not received any money from the colonies after all.

The old doctor must

have been imposed upon." And saying this, he went forth to see if the boats were still at anchor.

The fleet, instead of advancing, had been obliged to recede some distance and take up a position a little more to the left, under the shelter of the island. The water had begun to rise with what is called in the district "la crue des pirons," from the pirons or young geese being just at that season of the year able to go and pasture in the meadows; but it blew steadily from the north, and the boats were unable to take advantage of the flood, which had mounted till it covered not only the sandy banks, but also the lower meadows, and as to the osier-beds, they were some feet under water.

It was under these adverse circumstances that our enthusiastic naturalist, the old doctor, wended his way, one morning, to his old station, la PierreBécherelle, but when there, no Father Léonard or fair Madeleine were to be seen. At the epoch of the floods the fishermen lay baited hooks for eels in the meadows, and cast their nets over the inundated spot, to which the fish crowd for new food. After pacing the banks of the river for some time hurriedly and disappointed, the doctor at length perceived a frail bark, the bottom of which was dirty with water, mud, and weeds, fastened by an old rope to a tree. Himself an old sailor, and acting under the strong impulse of discovering the blue warbler's nest, the doctor did not hesitate to trust himself in this rickety boat, although Bistouri objected openly to the discomfort of a wet bed. The doctor, impelling the boat by the action of an oar at the stern, would, however, have effected his passage in perfect safety, but seeing the stream so swollen, he thought it would be as well to approach the desired spot in the boat, the more so as the osier-beds were inundated. But when he got to the extremity of the island, he found that it was in vain to seek for a landing-place; he could not push his boat through the osiers, nor yet could he land without being over his middle in water and mud. In the mean time the boat, which had leaked from the beginning, was taking in more and more water. The doctor was obliged to have recourse to his hat to bale it out. He had taken off his plum-coloured coat, and Bistouri had made a bed of it. All he thought of was that the jealous Loire might rob him of his treasure. What were a dirtied hat and coat compared with that?

What was his delight, then, when his devotion and courage were at length rewarded by perceiving amid the osiers a little ball of moss, out of which glittered two bird's eyes.

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"I have it! I have it!" he exclaimed. And at the sound the bird took wing, displaying two wings of sapphire blue. The doctor redoubled his efforts to push the boat near the nest. He was already up to his knees in the water, and he had just reached the long-coveted object, and held it in his hand, when the bark floundered and he lay stretched fulllength on the bosom of the flood. But the doctor could swim like a turtle, and he quietly allowed himself to be carried down by the stream, holding his prize aloft. Bistouri, much to his discomfort, followed as he best could. The bird also stuck to its nest, curvetting plaintively in the air above, so that there were three objects going down the Loire at one and the same time—a man, a dog, and a bird.

"What marine monster, with the face of a man, can that be, that is

pursued by a dog?" exclaimed the mariners in the fleet, at the extremity of the island.

"I don't know," said Arsène, "but when the Loire is flooded there are often things in the water that ought to be on the land. I will go and see." And so saying, he put off in his little pilot skiff. "Why, Heaven protect me!" he exclaimed, as he neared the doctor, "it is the old man who was quarrelling with me the other day. What is he holding in his hand?"

Before, however, he had time to solve this last question, he had seized the naturalist by the arm, for it was manifest that with only one to support himself, his strength was fast failing, and he was on the point of sinking, nest and all, to the bottom. Even when he had been dragged into the boat, with his dog-for Arsène had extended his attentions even to his whilom enemy-it was some time before he could sufficiently recover himself to know where he was. Arsène led him, however, into his cabin, and was all the more kind and considerate towards the old man, as he believed him to be not exactly right in his senses.

"Well, sir, I hope you are no longer angry with me," he said, smilingly, when the doctor had recovered himself. "You see your dog has made friends with me."

"My friend," said the doctor, "we are all subject to moments of irritation, and also to prejudices. I had mine against you, and I am truly glad to be undeceived. I shall not be ungrateful to you."

"I am only too happy to have been of service to you. I do not want anything," observed the young man.

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What, then, are you not going to marry Madeleine?"

Well, matters have altered there. They no longer pull faces at me, but receive me with cordiality."

And now

"Well, when you are to be married come and tell me. I have promised her a present at her wedding, she shall have two now. put me ashore, for I am agitated and wet, and wish to get home." “You have seen death very near to you, sir."

"It is not that I mean.

