Samuel Brohl and Company

s, who cherish a sincere desire to recover health and strength. The invigorating atmosphere, the chalybeate waters, which are unquestionably wholesome, altho

d say, "for I know now that I am capable of enduring anything and everything." But this,

red with spruce, pine, and larch trees, lies at an altitude of some five thousand feet above the level of the sea. It often snows there in the month of August, but spring and early summer in the locality are delightful; and dotted about are nume

th rich satyrion and vanilla? And what would you think of a wealth of gentians, large and small; great yellow arnicas; beautiful Martagon lilies; and St.-Bruno lilies; of every variety of daphne; of androsace, with its rose-coloured clusters; of the flame-coloured orchis; of saxifrage; of great, velvety campanulas; of pretty violet asters, wrapped in little, cravat-like tufting, to protect them from the cold? Besides, near the runnels, following whose borders the cattle have tracked out graded paths, there grows

the appetite the wherewithal to supply this cannot always be obtained. We cannot have everything in this world; but it is by no means our intention to advise any one to take up his residence for life in the Engadine. There must, however,

d to see the cows returning at evening from the pasture. The cowherd in charge marshalled home in the most orderly manner his little drove, which announced its coming from afar by the tinkling of the cow-bells. Each one of the creatures stopped of itself at the entrance to its stall and demanded adm

ossible for her to remain a week in a place without discovering some work of charity to be performed. A woman to whom she had taken a fancy, a little shopkeeper of the place, interested her in her daughter, who was destined to be a governess, and who desired to learn drawing. Antoinette

ek after her arrival she had a surprise, we might even say a pleasurable emotion, which was not comprised in the programme of amusements that the proprietor of Hotel Badrutt undertook to procure for his guests. Returning from an excursion to Lake Silvaplana, she found in her chamber a basket containing a veritable sheaf of Alpine fl

a solitary oak, whose sap was nearly exhausted. As he was engaged in securing his cord, a bird alighted on the half-dead tree and began to sing. The

nd so weary that I longed to die. I saw you pass by, and I

ll be right. My sole excuse for having written them is, that I will leave

k the pains to make inquiries; the flowers and the letter had been left by a little peasant, who was not of the place, and who could not be found. Antoinette examined the hotel-register; she did not see there the handwriting of the letter. She studied the faces which surrounded her; there was not in Hotel Badrutt a single romantic-looking person. Very speedily she renounced her search. The bouquet pleased her; she kept it as a present fallen from the skies, and preserved the letter as a curiosity, without long troubling herself to know who had written it. "Do not let us talk a

nces of his daughter, he increased the length of his excursions. The more people know, the more inquisitive they become; and, when one is inquisitive, one can go to great lengths without feeling fatigue; one only becomes conscious of this after the exertion is over. M. Moriaz never for a moment suspected that he was accompanied, at a respectful distance, on these solitary expeditions, by a stranger, who, with eyes and ears both on the alert, watched over him like a providence. The most peculiar part of the affair was that this

rward and two backward. Great drops of perspiration started out on his brow, and he sat down for a moment to wipe them away, hoping that some wood-cutter might appear and show him the way back to the path, if there was one. But no human soul came within sight; and plucking up his courage again he resumed the ascent, until he had nearly reached a breastwork of rock, in which he vainly sought an opening. He was about retracing his steps when he remembered that from the gallery of the hotel he had observed this breastwork of reddish rock, and it seemed to him that he remembered also that it formed the buttress of the mountain-stronghold of which he was in quest; and so he concluded that this would be the last obstacle he would have

think of leaping over it would have been preposterous. All retreat being cut off, M. Moriaz began to regret his audacity. Seized by a sudden agony of alarm, he began to ask himself if he was not condemned to end his days in this eagle's-nest; he thought with envy of the felicity of the inhabitants of the plains; he cast pit

uddenly he believed that he heard below him a distant voice replying to his call. He redoubled his cries, and it seemed to him that the voice drew nearer, and soon he saw emerging fr

