stopper in the decanter; this abstemious model being to call for brandy before he had dined! I began to suspect murder. He gulped down what is termed a stiff tumbler. Then I ventured to ask "What on earth had happened ?" "It's all over!" he answered, throwing himself back in his chair and thrusting his hands into his pockets like a ruined gambler. "All over!" I cried. "You don't mean to say you have told your mother you were married?" I never take liberties with a man in distress, or else I should have called the old lady the Madam. "It came to the same thing," he continued. "He knew well enough what I meant." A paroxism of rage here seized him. "She is a cold-hearted worldly woman. If she hadn't been my mother I should have insulted her. By heaven! I'll follow the oath I swore, and throw up parents, home, and country, to cleave unto my wife. I will! I will! I'll never see that mother of mine again! I'll kill her that way!" Of course when he said "kill," he didn't mean emphatically "kill." He was very excited, and, consequently, not particularly choice in his selection of words. After this if the big fellow did not pull out his handkerchief and begin to sob. I couldn't stand that! I liked him too well to witness such grief. We had been companions too long, and he was always so good to me and generous! By Jove! I felt my chin quiver and my nose twitch. Another instant and my own mill-head would have overflowed. I took his hand-white, slim, delicate thing as it was-and pressed it with truthful sympathy, saying, 'Alfred, if I can assist you in any way-if you think my advice is worth the taking, I beg you to let me be of some use to you; but have strength enough, dear boy, to look boldly at your calamity, and without wet eyes, and do not give up your manhood and courage until every hope has been thwarted. My dear old friend what has happened? why are you so broken and down cast? Friend, speak to me!" "God bless you, dear Tom!" he answered. "I can't help it, I am so very sad and utterly miserable. I will give up the fight. I and the little one will run away and be happy in spite of the world and my mother. Dear little wife! she shall be my reward, and, perhaps, some day -who can tell-my hard-hearted mother may hunt us up, and force us to love her again." By degrees I gathered the details of his grief. The Madam, who, as we know, had overheard the conversation at the party, rose in the morning full of war, and attacked her son as they breakfasted together, determined to sift the mystery, and worm out every particular. "You never told me, Alfred," she began, "that you had been in any great bodily danger during your visit to Italy. How did it happen that this Italian lady, this strange woman I hear so much about, was able to save your life. Were you ill of a fever?" She had not the courage to look him in the face, though she addressed him in a dry sarcastic voice-a clarion voice sounding to arms. He, somehow or other, summoned up pluck enough to tell his story, following it pretty closely, but yet carefully hiding such facts as his wife's relationship to the Brigand chief. That would have been too strong a dose for the Madam's pride. But he dwelt rather lengthily, and with earnest thankfulness on the heroism and devotion of our good Rosa. He proved how certain was the death from which she rescued him; and, above all, he enlarged on her perfect virtue, and the religious sense which controlled her actions. Naturally he was greatly excited whilst he was telling this romantic story. But on the other side of the table sat the Madam, calm as one of a jury-box-a determined, coolheaded listener to evidence. "I hope you rewarded this good girl munifi cently, as your station in life warranted your doing," she remarked, when Alfred, exhausted for want of breath, was silent for a time. "As long as I live she shall share with me!" he answered, gaining courage as he grew angry with his mother's indifference. "That is right!" she replied. "I should wish my son to prove himself grateful for such an important service." "We are one and indissoluble," he cried. “Her life and mine-the life she preserved—are linked together for evermore." It must have cost the Madam an effort-for I cannot imagine any heart being so callous as to permit such words to leave the mouth, unless some tremendous exertion backed the utterance -it must have cost her a great effort when she said, "I shall make it my duty to send this worthy young person a present of fifty pounds. It will enable her to marry happily with one in her own class in life." Alfred started up, and focussed a broadside of indignant glances at the old lady. "Neither you nor I, Madam," he said, "have yet proved ourselves worthy to rank with her class in life; neither, I fear, shall we, when life has gone, stand