"Saved!" cried the old man, bursting into tears.
"Saved," said the minister, "and rescued from the power of her cruel relations. But the next time, dear abbé, that you want my assistance in a benevolent enterprise, I wish you would give me a little more time to accomplish it."
Within the next twenty-four hours, by an express order from the king, the Duke de —— and his accomplices were secretly removed from Paris, and conveyed out of the kingdom.
The young woman received all the care which her precarious state required; and when sufficiently recovered, retired to a quiet country village where the royal protection assured her safety. It is scarcely needful to say, that next to her Maker, the curé of St. Germais was the object of her deepest gratitude and filial love. During fifteen years, the holy man received from time to time the expression of her grateful affection; and at length, when himself, from extreme old age, on the brink of the grave, he received the intelligence that she had departed in peace.
Never until then, had a word of this mysterious adventure passed the good curé's lips. On his deathbed, however, he confided the recital to a bishop, one of his particular friends; and from a relation of the latter, I myself heard it. This is the exact truth.
ZOOLOGICAL STORIES.
Travelers' tales have a peculiar reputation for the marvelous, and many travelers have been accused of fiction. Whether zoologists' tales are in all cases to be trusted, we have, now and then, a doubt. They are true in the main; but sometimes, possibly, the first narrator of an unusually good story has judiciously abstained from sifting it; and once in the Zoological Story-book, the pleasant tale has stood on its own merits, and been handled tenderly, as is the way with ornaments; no man too roughly scratching at them to find out of what materials they are composed.
Of course we accept legends as legends. It was once believed of crocodiles, that, after they had eaten a man comfortably, and left only his skull, at the sweet kernel of which—the brain—they could not get, their tears were shed over the bone until they softened it, and so the skull was opened, and the brain devoured. When that is told us as a legend, we say, certainly, it was a very quaint thing to believe of the tears of crocodiles. Then, travelers' tales of the proverbial kind are next of kin to legends. Here is a very marvelous one, and yet, let us be bold and say that we believe it. It is this. An Indian, having tamed a rattlesnake, carried it about in a box with him, and called it his great father. M. Pinnisance met with him as he was starting for his winter hunt, and saw him open the box-door and give the snake his liberty, telling it to be sure and come back to meet him, when he returned to the same spot next May. It was then October. M. Pinnisance laughed at the man, who immediately saw his way clearly to a speculation in rum, and betted two gallons that his snake would keep the appointment. The wager was made; the second week in May arrived; the Indian and the Frenchman were on the appointed spot. The great father was absent, and the Indian, having lost his wager, offered to repeat it, doubled, if the snake did not return within the next two days. That wager the Frenchman took and lost. The snake, who (had he speech) might have apologized for being rather behind his time, appeared, and crawled into his box. We believe this. Rattlesnakes are teachable; and, in this instance, the keeping of the appointment seems to us only an apparent wonder. Snakes are not given to travel in the winter, and the Indian's father, turned out of the box, made himself snug at no great distance from the place of his ejectment. Winter over, the Indian came back. His great father may have been dining heartily, and indisposed to stir; but, as he grew more brisk, the accustomed invocation of his little son became effectual, and brought the tame snake to the box as usual.
Disjonval knew a spider (such a spider was a person to know) who regularly placed himself upon the ceiling over a young lady's head whenever she played the harp, and followed her if she changed her position. The celebrated violinist, Berthome (it is our shame never to have heard of him), when a boy, saw a spider habitually come out to hear when he was practicing: this creature at last became familiar, and took a seat upon the desk. Lenz tells of a goose who followed a harp-player wherever he performed, probably to hiss him out of self-respect. Bingley tells of a pigeon in the neighborhood of a young lady who played brilliantly on the harpsichord; the pigeon did not greatly care about her playing, except when she played the song of "Speri si," from Handel's opera, Admetus: then it would come and sit by the window, testifying pleasure; when the song was over, it would fly back to its dovecote, for it had not learnt the art of clapping wings for an encore.