o his heart, and exclaimed:

"I am saved!"

"It is nature's last effort," said the doctor.

Albert's arms loosed their hold, and fell forward on his knees. His gaze
was riveted on Consuelo; gradually the shade crept from his forehead to
his lips, and covered his face with a snowy veil.

"It is the hand of Death!" said the doctor, breaking the silence.

Consuelo would take neither her husband's title nor his riches.

"Stay with us, my daughter?" cried the canoness, "for you have a lofty
soul and a great heart!"

But Consuelo tore herself away after the funeral, though her heart was
wrung with grief. As she crossed the drawbridge with Porpora, Consuelo
did not know that already the old count was dead, and that the Castle of
the Giants, with its riches and its sufferings, had become the property
of the Countess of Rudolstadt.

* * * * *

Mauprat

It was while George Sand was pleading for a separation from
her husband, on the ground of incompatibility of temperament,
that "Mauprat" was written, and the powerful story, full of
storm, sentiment, and passion, bears the marks of its
tumultuous birth.

_I.--Bernard Mauprat's Childhood_

In the district of Varenne, within a gloomy ravine, stands the ruined
castle of Roche-Mauprat. It is a place I never pass at night without
some feeling of uneasiness; and now I have just learnt its history from
Bernard Mauprat, the last of the line.

Bernard Mauprat is eighty-four and no man is more represented in the
province. Passing his house with a friend who knew the old man, we
ventured to call, and were received with stately welcome. Later Mauprat
told us his story in the following words:

There were formerly two branches of the Mauprat family and I belonged to
the elder. My grandfather was that Tristan de Mauprat whose crimes are
still remembered. My father was his eldest son, and on his death, which
occurred at a shooting party, the only living member of the younger
branch, the chevalier, Hubert de Mauprat, a widower with an infant
daughter, begged that he might be allowed to adopt me, promising to make
me his heir. My grandfather refused the offer, and when I was seven
years old and my mother died--poisoned some said by my grandfather--I
was carried off by that terrible man to his house at Roche-Mauprat. I
only knew afterwards that my father was the only son of Tristan's who
had married and that conseq