in the same rank with that good and noble girl." I was listening to him-so interested that my limbs were powerless; he was telling me his story, "fighting his battles o'er again," the old feelings of pity and indignation influencing him, as they had done during the original interview. Scarcely had he finished his narration, when a voice, we neither of us expected to hear, said, in a foreign language, "Alfred, God help and protect me, and reward you." Then a little round head, with smooth, shining hair, buried itself between his knees very humbly and with great devotion. A kneeling, sobbing woman-the dear, self-sacrificing being he had made his wifewas begging for pardon for the sorrow she had so unconsciously brought upon the man she would have died to make happy. She had heard all. We spoke in English, it is true; but she was clever and quick-perhaps inspired-and understood every word. Alfred's excited manner, his desire to speak to me before he entered her room, had alarmed the fond little ¦ woman, and, without control, she had followed up stairs. The bitterest week's work I ever endured in my life followed this overheard confession. I had to watch that girl as I would a lunatic. My fear was lest she should attempt her own life. inspirers of most of the French poets; and it must be acknowledged that their divinity was a great provocative of fine fervours and fancies at all times. In a glass of the better growths are generated a thousand rich images. Ideas are never wanting when good fellowship is at hand; and then the poet finds that "Phoebus rusheth into him and beggareth all relation." Out of a single glass he can conjure up treasures that surprise, and, after a repetition of the agreeable process, he cannot fail to become the liveliest fellow at table. All this with wine that modern Englishmen call cold, simply because his favourite wines tend to produce heavy slumber, and those of the Frenchman merriment. That this is the fault of custom is very clear. Say what we may, we cannot get over the fact that custom is the law of fools. French wines were strong enough for the English palate down to the end of the seventeenth century. Ben Jonson's days were noted for a large consumption of French wine in England; and when had we better poets? In his "Cataline" the best speech was at the Devil Tavern, where he drank "brave notions"-the only flat scene being composed when he mixed water with his wine. At Lord B's, in the country, where there was plenty of excellent French Claret, of which a good quantity was sent up with him to London, he wrote most of his "Silent Woman," the wine lasting him throughout the whole composition. While writing two comedies, in which he was not successful, he complains he had drunk bad wine at the tavern, "the year honest Ralph, the drawer, died." IN the country around Lyons good-bodied wines are also made, of various strengths. One of these, near Ampuis, on the south side of a hill called the Côte Rôti, is among the finest red wines in France, and well suited to the English palate. The quantity of the best is small. It is a little bitter, clear, strong, and has the violet bouquet. The second quality, a good wine, is too often passed off for the first. The white wine of Condrieu, about twenty leagues from Lyons, is luscious of taste, with an agree-written, he tells us, after parting with his friends able flavour, while in Roussillon, on the borders of the Mediterranean, are wines which have been sold in England as Port for many years together. A house, Ireland & Co., of Bristol, celebrated before the revolutionary war for its choice “Bristol Ports," had realized a fortune. When the war broke out, the house was obliged to give up business, solely because it could get no more of this wine, which had become a favourite variety of Port, without a bottle having ever been in Portugal. Brandy could be added to a strong French wine as well as to the wine of Oporto, both being disguised, for the pure wine of Oporto is a good growth in its natural state. Muscadines, and sweet luscious wines are made in the same district. Among them is the wine of Rivesaltes, the most celebrated of the sweet white wines. At Cette there is a great manufactory of all kinds of wine. It is from this district, too, that the Masdeu wine is shipped from Port Vendus. We have thus enumerated the four principal districts known out of France, but there are many separate departments noted for their own peculiar wines, some of which are in excellence nearly equal to any in the four great divisions above enumerated. From the Moselle to the Pyrenees, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic, the vineyards of France abound, and wine is better and more delicately made than in any other country in the world, the researches of