Madame's Masquerade.

Hoetense sat leaning forward, her hands ( clasped over the arm of her easy-chair, the ; toe of one small silken-slippered foot idly tracing the pattern of a great rose in the footstool. It was the attitude of deep thought, the attitude, and nothing more, as was testified by the frequent weary little sighs. At length, after a hah yawn, she flung herself back, muttering, 'My faith, how tiresome !' a? she touched the bell on the table at her elbow. «Ask Madame Lenormand to have the kindness to come to me, Aglae,' she said. The door closed upon the servant, and shortly after re-opened to admit a lady in the prime of life, tall, inclined to stoutness, and with an expression of comfort and care marknig her good-natured face. ' You wished for me, madame,' she said, Stooping to pick up abonbonniero that had slipped to the floor. ' How can I make myself useful P' 'My cousin, I am weary of my lire ! said Hortense, for a second opening wide her childish solemn eyes in the other's This tragic announcement from a crea ture in the very bud of her May, with the first dewy Ireshness, ay, and petulant little thorns of the rose still about her, might have provoked a smile from most. But Madame Lenormand did not smile. The anxiety deepened in her look as sho cried, 'Heavens, madavae, you have the fever! Your eyes aro restless, your cheeks hectic, and, mon dieu !'—with a glance into the bonbonnieee still on her lap—'you have notcaten half a dozen of the chocolatb ! 'It is that I die of nothing to do,' gravely returned Hortense, with charming uncon sciousness of this truly Frerch anti-climax. •Look at me consin,' she continued, rais ing herself in her chair and speaking more rapidly ; ' here am I, eighteen, gay, not too ugly—no? and I come from six years in the convent—to wtat ? Balls, music, theatres, all the amusements natural to my youth ? No! a solitude where time creeps, creeps so slow, I know the days only by tho order of the dinners or tho different toilets Aglao chooses for me. Toilet! Bah !Of what use here P They might as well have shut me in the family tomb at once. ' Madame Lenormand looked yet more troubled. ' But—Madamo—' she said, hesitatingly, ' madame will remember that Monsieur D'Evrecourt will soon be here, and then —' 'And then,' interrupted Hortense, quickly, • I am likely to wish myself indeed in the family tomb ! Enough,' she continued, in an altered voice, tho angry sparkle dying out of her eyes ;' I have no secrets for you, cousin. You know the unwilling prisoner I hold myself ; can you not comprehend my desire for a brief play-time before my jailor comes ?' «Madame would go into society ?' said her companion, doubtfully. _ Hortense mado a movement of im patience. 'Ahno ; not that! Do you see,' she said, with scornful bitterness. ' all THAT will be my prison indulgences by and by ? No ; what I would havo is liberty, the freer and wilder the better. They have defrauded me of my girlhood. Ah, woll. Hortense do Carigan rebels against Madame la Marquise; sho will have one taste at least of what they have taken away. The great lady's day will come soon ; but now, now I will be free to act my caprico as the veriest geisette. My cousin—' stopping short, and clasping her hands with a gravity of sudden resolution, ' I will bo a geisette !' ■ «Madame can not mean it,' urged her 'companion, aghast. 'Consider the scan a i j 'Bah ! who will know it? And I am not a simple demoiselle, but a married woman, with a married woman's privi leges. Besides, havo I not you, cousin, to be my guardian and warrant at need ? Behold us, then, the good boubgeois mama, and tho wicked little daughter - vive la bagatelle!" and she began humming gayly a bar of a popular melody. ' But I assure you, madame, it is im possible,' began the other, with a per plexed face. ' ' And I assure you, madame, that it will be done!' retorted Hortense, with light decision. 'Listen! now I am going to breakfast; after that, I will be dressed and go for a drive. Our campaign must be settled beforo wo roturn; so sharpen your wits, my good cousin.' With which she rose, while Madamo Lenormand, accepting the dismissal, walked slowly from the room, the look ol perplexity deepening on her face as she revolved the situation, which was cer tainly an embarrassing one. Given briefly, it stood thus: Hortense de Carignan, from her very cradle, had been destined for the son of her father's neighbor, the Marquis d'Evrecourt. The projected union was partly of interest, partly of friendship, inasmuch as it would unite at once two adjacent estates and two families whose heads had already in early youth sworn to each other the romantic devotion of enthusiastic natures. In this project they had never wavered; and when a few yeas after the birth of Hortense,M. De ■Carignan died, his inconsolable widow held herself solemnly bound to slee his views for their daughter accompished. Unfortunately, before many years, Madame De Carignan was herself attacked by a mortal illness. Finding her days numbered, her one anxiety was to insure the execution of the sacred trust; and having piersuaded the D'Evrecourts to her mind, the marriage rite was performed

