either the state nor the community. You are a mere
cypher--a make-weight in the social scale--an article of no value to any
one except the owner."

"Not even the latter, mademoiselle," I replied, bitterly. "It is long
since I have ceased to value my own life."

She smiled again, but her eyes this time were full of tears.

"Nay," said she, softly, "am I not the owner?"

* * * * *

Great joys at first affect us like great griefs. We are stunned by them,
and know not how deep they are till the night comes with its solemn
stillness, and we are alone with our own hearts. Then comes the season
of thankfulness, and wonder and joy. Then our souls rise up within us,
and chant a hymn of praise; and the great vault of Heaven is as the roof
of a mighty cathedral studded with mosaics of golden stars, and the
night winds join in with the bass of their mighty organ-pipes; and the
poplars rustle, like the leaves of the hymn-books in the hands of the
congregation.

So it was with me that evening when I went forth into the quiet fields
where the summer moon was shining, and knew that Hortense was mine at
last--mine now and for ever. Overjoyed and restless, I wandered about
for hours. I could not go home. I felt I must breathe the open air of
the hills, and tread the dewy grass, and sing my hymn of praise and
thanksgiving after my own fashion. At length, as the dawning light came
widening up the east, I turned my steps homewards, and before the sun
had risen above the farthest pine-ridge, I was sleeping the sweetest
sleep that had been mine for years.

The conjuror's grave was green with grass and purple with wild thyme
when Hortense knelt beside it, and there consummated the weary
pilgrimage of half a life. The sapling willow had spread its arms above
him in a pleasant canopy, leaning farther and reaching higher, year
by year,

"And lo! the twig to which they laid his head had now become a tree!"

Hortense found nothing of her father but this grave. Papers and
title-deeds there were none.

I well remembered the anxious search made thirteen years ago, when not
even a card was found to indicate the whereabouts of his friends or
family. Not to lose the vestige of a chance, we pushed inquiry farther;
but in vain. Our rector, now a very old man, remembered nothing of the
wandering lecturer. Mine host and hostess of the Red Lion were both
dead. The Red Lion itself had disappeared, and become a thing o