I had nearly lost this nest, and should never have had the blue warbler's eggs."

Madeleine, as the wife of Arsène Vernaut, now inhabits a cabin in the largest boat of the fleet, embellished with designs in red and blue. When the wind is favourable she sits at the helm steering her husband's bark, with great gold earrings, and a necklace of the same precious metal, to which a cross is suspended. Father Léonard has given up fishing with the net, and contents himself with angling for a few big fish in holes only known to himself. Jacques Aubert enlisted into the marines, and has gone out to the colonies to realise that fantastic fortune which Father Léonard thought that he had inherited; and Doctor Christian is in pursuit of a magpie, with a rose-coloured breast, which is said to have been seen on the mainland-but as yet only once.

THE RIVAL BEAUTIES.

A TRUE STORY OF LIFE IN CAWNPORE.

PART THE FIRST.

Or the state of female society in India many accounts have been written, and much has been said both by essayists and periodical writers, treating of the condition in which a lady visitant from Europe finds herself on her emigration to that country. It appears to me that if one who had resided there some years ago were to set down his recollection in writing of what he had himself seen, and narrate the tale which he had himself been conscious of, the recital might be most likely to bring home to the knowledge of English readers the real bearings of this subject, and to waken in their hearts a sympathy for any of their sisterhood who may have been doomed to this banishment.

About twenty years before the mutiny which burst out with such fury in that country, as to cause the whole of the inhabitants of the civilised world to cast their eyes in the direction of India, and to ponder with horror and amazement at the awful state of commotion which had fallen upon a country hitherto undisturbed when under our control, and, though interesting, yet estranged from our intercourse, the facts which I now bear in mind occurred; and, unimportant as they might have been to a home resident, they were such as could scarcely be forgotten by any one living in Cawnpore, at that time especially, as the persons highest in station and military rank then situated there were the leading actors in the scenes I allude to. The two most beautiful and most admired ladies in the circle of society in Cawnpore at the time that I speak of, were Emma Latour and Alicia Danvers. The first was the wife of Colonel Latour, and the other the wife of a staff officer of inferior rank. But it was not rank, station, nor birth-which with regard to the first of these ladies was aristocratic-that won for them the attention, the admiration, the intense adulation which hovered round them whenever they were seen; whether it was in the gay assembly-rooms, on the course, when the nume rous vehicles issued out in the evening to enjoy the short-lived time of coolness vouchsafed to those who lived there in an Indian summer, or at the band, where each evening the English residents assembled to hear the military music. It was the matchless beauty which each in her several way displayed to win attraction and rivet the admiration of the hosts of fashion's followers who throng in such numbers at an Indian station, where the average number of men in proportion to ladies present is twenty to one. Emma's beauty was of the pure, rich, Saxon fairness, of the Rowena pattern, which, with its glowing tint and flaxen hair, is so often seen amongst the country maidens in England. She was of the height somewhat above the middle, and her well-developed bust and arms, and snowy whiteness of skin, she took care to show to most advantage by dressing in the very most recherché style of Parisian costume. She had passed seven years in Paris, where she had met her somewhat eccentric and most unsuited spouse; and all the graces, smiles, and

enticements which are peculiar to Frenchwomen, and which many of them lavish in vain from want of the beauty which gains them favour, were owned and practised by her in a manner such as to render few persons proof to their fascinating influence. She was all smiles and bewitching softness, with lips which seemed made but for opening to disclose the laughter-loving expression; and when she entered a large room, with her light ringlets hanging listlessly on each side, her bright blue eyes and long sweeping eyelashes, her colour warmed with the glow of youthful animation; her step of exquisite grace, her smile of winuing complaisance, her mingled air of refinement and nonchalance; her figure most reminded one of one of Titian's beauties, from the almost indescribable air of quiet but self-conscious attraction which marked it.

The other beauty was of a different type. She was, perhaps, as a specimen of perfect symmetrical form, a less faultless figure. She was tall, dark-eyed, and her shape and features much resembled those which painters have given to Mary Queen of Scots. But she was not, like her rival, indebted to art for any of the wonderful admiration which she also drew to herself whenever she made her appearance, being more a “soft landscape of mild earth," a siren devoid of any of the attractions which belong to voice, gesture or animation, but, as one of her admirers said of her, "She was one that ought to dress herself in black velvet, and lie down still on a sofa without opening her mouth." This last might have alluded to her provincial Scotch accent, which certainly revealed itself every time she spoke. Nevertheless, as the old novelist Fielding says, perfect beauty is a sight that none ever witness without feelings of interest, and though she figured not in the dance, or fascinated not with her tones, she yet possessed her power, and with the youthful sportsmen and men fresh from the camp, was a star not inferior in lustre to the other.

