which caused or prompted this silence in the one girl and the other! Delphine's silence was the cloak which hid a happiness tremulous but not uncertain. Looking round her horizon, she beheld a most brilliant star of the morning rising clear, bright, and prepared to run a long course. She was content to be silent, and contemplate it. With Judith it was otherwise. She felt the depression under which she had lately suffered, but which had been somewhat dissipated by the strong excitement of the event which had taken place at Scar Foot. She felt this depression rush over her again with irresistible force, sweeping her as it were from her feet, submerging her beneath its dark and melancholy wave. Turn which way she would, she could see nothing but darkness in the prospects in the prospects of them all. Hitherto she had fought against this depression; had despised herself for feeling it; and, since her uncle's will had left them penniless, tried to console herself with the reflection that she was no worse off than before, but rather a little better, for that now she might justly go to her mother and claim as a right to be allowed to seek work.

To-night she did not feel that consolation; she thought of Bernard Aglionby's eyes, and of the touch of his hand as he had said, "Good-afternoon, Miss Conisbrough," and the thought, the recollection, made her throw down her work and pant as if she felt suffocated and longed for fresh air.

By and by she went to bed, and, more wearied than she had known she was, soon fell asleep, and had one of those blessed dreams which descend upon our slumbers sometimes when care is blackest and life is hardest, when our weirds, that we have to dree out, look intolerable to us in our weariness and grief. It was a long, rambling, confused dream, incoherent but happy. When she awoke from it, she could recall no particular incident in it; she did but experience a feeling of happiness and lightness of heart, as if the sun had suddenly burst forth through dark clouds, which she had long been hoping vainly would disperse. And vaguely connected with this happier feeling, the shadow, as it were, the eidolon, or image, of Bernard Aglionby, dim recollections of Shennamere, of moonlight, of words spoken, and then of a long, dreamful silence, which supervened.

She lay half-awake, trying, scarce consciously, to thread together these scattered beads of thought, of fancy, and of hope. Then, by degrees, she remembered where she was, and the truth of it all. But cheered, and undaunted still, she rose from her bed and dressed, and went down-stairs, ready to face her day with a steadfast mien.

The morning seemed to pass more quickly and cheerfully than usual. Judith was employed in some household work; that is, her hands were so employed; her head was busy with schemes of launching herself upon the world-of work, in short.

She was reflecting upon the best means of finding something to do, which should give her enough money to let her learn how to do something more. Never before had the prospect seemed so near and so almost within her grasp.

In the afternoon Delphine shut herself up in her den, to paint, and to brood, no doubt, she too, over the future and its golden possibilities. For, when we are nineteen, the future is so huge,

and its hugeness is so cheerful and sunny. Rhoda, inspired with youthful energy, was seen to put on an old and rough-looking pair of gloves, and on being questioned, said she was going to do up the garden. Thus Judith and Mrs. Conisbrough were left alone in the parlor, and Judith offered to read to her mother. The proposal was accepted. Judith had read for some time of the fortunes and misfortunes attending the careers of Darcy Latimer and Alan Fairfax, when, looking up, she saw that her mother was asleep. She laid the book down, and before taking up her work, contemplated the figure and countenance of the sleeping woman. That figure, shapely even now, had once been, as Judith had again and again heard, one of the tallest, straightest, most winsome figures in all Danesdale. Her mother's suitors and admirers had been numerous, if not all eligible, and that countenance, now shrunken, with the anxiously corrugated brow, and the mouth drawn down in lines of care, discontent, and disappointment, had been the face of a beauty. How often had she not heard the words from old servants and old acquaintance, "Eh, bairn, but your mother was a bonny woman!"

"Poor mother!" murmured Judith, looking at her, with her elbow on her knee, and her chin in her hand, "yours has been a sad, hard life, after all. I should like to make it gladder for you, and I can and will do so, even without Uncle Aglionby's money, if you will only wait, and have patience, and trust to me to walk alone."

Then her thoughts flew like lightning, to Scar Foot, to Shennamere, to the days from the Saturday to the Wednesday, which she had just passed there, and which had opened out for her such a new world.

Thus she had sat for some little time in silence, and over all the house there was a stillness which was almost intense, when the handle of the door was softly turned, and looking up, Judith beheld their servant Louisa, looking in, and evidently wishful to speak with her. She held up her hand, with a warning gesture, looking at her mother, and then rising, went out of the room, closing the door behind her as softly as it had been opened. "What is it, Louisa ?"