science being added there to long experience. We may add, that the value of the wine made in France annually, up to the time of the disease which so recently attacked the vines, was twentytwo and a half millions sterling according to some authorities; others said twenty-four. The consumption in that country of fermented drinks of all kinds, is twenty-seven gallons per head for the whole population. In the seventeenth century, as we have said in effect, two fifths of the wine drunk in England was French. Different wars caused heavy duties, under the idea of doing mischief to an enemy; our legislators not being aware that trade was but an interchange of goods. More than one hundred and fifty years afterwards the discovery has been acknowledged by our Government, though a fact perfectly well known to philosophers. We shall soon see the good effect of our tardy wisdom. Why should the English people not have free the oldest beverage, or nearly so, except water, with which they are acquainted? Wine is as much a necessary as tea and coffee, and was so ages before they were known. Numbers die every year for want of it. The medical men in the hospitals say, it is worth all the materia medica to the poor who suffer so cruelly from low fevers and similar disorders, yet the extravagant duties have forbidden it to the hos pital funds in the quantities necessary. Claret after "pudding that would please a dean," is a refreshing wine, of which the Irish were great drinkers during the last century, and they knew how to imbibe it out of glasses thin as a cobweb, with stems attenuated as a thread of gossamer. The conversation thus Port wine should be left for discussion till the fogs of a London November blacken the heavens, and man courts oblivion. Chambertin was the favourite wine of Na-"wined" is certain to be light and wholesome. poleon the First, of which he drank very sparingly at all times. This wine, both red and white, is too fine for the palates of those accustomed only to Port and Sherry. Indeed, the first class is never exported, because too little is made for the home demand. The Burgundy wines were the| "Lifeless is he who neither drinks nor dines, We love delicious meats and sparkling wines!" is to be censured, it is the ill usage of them. The bottle is a gentleman; treat it as such, and the return will be gracious. The wines of the literary gentleman are, we again assert it, the wines of France, as they were in days of yore, before the reign of William III. The commercial advantages of their consumption are too obvious for the dullest to overlook. We have observed that it is in France alone that wine is scientifically treated. The varieties of the grape there have been astonishingly multiplied. At Montpellier they have five hundred and eighty varieties-oval and round, and black, white, and grey coloured, some of which bear only forty years, others for three hundred, and more. "Did you never read that Mercury, among the ancients, was given to the bottle ?" said an old bookworm to us, the other day, in the British Museum. We replied, we knew he was a thief, but that the "virtues" of Bacchus had never, that we had heard, been attributed to him. The antiquary replied that in an old French work, written in the time of Margaret of Valois, an author named Des Perriers had a story which bore hard upon Mercury's sobriety. The messenger of the gods had been sent down by Jupiter to fulfil some commissions, and buy some finery at a first-rate milliner's for the goddesses, besides being commissioned to get a book bound for Jupiter himself. He was dispatched in a great hurry because he had been ordered upon his way to hand over to Charon half-a-dozen smothered infants of as many vestal virgins and some dead priests. Wanting a little good wine to refresh himself he entered an inn and ordered a bottle of wine of Ay; and while the waiter was getting it, went prowling up to the bedrooms to indulge his furtive propensities, leaving his bag below, which a couple of idle fellows opened, and taking out Jupiter's book, slipped another into its place. This book happened to be the Book of Human Destinies, which was thus lost. Mercury having stolen a little silver image of Bacchus, put it into his pocket and came down to sip his wine, asking the strangers to partake. Mercury told them that Champagne was equal to Jove's nectar, which he had often tasted. They accused him of blasphemy for daring to make such an assertion. "We have never tasted it ourselves," said they, "but we believe all that is said about it, and no earthly wine can compete with it." Mercury went away disgusted at being obliged to converse with men who would credit anything, but what was self-evident. "The nectar of Jove," said he, "cannot compete with the Champagne of Ay." CORSICAN