aid, originally a French noble of large fortune, but who had lost
everything by the extravagance of an only son, and had sought out, in
voluntary exile, this remote spot to end his days in. His manners were
always marked with a tinge of proud reserve which none ever infringed
upon, nor, out of school-hours, did any one ever presume to obtrude upon
his retirement.

The classical teacher was a foreigner, we knew not of what nation; we
called him sometimes a Pole, now a Spaniard, now an Irishman,--for all
these nationalities only to us expressed distant and unknown lands. He
was small almost to dwarfishness, and uniformly dressed in a suit of
peculiarly colored brown cloth; his age might have been fifty, sixty, or
even more, for there was little means of deciphering the work of time in
a face sad and careworn, but yet un wrinkled, and where sorrow had set
its seal in early life, but without having worn the impress any deeper
by time. Large spectacles of blue glass concealed his eyes, of which,
the story ran, one was sightless; and his manner was uniformly quiet and
patient,--extending to every one the utmost limit of forbearance,
and accepting the slightest efforts to learn, as evidences of a noble
ambition. To myself he was more than generous,--he was truly and deeply
affectionate. I was too young to be one of his class, but he came for
me each morning to fetch me to the school; for I did not live at the
chateau, but at a small two-storied house abutting against the base of
the mountain. There we lived; and now let me explain who we were.

But a peep within our humble sitting-room will save both of us much
time. I have called it humble,--I might have used a stronger word; for
it was poor almost to destitution. The wooden chairs and tables; the
tiled floor; the hearth, on which some soaked branches of larch are
smoking; the curtainless window; as well as the utter absence of even
the very cheapest appliances of comfort,--all show indigence; while a
glance at the worn form and hollow cheek of her who now bends over
the embroidery-frame attests that actual want of sustenance is there
written. Haggard and thin as the features are, it needs no effort to
believe that they once constituted beauty of a high order. The eye, now
sunken and almost colorless, was once flashing in its brilliancy; and
that lip, indrawn and bloodless, was full and rounded like that of
a Grecian statue. Even yet, amidst all the disfigurement of a coarse