newcomer was none other than he. "One moment's patience, and I am with you." And his face

ulder a long plank which he had detached from the inclosure of a piece of pasture-land. He threw it across the torrent, secured it

ing out from here you need something to revive you. The rarefied atmosphere of these high regions makes the stomach frightfully hollow. More prudent than you, I never undertake these expeditions without providing myse

who, feeling almost frozen, offered feeble objections to donning the

hell, and filled it to the brim, saying, "Here is something that will entirely restore you." M. Moriaz drained the cup, and soon felt his weakness disappear. His natural good spirits returned to him, and he gaily narrated to his Amphitryon his deplorable Odyssey. In return, Abel recounted to him a similar adventure he had had in the Carpathian Mou

alk. I am the happy father of a charming daughter who has a vivid imagination. She will believe

n the descent became too abrupt. So soon as they had made their way to a foot-path, they resumed their conversation. Abel was very clear-sighted, and, like Socrates, as we said before, he was master in the art of interrogat

her father, had sent in quest of him. Pale with emotion, trembling in every fibre, she had seated herself on the bank of a stream. She was completely a prey to terror, and

fortunate than wise. And I shall have to ask my d

of the little service it had been his good fortune to render him, and then with a cold, formal, dignified air, he bowed to Ant

t. He searched in the pockets, and there found a memorandum-book and some visiting-cards bearing the name of Count Abel Larinski. Before dinner he made the tour of a

gly. There could be no doubt that Antoinette would feel grateful to this good-looking musician who had restored to her her father. Cert

Count Larinski has a stoop in his should

small import, but I

heard him play one of

theless, the man's chief merit, in my eye

physiognomies very correctly, and I never need to see people twice to know how far they can be relied o

eans. Your ideas s

f a certain note, and sender of a certai

"I believe you do him wrong: he appears to be a gent

ne, and you may be sure that he

to put a halter about his neck would renounce his project because

sides, you know the Poles are a hot-headed people, whose hearts are open to all noble en

which is a good mark in his favour. If he alters his mind, he becomes at once a condemned man. I pity you, my dear Joan," added Antoinette, laughingly. "You are dying with longing to hear one of those romances without wor

w passing along the road Count Abel, on his way back to Cellarina. A storm was coming up; already great drops of rain were beginning to fall. M. Moriaz ran after the count and sei

z took his man by the arm, and led him in by force. He presented him to his daughter, saying: "Antoinette, let me present to you M.

endeavouring to make the best of his prison. During dinner he was grave. He treated Antoinette with frigid politeness, paid some attention to Mlle. Moiseney, but reserved his chief

gs, countries and institutions, customs and laws, the indigenous races and the settlers, all but the transient visitors, with whom he seemed to have had no time to occupy himself; at least they formed no part of his conversation. He related several anecdotes, with some show of sprightliness; his melanc

rink; we never have ready money, and he loans it to us at an enormous rate of interest; we cannot return it to him, and he reimburses himself by seizing our goods and chattels, our jewels, our land, and our castles. We take out our revenge in insolence, and from time to time in petty persecutions, and we gradually arrive at the conclusion that the sole means of freeing ourselves from the yoke of the Jew would be to conquer the vices by which he lives." Count Abel

mands that it should be

ctly to her, saying, with a smile: "How is this, ma

" she rejoined. "You do not thi

e rendering a very bad service to this poor world of ours to suppress all in

she. "When I give, it seems t

in making out her accounts, and it is fortunate that she intrusts this to me,

e. Moriaz has a Polish failing,

ling?" queri

he added: "She is very wrong-headed, this girl of mine; she holds absolutely revolutionary principles, dangerous to public orde

to me self-evi

nued M. Moriaz, "she has among he

g up, for she had been impatiently aw

Galet, who lives at N

posed Mlle. Moiseney,

Mouffetard, was formerly a florist by trade, and now she has not a sou. I do not wish to fathom the mysteries of her pa