"Please, Miss Conisbrough, it's an old woman called Martha Paley, and she asked to see the mistress."

"Mrs. Paley? oh, I know her. I'll go to her,

Louisa, and if you have done your work, you can go up-stairs and get dressed, while I talk to her, for she will not sit anywhere but in the kitchen."

Louisa willingly took her way up-stairs, and the young lady went into the kitchen. "Well, Martha, and where do you come from?" she inquired. "It is long since we saw you."

It was a very aged, decent-looking woman who had seated herself in the rocking-chair at one side of the hearth. Martha Paley had been in old John Aglionby's service years ago. When old age incapacitated her, and after her old man's death, she had yielded to the urgent wishes of a son and his wife, living at Bradford, and had taken up her abode with them. Occasionally she revisited her old haunts in the Dale, the scenes of her youth and matronhood, and Judith conjectured that she must be on such a visit now.

"Ay, a long time it is, my dear," said the old woman; she was a native of Swaledale, and spoke in a dialect so broad, as certainly to be unintelligible to all save those who, like Judith Conisbrough, knew and loved its very idiom, and accordingly, in mercy to the reader, her vernacular is translated. "I have been staying at John Heseltine's at the Ridgeway farm, nigh to th' Hawes."

"Ah, then, that is why you have not been to see us before, I suppose, as it is a good distance away. But now you are here, Martha, you will take off your bonnet, and stay to tea?"

"I cannot, my bairn; thank you. John's son Edmund has driven me here, so far, in his gig, and he's bound to do some errands in the town, and then to drive me to Leyburn, where my son will meet me and take me home next day."

"I see. And how are you? You look pretty well." "I'm very well indeed, God be thanked, for such an old, old woman as I am. I have reason to be content. But your mother, bairn-how's your mother ?"

"She has been ill, I am very sorry to say, and she is sleeping now. I daren't awaken her, Martha, or I would, but her heart is weak, you know, and we are always afraid to startle her or give her a shock."

"Ay, ay! Well, you'll perhaps do as well as her. I've had something a deal on my mind, ever since Sunday, when I heard of the old

"It was," replied Judith briefly.

"Ay, indeed! And its quite true that he has

left his money to his grandson ?"

"Quite true."

"Judith, my bairn, that was not right."

squire's money too, he must be a very rich

man.

Such, but more rudely expressed, was old Martha's argument.

Judith felt a wave of sickly dread and terror sweep over her heart. It made her feel cold and

"In a way, he might have, but not after what he'd said to your mother. People have rights, but there's duties, too, my dear, duties, and there's honesty and truth. His duty was to deal fairly by those he had encouraged to trust in him, and he died with a lie in his mouth when he led your mother to expect his money, and then left it away. But there's the Scripture, and it's the strongest of all," she went on, somewhat incoher ently, as it seemed to Judith, while she raised her withered hand with a gesture which had in it something almost imposing; "and it says, 'for unto him that hath shall be given, and from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath.'"

"It is a very true Scripture, Martha, I thinkso true that it will scarcely do for us to set ourselves against it in this case. The will is a valid one. Have you seen young Mr. Aglionby ?"

66

Nay," she answered, with some vigor; "when I heard o' what had happened, I couldn't bide to go near the place. And it's the first time I've been in th' Dale without visiting Scar Foot, the bonny place-'Fair Scar Foot' the verses call it."

"I think that is a pity. You would have found Mr. Aglionby very kind, and most anxious to do all that is right and just."

"I think for sure, he ought to be. Why not? It's easy to be just when you have lands and money all round, just as it is hard for an empty sack to stand upright. He must be

.

this tale without a word of truth in it. Aglionby's words had been explicit enough. On his mother's side he had no rich relations; never had possessed even a rich connection. Yet her own impressions, strong, though she knew not whence they were derived; her own mother's words about "Bernarda" and what Bernarda had said (words spoken as she awoke from her fainting fit); and now old Martha Paley-on all sides there seemed to be an impression, nay, more, a conviction, that he had been adopted by these mythical rich relations. Who had at first originated that report? Whence had it sprung? She knew, though she had not owned it to herselfshe knew, though she had called herself all manner of ill-names for daring even to guess such a thing. It was because she knew, that she had refused Aglionby's overtures.