HONOUR. A TRUE STORY IN TWO CHAPTERS. CHAPTER II. THE PUNISHMENT. double beneath the weight of an enormous sack filled with chestnuts, while her husband strode in advance, carrying, with great stateliness, a gun in his hand, and another in a bandoleer; for in Corsica it is deemed unworthy for a man to carry other burdens than weapons of offence and defence. Mateo could not restrain an exclamation of surprise when he perceived the soldiers grouped in front of his house, and halting abruptly, he said to his wife "Put down the sack, Guiseppa, and hold thy. self in readiness to do thy duty as a wife." She obeyed without hesitation, and Mateo giving her the gun he had in the bandoleer, proceeded to place in readiness the other which he held in his hand, at the same time advancing with slow and cautious steps towards his house; gliding from tree to tree, and ready at the first hostile demonstration to shelter himself behind the largest trunk while he took deadly aim at the enemy. His wife followed close at his heels holding the other gun, prepared to supply the place of that which her husband carried, when the latter should be discharged. For the duty of a good wife in case of combat, is to stand by and reload the fire-arms of her husband. But the Adjutant saw the danger that menaced him, and took a course, which, under the circumstances, showed no small degree of courage. He advanced alone to meet Falconi, in order to explain the affair, addressing him with the freedom of an old acquaintance. “Hilloh! old comrade,” he shouted; “It is I, your cousin, Gamba!" Mateo, without answering a word, stopped and surveyed the speaker; then raised the barrel of his gun so that it pointed to the sky. The Adjutant joined him. "Good day, brother! (*)" he said, extending his hand. "It is an age since we have met." "Good day, brother." "I wished to say bonjour in passing to you and my cousin Guiseppa. We have had a long stage to day, but I must not complain of fatigue, for we have made a famous prize in capturing Gianetto Sanpiero." "Heaven be praised!” cried Guisepps, "he robbed us of a fine milch goat only last week." "Poor devil!" said Mateo, "would you have had him die of hunger?" "The scoundrel fought like a lion," continued the Adjutant. "He has killed one of my Voltigeurs, and not satisfied with that, has broken with a musket shot, the arm of Corporal Chardon. Afterwards, he concealed himself so well, that but for my little cousin Fortunato, we should never have been able to find him.” "Fortunato!" cried Mateo. "Fortunato!" echoed Guiseppa. "Yes. Gianetto had made his hiding-place in yonder heap of hay, but my sharp little cousin exposed the trick. And I will not fail to report it to his good uncle, who will send him a handsome present, be assured. Both his name and thine Mateo, shall figure honorably in the report I shall make to the Advocate-General." THE Voltigeurs were busy cutting some branches from a clump of chestnut trees-while the Adjutant bound up the wound of his captive "Malediction!" groaned Mateo, and his head -as Mateo Falconi and his wife appeared sud-sunk on his bosom. They had rejoined the dedenly in a bend of the path that led to the máquis. Guiseppa walked slowly, nearly bent *Buon giorno, fratello. The usual salutation in Corsica. tachment, which with Gianetto reclining upon the litter, was preparing for departure. When the outlaw saw Mateo Falconi in company with Gamba, a dark vindictive smile passed across his face, rising with difficulty and turning towards the door of the house, he spat upon its threshold, saying in tones of the most bitter contempt, "House of a traitor!" None but a man who was certain of a speedy death, dared pronounce and apply such a word as traitor to Mateo Falconi; a poniard thrust would at once have paid the insult, and silenced for ever the insulter. Nevertheless, Mateo made no other gesture than to cover his forehead quickly with his hand, like one overwhelmed by some terrible and unexpected misfortune. Fortunato, who had entered the house on witnessing the arrival of his father, now reappeared, carrying a bowl of milk, which, with faltering steps and drooping eyelids he presented to Gianetto. "Approach me not!" cried the outlaw in a voice of thunder, then turning towards one of the Voltigeurs, "Comrade," said he, "give me drink." The soldier lifted the gourd he carried to Gianetto's lips, who drank gratefully the water presented to him by the man, with whom but a short time before he had exchanged musket shots. Afterwards he requested that his hands might be fastened across his chest rather than behind his back, "for," said he, "a man who makes his last journey should at least be allowed to take his ease." This demand satisfied, the Adjutant gave the signal "en route," and, after saying adieu to Mateo, who replied neither by gesture nor word, followed by his men, he descended at a quickened pace towards the plain. Ten minutes must have passed ere Mateo opened his mouth. The child meanwhile glancing with an unquiet eye from one parent to the other, yet avoiding the stern gaze of his father, who, leaning upon his gun, kept his eyes fixed upon him with an expression of deep and concentrated anger. "You have begun well," said Mateo at last, in a calm voice, yet not the less alarming for that, to those who knew the man. "Father!" cried the child, advancing with tears in his eyes, and about to throw himself on his knees, but Mateo recoiled from his touch. 