beside her death-bed between the little Hortense, then barely twelve years old, and Jules d' Evrecourt, a boy of perhaps fifteen. Hortense was then at once placed in a convent, whilo Tales returned to the family estate to grutf up. * s seemed proba ble, in the likeness of his father, who was a passionate lover of country life and all its sports. Tho evil, if evil it were, however, wrought its own cure, so far as Jules was concerned. For M. D'Evrecourt, in one of his break-neck gallops, was thrown and killed by the plunging of his horso. The accident gave his widow an unconquerable aversion to the place and all its asso ciations ; she removed to Paris, where she presently married again, this time an English lord, who took her to his own country, Jules accompanying his mother, who was dotingly fond of him. Meanwhile his childish bride was grow ing up in the convent where she had been placed on her mother's death. At first, of course, the little creature did not fairly understand her position; the title of madame lamaeqtjise laughingly bestowed on her by her childish playfellows, made her toss her vain little head as over some special distinction. But as she developed into womanhood, and realized how irrevo cably her life had been fixed without oven the semblance of a choice of her own, the matter appeared to her in a very different light. She brooded secretly over the injustice of her fate, till it was a very discontented little wife indeed who, in any thing but a wifely spirit, left her shelter ing convent to meet this unknown hus band. Young D'Evrecourt, however, serenely unconscious of all this, was still away on his travels, from which he would not return quite yot. And _ Hortense passed these weeks of expectation in ever increasing discontent, and what would have been, rebellion had rebellion been possible in her circumstances. As it was, her dissatisfaction found relief with Madame Lenormand.fwho was the best possible confidante o such dangerous sentiments. Life, which had boen a pretty hard school to tho good lady, had taught her that silent sympathy is the safest, and that there aro times when the greatest service ono can render others is to forget their own words. So sho heard all and said littlo, making herself a safety-valve for this impulsive orphaned girl, by her peculiar position at onco dangerously bound and free, with no other safe-guard than tho distant relative who had become friend and comforter from moro companion and ' sheep-dog.' For Madamo Lenormand's bouegeois love-match had turned out unfortunately, on which "account, perhaps, sho was the moro zealous to steer hor young charge clear of the rashness and self-will that might wreck a life. That Hortense could not be reasoned out of her now whim sho was convinced ; by conforming to it, she would render it as little dangerous as possible. But a very slight glimpse of grisette lifo would doubtless be needed to deprivo it of its one charm of novelty in the eyes of the fastidous littlo lady, and wisely to choose that glimpse must be her own part, who was bound never to cease oversight of Madame la Marquise until she delivered her ovor to the guardianship of a husband. So careful deliberation decided her upon a scheme, which she proposed to Hortense during hor drivo. Sho had chanced to hear mention mado of a masked ball shortly to bo given in the Latin quarter ; she could manage to pro cure tickets without suspicion ; the dis guise would bo effectual; and Hortense would probaly have had quite enough before the hour came rime for unmask ing, when they would quietly slip off and home again, with no ono the wiser, madame's caprice gratified, and no harm done. Hortense was delighted with tho plan, and left it ontirely to Madamo Lonor mand's management, declaring that she would rather have it all a surprise, with a childish delight in anticipating a glimpse into what secmod to her a sort of fairy land. And truly it was a world as wonderful as any fairy-land shs could have fallen into, to this convent-bred little girl, despite her position as ignorant asa child of things familiar onough to another. It was a metamorphosis as complete as Cinderella's. Some ofthese merry-makers might have starved yesterday in a garet; thoy might ho ghastly and stiff to-morrow under the waters of the river; but to-night the world was all their own ; GEiSETrES, oxjveiees, poor wretches ! for a few hours they were kings and queens, and they kept their state generously. Such unfeigned gayety, such utter surrender to intoxication of the moment, amazed Hortense, all inexperienced as she was. Her blood came and. went to the beat of music; she caught her breath at every waft of perfume; the clash of color and sound, evolving harmony from its own irregular rhythm, stirred a vague melody in the confusion of her untried senses; tho formless whirling crowd seemed to catch her volition in its sweep, and toss it in and out like a leaf on the wind. With a feeling of losing her personality, she shrank aside from the revel, Unconscious of a figure for sorrc time near to hor, moving as she moved, and pausing where she paused. ' Will not the Queen of Heaven deign to smile on the humblest of her adorers ? I come from afar to worship,' said a voice suddenly, low in her ear; and turning with a start she saw a man clad in pilgrim's garb, with staff in hand. The