in Mlle. Mois

; but Mlle. Galet-I mistake, Mlle. Galard-has retained from her former calling her passion for flowers, and during the winter Mlle. Moriaz sends her every week a bouquet costing from ten to twelve francs, whi

d and foolishly admira

beautiful as some that were sent me t

ntaining the mysterious bouquet. "What do you think of these?" she asked the

ded him fixedly, she detected neither blush nor confus

nt. He slightly knit his brows at this request, and resumed that sombre, almost savage, air he had worn when he met Antoinette at the foot of the mo

id he would walk a little distance with him, Antoi

Moiseney, in a piqued tone-"you wil

when I look at him? A haunted castle. And I feel curious

ellous strains from an instrument which, in itself, was far from being a marvel. He sang, too; he had a barytone voice, mellow and resonant. After having hummed in a low tone some Roumanic melodies, he struck up one of his own national songs. This he fail

se himself he was glad to play a hand of bezique or ecarte. For want of some one better, he played with Mlle. Moiseney; but this make-shift was little to his taste; he disliked immensely coming into too close proximity with the pinched visage and yellow ribbons of Pope Joan. He proposed to Count

ntoinette. "He is shockingly egotistical. He has confiscated M. Larinski. Th

ageness seemed wholly subd

. In making an odd trick, he carelessly asked

I always carry about

his daughter. The medallion contained the portrait of a woman with blond hair, blue eyes, a refined, lovely mouth, a fragile,

ite face!" crie

ith holy-water. One may like neither the punch nor the holy-water, and yet be very fon

t of my mother," s

as to still possess

" he replied; "and tender

one can see that she suffered

hown towards Mlle. Antoinette Moriaz. "I have no words to tell

ke him play bezique, but he questioned him on his past. The Moor recounted his life, his sufferings, his adventures, and Desdemona wept. The fathers question, the heroes or adventurers recount, and the

ng begun his work, having come to the end of his money and leaving his widow in the most cruel destitution. Countess Larinski said to her son: "We have nothing more to live on; but, then, is it so necessary to live?" She uttered these words with an angelic smile about her lips. Abel set out for California. He undertook the most menial services; he swept the streets, acted as porter; what cared he, so long as his mother did not die of hunger? All that he earned he sent to her, enduring himself the most terrible privations, making her think that he denied himself nothing. In the course of time Fortune favoure

arfare, of vain exploits, of obscure glories, of bloody encounters that never are decisive, of defeats from which survive hope, hunger, thirst, cold, snow stained with blood, and long captivities in forests, tracked by the enemy; then disasters, discouragements, the

ld flame up with enthusiasm, when his voice would become husky and broken, when he would seek for a word, become impatient because he could not find it, find it at last, and this effort added to the energy of his spasmodic and disjointed eloquenc

uired M. Moriaz, who liked to have

I am my father's own son. He dreamed of cutting through an isthmus, I of inventing a gun.

he whole affair," he concluded, "and something that I believe never has happened to any other inventor, is that I am cured entirely of my chimera; I defy it to take possession of

" asked M. Moriaz. "Pa

" was the reply, given with perfect simplicity. "I

. "Do you see no other career

in his eyes as he spoke. "I shall run about giving private lessons until I hear anew the voice that spoke to me in California. It will fin

confusedly around him, and said: "Grand Dieu! here I have been talking to you of myself for two ho

he rose, took up

as strangely moved me. One thing alone spoils his story for me-that is the gun. A man who once has drunk will dri

eney, "could you not speak to the Minister

Do you wish its destruction? Have you sworn

se, "that the Larinski musket is a chef-d'oeuvre, and I woul

," he replied, making her a profound bow, "you may well feel a

ter, and she kept pricking the point into one of the grooves of the table on which her elbow rested, while her half-closed eyes were fixed on a knot of the mahogany. She saw in this knot the Isthmus of Panama, San Francisco, the angelic

ski had forgotten a book he had left on the piano when he came in. She opened the volume; he had wr

with all the other men she ever had known, and she concluded that he resembled none of them. And it was he who had written: "I arrived in this village

some one, and that she had done well to come to the Enga