For a moment or two cowardice was nearly gaining the victory. Mrs. Paley was an old, feeble woman; Judith could easily turn her thoughts upon another track; the worst need never be stated. But another feeling stronger than this shrinking from the truth urged her to learn it, and she said:

66

'Indeed, and how do you know this, Martha?" "How do I know it, bairn? Why, from your own mother's lips, as who else should I know it from? Ay, and she cried and sobbed, she did so when she brought the news. You know it was like in this way that it happened. When Ralph got married, and for long before I was housekeeper at Scar Foot, I well remember it all, and the ole squire's fury, and the names he called the woman who had married his son; a low, penniless jade,' he called her, ay, and worse than that. He always meant Ralph to have your mother, you know. She was ever a favorite with him. Whether that would have come to anything in any case, I don't know, for whatever she might have done, Ralph said much and more, that he wouldn't wed her. He went off to London, and married his wife there. The news

came, and the squire was furious. How he raged! He soon forbade Ralph the house, and cut off his allowance, and refused to see him, or hear of him. Two or three years passed, your mother was married, and lived in this house, which had been her mother's before her. I think the old squire's conscience began to prick, for he got uneasy about his son, and at last would have sent for him, I believe, but while he was making up his mind Ralph died, and then it was too late. For a time it fairly knocked the old man down. Then he came round, and began to think he would like to have the boy, and he even made up his mind to make some sort of terms with the wife so as to get the boy into his own care, and bring him up an Aglionby, and not a vagabond,' as he said. It was a great descent for his pride, Miss Judith. He took counsel with your mother, and sent her to Irkford, where Mrs. Ralph lived, that great big town, you know. I've never been there, but they do say that it's wonderful for size and for dirt. He sent her there to see the mother and try to persuade her to let him have the child for the best part of the year, and she was to have it for the rest, and it was to be brought up like a gentleman, and sent to college, and then it was to have all his money when he died, same as if its father had never crossed him.

"Your mother-she was not a widow then, you know, nor for many a year after-she was away about three days. When she came back, she came alone. The old squire was white as a sheet with expectation and excitement. I was by at the time, and I saw and heard it all. He said, 'Where's the boy?' in a very quiet, strange kind of voice. 'Oh, uncle,' your mother said—she's an awful woman-she's like a tigress.' Then she cried and sobbed, and said it had been too much for her nerves; it had nearly killed her. And she told him how Mrs. Ralph had got into a fury, and said she would never be parted a day from her child, and that she spurned his offer. The old squire said with his grim little laugh, that perhaps when she was starving, she would not be so ready to spurn. Oh, she won't starve,' your mother said, 'she has plenty of rich relations, and that is partly what makes her so independent. Ralph has left her the child's sole guardian. She scorns and spurns us, and I believe she would like to see us humbled in the dust before her.' Then the old squire let his hatred loose against

his son's wife. With his terrible look that he could put on at times, he sat down beside your mother (she was flung on a sofa, you know, halffainting) and he bade her tell him all about it. He questioned and she answered, and she was trembling like a leaf all the time. He bade me stay where I was, as witness. And at last, when he had heard it all out, he swore a fearful oath, and took heaven and us to witness that from henceforth, as long as he lived, he would have nothing to do with his grandchild. It might starve, he said, or die, or rot, or anything its mother chose, for aught he cared-he had done with it forever. It was terrible to hear him. And from that day, none of us dared name the child to him. He spent a deal of his time at Yoresett House with your mother. I heard him many a time tell her she and hers were all the children he had. And after your father died he went on purpose to tell her not to be uneasy, but to leave him to do things his own way, and that you children should thrust that brat out of Scar Foot at last. And now he goes and leaves it all his money. Eh, my bairn—that was very wrong." Judith, when she answered, spoke, and indeed felt, quite calm: the very hugeness of the effort she had to make in order to speak at all kept her calm and quiet. She had never even conceived of anything like the dreadful shame she felt as she said:

"It is a terrible story, Martha. It is very well that you told it to me instead of to my mother, for she is not strong enough to bear having it raked up again. Have you," her voice almost died away upon her lips—" have you related it to any one else?''

"Nay, not I! I thought I'd just see Mistress Conisbrough, and ask her if there was nothing to be done. If she was to speak to some lawyer— some clever man-and some of them is so clever, you know, happen he might be able to set aside the will."

"That is what she thought of at first," said Judith, strenuously keeping her mind fixed upon the subject; battling hard to keep in restraint the sickly fear at her heart lest any of the unsuspecting ones around them should by chance come in and interrupt the interview. "But Mr. Whaley told her it would not be of the very slightest use. And-and-Martha, I think you are very fond of us all, are you not?''