ey it in their
pictures. Such artists forget that the SOUL of a landscape, if they
represent it truly, is so grand that the human element is crushed by it;
whereas such a scene added to Nature limits her to the proportions
of the personality, like a frame to which the mind of the spectator
confines it. When Poussin, the Raffaelle of France, made a landscape
accessory to his Shepherds of Arcadia he perceived plainly enough that
man becomes diminutive and abject when Nature is made the principal
feature on a canvas. In that picture August is in its glory, the harvest
is ready, all simple and strong human interests are represented. There
we find realized in nature the dream of many men whose uncertain life of
mingled good and evil harshly mixed makes them long for peace and rest.

Let us now relate, in few words, the romance of this home. Justin
Michaud did not reply very cordially to the advances made to him by the
illustrious colonel of cuirassiers when first offered the situation of
bailiff at Les Aigues. He was then thinking of re-entering the service.
But while the negotiations, which naturally took him to the Hotel
Montcornet, were going on, he met the countess's head waiting-maid. This
young girl, who was entrusted to Madame de Montcornet by her parents,
worthy farmers in the neighborhood of Alencon, had hopes of a little
fortune, some twenty or thirty thousand francs, when the heirs were all
of age. Like other farmers who marry young, and whose own parents are
still living, the father and mother of the girl, being pinched
for immediate means, placed her with the young countess. Madame de
Montcornet had her taught to sew and to make dresses, arranged that she
should take her meals alone, and was rewarded for the care she bestowed
on Olympe Charel by one of those unconditional attachments which are so
precious to Parisians.

Olympe Charel, a pretty Norman girl, rather stout, with fair hair of
a golden tint, an animated face lighted by intelligent eyes, and
distinguished by a finely curved thoroughbred nose, with a maidenly
air in spite of a certain swaying Spanish manner of carrying herself,
possessed all the points that a young girl born just above the level
of the masses is likely to acquire from whatever close companionship a
mistress is willing to allow her. Always suitably dressed, with modest
bearing and manner, and able to express herself well, Michaud was soon
in love with her,--all the more when he found th