SALUTE.

"She is fair, she is white, and her golden hair
Sweetly frames her rosy face:
The limpid look of her azure eyes
Beguiles near as much as her half-closed lip."

N. CHANNARD (_Poesies inedites_).

The next day, from break of dawn, the strolling players were already making
their preparations for departure.

He saw the fair dancer again.

No longer had she on her gauze dress with golden spangles, nor the tights
which displayed her shape, nor her glittering diadem, nor the imitation
pearls in her hair. She had resumed her poor dress of printed cotton, her
darned stockings and her coarse shoes; but there was still her blue eye
with its strange light, her pleasant face, her silky hair falling in thick
tresses on her sunburnt neck, and beneath her cotton bodice the figure of
an empress was outlined with the same opulence.

A knot of women was there, laughing and talking scandal. What were these
stupid peasants laughing at?

At length the heavy vehicle began to move, drawn by two broken-winded
horses.

The fair girl is at the little window and watches, inquisitive and smiling,
the silly scoffing crowd.

"Pass on, daughter of Bohemia, and despise these men who jest at your
poverty, these women who cast a look of scorn and hate. They scorn and hate
you, because they have not your splendid hair, nor the brightness of your
eyes, nor your white teeth, nor your fresh smile, nor your suppleness,
grace and vigour, nor your bewitching shape; despise them in your turn, but
envy them not, them who despise and envy you."

Thus the Cure murmured to himself as the carriage was passing by.

She is there still at her little window, like a youthfull picture by
Greuze. She lifts her eyes and recognizes the priest, and bows with that
smile which has already so affected him. What grace in that simple gesture!
What promises in those gentle eyes! In the midst of the hostile scornful
looks of that foolish crowd she has met a friendly face; she has read
sympathy and perhaps a secret admiration on the intelligent countenance of
the priest.

The Cure replied to her salute, and for a long while his gaze pursued the
carriage.

Meanwhile the good ladies whispered among themselves, and said to one
another with a scandalized air: "Did you see? He bowed to the mountebank!"

VIII.

THE FEVER.

"Who has not had those troubled
nights, when the storm rages within,
when the soul, miserably oppressed
with s