'Back!" he said, and the boy sobbing piteously stood motionless some steps from his father. Guiseppa now approached her son. She had just perceived the chain of the watch, the end of which dangled from beneath the waistband of Fortunato. "Who gave you that watch?" she asked in a cold and severe tone. "My cousin, the Adjutant." Falconi seized the watch, and cast it with so much force against a block of stone, that it was shattered into a thousand pieces. "Wife," said he, "is this child one of mine ?" The brown cheeks of Guiseppa reddened with suppressed anger. "What is it that you ask me, Mateo? Know you to whom you speak ?" "I know that he is the first of his race who has been guilty of treachery." The sobs of Fortunato redoubled, for Falconi | kept his eyes, bright and fierce as those of a lynx, fixed upon him. At last, the grieved and angry father, awakening as from some terrible dream, struck the ground with the butt of his gun to attract his son's attention, then throwing the weapon across his shoulder, retraced his way to the máquis, at the same time commanding Fortunato to follow him. The child almost mechanically obeyed. Guiseppa seized Mateo by the arm. "He is your son," she said in a trembling voice, and seeking with her dark eyes to read the thought that troubled those of her husband. "Go," answered Mateo sternly, "you have said the truth, it is my misfortune to be his father." Guiseppa embraced her son, and weeping bitterly, entered the house to throw herself on her knees before the image of the Holy Mother, and pour out her heart in prayer. Falconi strode along the path that led towards the máquis for some two hundred paces, then suddenly halting, descended into a small ravine. He sounded the earth with the butt of his gun, and found it yielding and easy to dig. "Fortunato, place yourself near that large stone." The child did as commanded, and, with a quaking heart, knelt down, "Say what prayers you know." "Father! Father! surely you will not kill me;" and the boy half rose from his knees: Say your prayers," repeated Mateo, in a voice so full of menace and anger that the child obeyed, and, stammering and sobbing, recited the Pater and the Credo. His father's strong voice repeating Amen after each prayer. "Are these all the prayers you know ?" "I know also the Ave Maria and the litany." "It is somewhat long, but no matter." The child, in an almost inaudible voice, said the litany. When he had ceased, his father again asked "Have you finished ?" "Oh! my father, have mercy! Pardon me, I will never, never offend again. I will entreat my cousin, the magistrate, that mercy shall be shown to Gianetto!" He was yet speaking, when Mateo, raising his gun to his shoulder, said— "You have prayed, and may Heaven pardon you, Fortunato, my son." There was a shriek of mingled terror and entreaty, followed by a sharp report, and before the smoke had cleared away from the spot, Mateo Falconi had retaken the road back to his house. He had not gone many yards before he met, standing like a spectre in his path, the pale and trembling Guiseppa. "What have you done ?" she asked. son ?" Where is my "In the ravine. He died a Christian and the priests shall chant many masses for the peace of his soul. Let my son-in-law, Tiodoro Bianchi know my wish, that he can come and dwell with us. It is not well we be alone." W. P. WILD MR. WILL. A STORY THAT WAS HUSHED UP. BY GEORGE AUGUSTUS SALA. A CHRISTMAS party was gathered round a fire -a leaping, roaring, jovial coal fire-and indulging in the orthodox amusement of storytelling. We had an ancient housekeeper among us, who had known some of us ever since we were born, and the papas and mammas of many others of us a long time before we were born. "And he died ambassador at Madrid, didn't he ?" "Yes, sir; but that was long after I left his service. It is full forty years ago that I was housekeeper to the Right Honourable the Earl of Millamant, Lord Lieutenant of Darkshire, and Colonel of the Darkshire Yeomanry Cavalry, at Cartfoil House, Hay Hill, Berkely Square." "And was it there you became acquainted with any strange tale ?" The housekeeper