up-stairs with his agent, making arrangements for quitting the place
forever, and had given orders not to be disturbed. He had locked up her
apartments, and had the key in his pocket; but he had forgotten that
there was a spare key for every room in the house, which the housekeeper
had the charge of; so my lady sent for her to open the doors. Now,
though from putting this and that together--the count's agitation, my
sudden disappearance, her own removal, and the innkeeper's story--she
felt sure there was some mischief in the wind, she had no suspicion of
what had really occurred; as indeed how should she, till her eyes fell
upon the door of the closet. Then she comprehended it all. You may
imagine the rest, madame! Words couldn't paint it! When they came into
the room, she was battering madly at the wall with the poker. But a few
hours terminated her sufferings. She was already dead when Philippe was
telling me of her return."

"It's a fearful tragedy to have lived through!" said I. "And Philippe:
what became him?"

"He died like the rest, madame, about six months after these sad events
had occurred. When I recovered my health, I went into service, and for
the last forty years I have been housekeeper to M. le Cure here."

"And he is the only person that ever enters that melancholy house?"

"Yes, madame. I went there once--just once--to look at that fatal
chamber, and the bed where my poor mistress died. When the place was
let, those apartments were locked up; but"--and she shook her head
mournfully--"the tenants were glad to leave it."

"And for what purpose does M. le Cure go there so often?" I asked.

"To pray for the souls of the unfortunates!" said the old woman,
devoutly crossing herself.

Deeply affected with her story, I took leave of this sole surviving
witness of these long-buried sorrows; and I, too, accompanied by the
cure, once more visited the awful chamber. "Ah, madame!" said he, "poor
human nature! with its passions, and its follies, and its mad revenges!
Is it not sad to think that so much love should prove the foundation of
so much woe?"

VISIT TO AN ENCAMPMENT OF LAPLANDERS.

BY WILLIAM HURTON.

Of all the wonders of distant climes of which we read in childhood,
perhaps none make a stronger impression on our imaginations than such
objects as exist beyond the mystic Arctic Circle. The pictorial
representations of the Midnight Sun, the North Cape, the Aurora
Borealis, the Laplanders