I well remember the days when both these beauties were always seen in halls which have been since so changed in character, and which have witnessed so many far different, and, oh! what horrid spectacles! Where, in the thoughtless round of gay unheeding pleasure, the light frivolity of youth, and the worldly emptiness of vanity held their revels, and drew to their clasp a host of careless votaries; where, the godless and the gay, the proud and the unbelieving, nightly celebrated their rites of worship at the shrine of the ruler of this world; where, beauty and bravery, the fair and their admirers, met to "chase the hours with flying feet," and no sound but mirthful music and jocund song broke through the air; where, such scenes and such occupations were looked for night by night, and became, as it were, a habit-there, even on the same ground, as it were a judgment from Heaven, the dire and savage revenge of an incensed and ruthless multitude overpowered the small number of the foreign conquerors, and perpetrated their revenge, terrific and pitiless, the remorseless prompting of fatuous cowardice and the blind cruelty engendered by ignorance and apathy.

I am not going to give a detail of the general series of amusements which were the order of the day when I was a resident in the place I speak of: but one can picture to one's fancy a vast sandy plain lying at a short distance from a broad river, intersected by a broad sandy road, on whose side, next the river, stood a continuous assemblage of villas, all one story high, and each surrounded by an enclosure containing a small

orchard or garden, the villas extending for a length of about four miles, and each building varied in character, or suited either for a small or large family, comprising, also, the barn-like row of soldiers' barracks, an assembly-room, Europe-shops, houses for native grandees or for officers of the Company's service, civil or military; the gardens, or rather orchards, being planted with trees of guava, citron, orange, lime, castoroil, peach-tree, custard-apple, or pummello, and large or small in proportion to the house. On the other side of the road lay the native town, and it was solely inhabited by the black population, and consisted of several bazaars, the nature of which I should almost despair of describing, and indeed they contained little that could invite the curiosity of an English taste, but of which I may say that nothing could be more remarkable than the extreme difference which they presented to that which they give name to in England, as in place of being the collection and contrivance of a lady's choice, and presenting all that is fair, nice, gay, and congenial to drawing-room uses, they exhibited an incongruous variety of native produce, the principal which the market of India can afford, and consisted chiefly of small shops for tobacco, garlic, pawn, betel-nut, chunam, hubble-bubble hookahs, vegetables, eggs, ghee, unclean confectionery, money-changer's tables, composed of piles of copper and cowries, the native ornamented shoes, and the multiform and many. coloured rings and bangles, with Indian bedizened dresses; the roads thronged with crowds of half-naked blacks; dusty, hot beyond all conception, and nauseous from noise, smell, dust, and disorder. There was one solitary road on the sandy plain, which at evening was watered, and, being lined with trees, was the grand resort of the European residents whenever it was cool enough to leave their houses, and which was quaintly called by some person there the green spot of the cantonment. The river itself did not exhibit the clear volume of water that one looks for from seeing rivers in other countries, but flowed on in a sluggish stream, mud-coloured, bearing frequently on its surface the body of some native whose friends were unable to defray the expenses of a funeral pile, and who had consigned it to the sacred stream. The native boatslarge, lumbering, and charged with immense and bulky cargoes-were seen going to and fro in great numbers; there was the pataylee, like a large lighter thatched with straw; the oalak, of a smaller size, which boasted a poop; the dinghee, which was like a gondola, with the canopy part at its stern; the lordly budgerow, which was the one appropriated for English use, being similar to the pictures of the old craft wherein our ancestors, at the time of the Normans, were wont to sail. The river, also, during the cold season, was crossed by a bridge of boats, so that one might ride over to Oude during that season of the year. However, sailing or rowing on this river Ganges was a matter of amusement never resorted to except by the youthful military, who sometimes plied their oars there in a boat of English construction, but only in the evening during the cold season, or at night when it was moonlight.

But still, air and exercise being, as it were, indispensable with youths from England, "many a time and oft" used we to resort to the river at night, and very joyously used we to arrange parties for riding to Bithoor, the residence of Baja Rao, the last great Mahratta chief, and coming back in our rowing-boat with the current to Cawnpore. The native