nodded significantly. "Ah!" remarked this ancient dame, when one "What may it have been about, now, Love?" of our stories-I think it was a ghost story- "Not a bit of it," replied the housekeeper, “I i had come to a conclusion-"its all very easy never could abide love, and wouldn't trouble my to talk, but I suppose there are other persons head about such nonsense. No, it wasn't the who have seen strange things-aye, and can tell | least in the world about love.” strange things about 'em, too." "No doubt, ma'am," one of us answered; "there was the old woman who went up to the moon: she must have had some uncommonly strange things to tell." "Likewise the old woman who lived in a shoe;" another took occasion to remark. "To say nothing of the old woman who fell asleep by the King's highway," a third observed," and was so badly treated by Mr. Stout, the tinker." "Ah, yes, I daresay!" the housekeeper rejoined bridling up, adjusting her many-bowed cap, and evidently in that state of temporary irritation known to young ladies at a boarding school as a 'pet.' "That's right! Tease and mock a poor lonely old body, do! It's very generous and manly, isn't it? It wasn't so when I lived with the quality." "With whom, ma'am ?" I made bold to enquire. "With gentlefolks!" the housekeeper retorted snappishly. "With the very first families! With none of your rubbishing country squires: nay, nor with knights nor barrowknights neither; but with born lords and ladies. With the very first nobility in the land, though I say it, that shouldn't-" Murder, now," I hinted. "Worse!" said the housekeeper, emphatically. "Worse!" I repeated. "What can be worse?" I might have suggested fire, thieves, suicide, elopement; but I thought murder would cover a multitude of crimes. "Now what was it, my dear, good soul ?" There," resumed the housekeeper, now thoroughly appeased, "I see you're all dying of curiosity to know about it, and I won't keep you any longer in suspense. Besides, the story's a very short one. It was hushed up at the time, and it would have been much more than my place was worth to breathe a word of it to a living soul. But the chief people concerned in it are all dead. The very dog was poisoned with two ounces of poisoned paunch by the butcher the day afterwards, as if, poor dumb creature, be could have wagged a tail to compromise snybody." "But we hav'nt heard who the dog was, or the butcher either;" I broke in, I am afraid, somewhat impatiently. "Pray begin at the beginning, my dear madam, we're all impatience to hear." "Well then," commenced the housekeeper, settling herself comfortably in her arm chair. "You shall hear all about it. Just draw your chairs closer round me, for I'm not very long of 'Indeed, ma'am !" I interposed in as respect-breath." ful tone as I could command, wishing to conciliate the worthy, but somewhat irascible old lady. Yes, indeed," pursued the housekeeper. "It isn't for nothing, pert and flippant as you are, that I lived seven years and three months in the service of my Lord Millamant." We did as the old lady desired, and she went on thus: "In the year eighteen hundred and nineteen, I was, as I have told you, housekeeper to my Lord Millamant. The story I am telling you has to do with the winter of that same year. A bitter winter it was. Frosts three weeks long, "I knew his lordship well," I observed gravely; and a deluge of mud whenever there was a "that is, I have seen his portrait in the print- thaw. Coals, bread, and meat frightfully dear. shops, and read of his achievements in the news-The poor crying out fit to make your heart break, papers when I was a boy. He ran away with and married Miss Jaghire, the great Indian heiress, didn't he?" "Yes, sir, he did." "He killed Sir Hargreaves Grimwood, the West country baronet, in a duel about Lady Grimwood, didn't he? I remember his trial and acquittal as though they had occurred yesterday." "Yes, sir, he did; but he was badly provoked. Sir Hargreaves was a sad man-lived at the Brimstone Coffee House, and always drank a pint of schiedam before breakfast. He wasn't the first tall gentleman who had been shot about Lady Grimwood." and the taxes as heavy as hard dumplings. Our taxes were paid for us, thank goodness, even to that on the hair-powder with which the footmen plastered their heads. We were all well fed and well cared for, for my Lord Millamant was far too proud and rich a nobleman to put us on board wages when he went out of town, and always said that he liked to see his servants plump and rosy. It didn't matter to him how much the butcher's and baker's bills came to. He had immense estates in Darkshire, and two or three comfortable things they used to call sinecures in those days; besides, wasn't there his wife, the late Miss Jaghire's rich Indian fortune? |