impression it might make on those who were present. I mention this, for although it is a lovely thing to see true humility in a child; nothing is more displeasing to God, or more offensive to those of our fellow-creatures whose minds are well regulated, than to perceive attempts to display a humility which is not really felt.

In the mean time the Baronne ordered the garland and crown to be carried to the church, and to be placed in the Lady chapel there; and it was some time before the assembly could so far divest themselves of their serious feelings as to enter into the amusements of the evening. As to myself, I must confess that it was during that evening that I for the first time made any serious reflections on the violence which the mind suffers in being drawn from solemn feelings into those which are merely earthly, and the contrary; and I was led to think that human wisdom consisted in avoiding those excitements of earthly pleasure by which the feelings more suited to our state as dying creatures are rendered distasteful and uncongenial to our minds.

After the Feast of the Flowers, several months passed during which nothing particular took place in our private circle worthy of record.

During this period our minds were much agitated by public affairs; that dreadful revolution, so awful in its progress and so wonderful in its effects, had commenced. The capital was already in confusion, but we in the provinces still only heard the thunder rolling in the distance.

In the mean time, the remainder of the summer and the whole of the autumn and winter passed away. In the middle of the winter I was seized with a rheumatic complaint, which confined me to my bed till towards the end of spring. During this period a friend undertook my duty, and I saw little of my people; my Bible was, I thank God, my constant companion at that time, and the reading thereof, I have reason to think, was blessed to me in a degree which can hardly be conceived. It was thought, however, necessary when I left my bed that I should change the air, and accordingly I was carried from my bed to the chaise which was to convey me to the house of a married sister, who lived not very far from Rouen; there I remained two months, but at the end of that period was much distressed by letters from the Baronne, who informed me that a contagious dis

order had broken out with violence in the house of Madame Bulé; that many of the children were very ill, and that our little Aimée was in peril of her life.

It was very late in the spring when I received this news, and as my health was nearly re-established, I lost no time, but hastened back to my flock-that flock which I was destined soon to quit under the most painful circumstances, and to quit for life; for the door of my restoration to my former place is for ever shut against me-my principles would now be held in abhorrence by those who loved me formerly-nor could I, even if permitted, now take a part in services of whose idolatry I have been long assured. But no more of this: it has no doubt been good for me and for others of my countrymen, that their ancient ties have been dissolved-ties which bound us to the world and to a false religion, and which we should never have had strength to break by our own efforts.

It was a glorious evening in the end of May when I arrived within view of my own village, from which I had been absent many weeks. I had quitted the public vehicle in which I had travelled, on the opposite bank of the Seine, and having crossed the river in a small boat, I proceeded on foot the short remainder of my journey. As soon as I left the boat I was in my own parish, I was in fact at home, and I was making my way along an embowered pathway towards the village, when I overtook a decent peasant in her best apparel going the same way. To my inquiry, "How is it with you, neighbour Mourque? How are all our friends?" she replied, "Ah! Father Raffré, we have lost one of our fairest flowers, and I am now going to see the last duties paid to her blessed remains."

"Our flowers," I repeated; "not my lily, I trust; is it Aimée who is no more?"

"It is, sir," she replied; "and when I last saw her at the chateau I thought the little angel would never live to enjoy another fete; such as she, father, are not for this world-nay, her own very words, when she refused the crown and spoke of what she should be, proved to me how it would be, and others said the same. But the crown and the garland, are to be placed on her coffin, sir; the garland indeed is withered and shrunk, but the crown is not made of such things as can fade, they tell me; but it will be a touching spectacle, and surely, sir, there

will not be many absent from the church this evening who were at the lady's feast of flowers."

I was so affected that I could not speak: so the good woman proceeded without interruption.

She informed me of many things concerning the sickness and death of the dear child; and of the grief of the Baronne and of Madame Bulé, who both together, as she said, waited on the dear child day after day and night after night; and she told me how she had prayed while her senses had been continued to her, and how she had again and again called upon her Saviour, and spoken of her hope of being speedily taken to him who had died for her-and how she had expressed her love for her instructress and the lady of the chateau, and her tender regard for her school-fellows-"but," added the peasant, with some emotion of manner and some expression of regret, "it is a grief to me to think that the poor child was so insensible when the priest attempted to administer the last sacrament, that she knew nothing of what passed; she was as insensible to the holy anointing as a lifeless babe; neither did she take the smallest notice of the holy cross which was held before her-the Lord have mercy on her soul! I am thinking, father, could she have been a heretic? Was she not from England?"

“Ah!” I said, “was it so? 'tis true, she was from England."

