er proposed, that the courier should be detained until
they should have brought their plan to a fortunate conclusion, and
Castanet with his young wife repaired to the leafy hut, that had been
got ready for them both, while the darkness of night set in.

CHAPTER VIII.

Edmond intended visiting the valleys under pretext of inquiring after
and purchasing an estate and castle in the district, that were
abandoned by the owner, and now for sale. He had become acquainted with
an aged secular priest, who dwelt in a beautifully situated village of
a charming valley, and his companion had under other pretences taken up
his quarters in a neighbouring village. As Edmond wandered solitarily
through the enchanting landscape, for the purpose of acquainting
himself with its conveniences, his heart became oppressed as he
struggled to know if the object, that led him hither might in itself be
a good, whether it might be a justifiable one. "Shall I," said he to
himself, "bring war into these peaceful valleys, where hitherto no
noise of arms has ever resounded? Here the monsters still slumber,
which we are going to awaken, in order to provide victims even in these
communes for their grim jaws." He quieted his perturbed feelings with
the thought, that without his assistance the royalists would march
hither, for the purpose of entangling and, if possible, extirpating his
new brethren from this part of the country, which was almost wholly in
the possession of Catholic inhabitants.

His host, the Catholic priest, was a very little grey-haired man, who,
with just as old and amiable a housekeeper lived under the vines and
olive trees, that shaded his dwelling so quietly and peaceably, that
Edmond on his first entrance was involuntarily reminded of the fable of
Philemon and Baucis. He could not divest himself of the idea, that in
this habitation the earliest and dearest recollections of his childhood
were hovering round him, he was confounded at himself, that his wrath,
his burning, religious zeal seemed here nearly exhausted, he was almost
obliged to confess that it was forgotten. He meditated and dreamed in
the rustling of the trees, by the murmuring of the little waterfall,
how softly his soul melted away, and his resolution, like that of
Rinaldo's in the enchanted garden of Armida, lost all its strength.
When he could not regain his former energy in his waking dreams, as he
strolled by the side of the br