The woman started at the manner in which I spoke, and looked anxiously at me, saying, "Do you doubt, sir? do you doubt of her final happiness?"

I interrupted her, "Ah! would to God," I answered, "that I were as blessed and happy as that dear child now is! On whom did she call in her dying hours, whom did she live only to please, to whom did she give all the glory, but unto the only true Saviour-He who is above all saints and angels, the God incarnate, He by whom alone the sinner can be saved."

The poor woman crossed herself as I spoke, and assented to my assertion.

"Blessed little lamb!" I exclaimed, "and art thou gathered to the fold of the only true Shepherd? Sweet lily of the valley! and art thou removed to a more congenial soil? but who shall fill the place which thou hast left ?"

At that instant the tower of the church broke upon my view as we turned an angle of the road, and a dis

I

tant sound of choral harmony burst upon my ear. was ashamed of it, but I could not help it; I burst into tears and wept like a child. I did not know till that moment how dear the orphan Aimée was to my heart. I roused myself, however, and walked on, and a few steps brought me to the entrance of the village street, and in full view of the western front of the church, the great door of which being open, I could distinguish the crowd within, and hear the soft melody of the human voice attuned with the full-toned organ within, in such a chant, so solemn, so touching, so sublime, as seemed to raise my mind above all earthly feelings, and make me (I was about to say) desire to be with my Aimée, absent from the body and present with my Lord. As I advanced I perceived that all the houses in the street were deserted, and the deep silence which reigned amid these dwellings enabled me to hear the requiem more clearly and more distinctly.

At length, as I passed under the doorway of the church, I found myself in a crowd, not only of my own parishioners, but of persons from the neighbouring villages who had assembled on this solemn occasion; however, way was immediately made for me, and I advanced towards the high altar, before which was the coffin of my beloved Aimée, covered with a white pall, and beyond it, in a semicircle, stood all her former companions. But there, in that sad hour-sad for us who remained, yet most blessed for her who was gone-were no garlands of roses, no flaunting ribands, no gaudy attire; each fair young creature wore a long white veil; and even the once blooming cheeks of Susette were pale with grief and moist with tears-nay, the very levity of Mademoiselle Victoire had given way on this affecting occasion, and she stood a monument of silent wo. Ah! did she not remember then all her cruel behaviour towards the gentle child whose cold remains were stretched before her?

On the white pall lay the faded garland of the lily of the valley; an affecting emblem of her who had plucked those flowers and woven that garland, affecting to all, yet how much more so to me, who so well remembered the gay delight of the holy little fair one when she had obtained the object of her innocent and elegant desiresan emblem consecrated by holy writ, which says, "As for man, his days are as grass; as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth; for the wind passeth over it and it is

gone, and the place thereof knoweth it no more." Psalm ciii. 15, 16. No eye looked up when I approached the altar, though all, as I afterward found, had been aware of my presence. I came up near to the coffin at the moment when the last note of the requiem was dying away along the vaulted aisles, and at the same instant Madame la Baronne came forward with the myrtle crown in her hand. The garland had been formed of perishable materials, but not so the crown-as compared with the garland of lilies, at least, it was imperishableit was fresh and fair as it had first appeared; it thus formed a beautiful emblem of that " crown of glory which fadeth not away;" and it was an emblem which all present understood, though no one spoke to point it ont. It was laid upon the coffin over the faded garland by the Baronne herself, and when she had stopped to kiss the pall, Madame Bulé and all her pupils stepped forward to follow her example; after which the service proceeded, and the remains of our little beloved one were consigned to the dust in the vault of the family of the chateau.

I remained alone in the church when all the congregation had withdrawn, and it was then that I solemnly resolved to renounce the vanities in which I had been educated, and, with the Divine help, to quit all earthly considerations to follow the truth as it is stated in the Holy Scriptures, unto all extremities to which my abandonment of the Church of Rome might reduce me.

I was speedily strengthened in this resolution by the afflictions of my country, and forced by persecution to fly from that land in which under more prosperous circumstances I might have been again involved in the mazes of error and of death.

And here I close my little narrative, leaving my Aimée to rest in her cold grave in a distant land.

This lily of the valley was indeed nipped ere yet it had attained its perfect growth; its stem was cut down to the earth while yet its flower was in the bud ; but the root has not perished; it lives still beneath the sod, and in the morning of the resurrection it shall be translated from the wild forest of this world to the garden of our Lord, where it will bloom with a celestial lustre, and enjoy a never-fading verdure. The grass withereth, the flower fadeth; but the word of our God shall stand for ever: and blessed are the dead that die in the Lord.