large Tcloak concealed his figure; the mask hid his face; only his eyes wero visible, and, significant, intense, gazed steadfastly on the young girl. 'Gentle pilgrim.' answered Hortense, with one startled glance to assure herself, and then entering with instinctive femi nine coquetry into the spirit of the scene, ' you come too late, and find only a waning moon;' and she dropped her crescent low. • Ah, suffer me then to wait her rising thus,' he exclaimed, throwing himself at her feet.

' Beware !' she said, archly. ' Know you not that to sleep in the moon's light is to peril sense and sight ?' 'To peril ?' he repeated. ' Nay, look on me, then, and see if I be not deaf and blind already—to aught save her;' and with a quick movement he raised his mask and gazed up at her with a look into which he had thrown a subtlety of expres sion that spoke well for his powers of

acting. During the dialogue they had been standing apart in the recess of a balconied window, so that the moving throng was 'behind him, and none but his companion saw his face. It was a singularly handsome face, youthful in feature, yet with the force and fire of manhood—a face that looked as if at whatsoever shrine it might kneel, it was not wont to kneel in vain. So much Hortense saw in the brief glimpse, and with it a passionate purpose, a strangely-minded intensity, that made her color change and hor eyes droop even under her mask. When she lifted them again his mask was restored, and nothing was visible but his eyes, challenging her as bofore. With a half-conscious shyness she turned away, and taking Madame Lenormand's arm, walked in among the merry-makers. But wherever they moved he followed, till by-and-by the trio began to attract attention—the slight trans parently robed figure, with its luminous crescent sheltered in the voluminous drapery of the elder woman, and a stealthy dark shape, like a creeping cloud, follow ing step for step in their wake. «Behold a portent!' cried one—' the full moon with the new !' 'And the dark swallowing up both !' put in another. ' Have a care, Mademoiselle Moon; the dark is dangerous,' mocked a figure in a bizarre butterfly robe. Hortense's sablo attendant made some light retort, which, random as it was, told surely nevertheless, for a loud laugh followed, as, with one angry flash of the great black eyes beneath her mask, the human butterfly fluttered away into the crowd.

In this way he continuea to keep every one at a distance, whilo Hortense, half fluttered by this persistent chase, half relieved to be freed from other pursuit of creatures so unfamiliar to her, came instinctively to turn for help to this bold stranger, as much of friend as enemy. But when the hour for unmasking ap proached, |ahe began to question uneasily how to escape without being observed. Finally she succeeded in dispatching her sable follower on some pretext, and that done, hastily slipping into the crowd, stole away unmarked on Madame Lenormand's arm.

Doubtless it was the unaccustomed excitement that drove sleep from the pil low of the covent-bred girl. At all events, when Madam.} Lenormand the next day noticed the languor and pallor of her charge, it was this freak that she blamed for them.

' It is very well,' she said, half -jestingly, ' that madame need but play at being a GEISETTE.'

•It is a stupid play,'{answered madame, and one I shall play at no more. What are they all, then, these people ?' she con tinued, after a moment's pause; geisettes, ouveiees, eh, cousin ?' ' And students, adventurers—who knows what, besides P'

' But never of our class—no. cousin ?'

' Who knows ? Madame herself was there,' answered Madame Lenormand, with an arch glance at Hortense, who flushed, and rejoined, quickly, ' Bah! that was a madcap's freak; it has nothing to say to the others.' Her band kerchief slid from her lap. She stooped to recover it, and added, ' That droll, for example, who haunted us so; no doubt you fancy him a prince in disguise P' ' Who knows ?'repeated Madame Lenor mand, laughing. ' The prince of school boys at least.' 'And I,'said Hortense, throwing up her chin, ' I believe him a tailor with a head turned by too much Beranger. Oh, it was too stupid! I will have no more of it.'

This was Hortense's strain throughout the day; constantly recurring to that caprice of hers, and so constantly avowing her weariness of it. She was restless and fitful, giving orders only to counter mand them, and proposing plans which she could not wait to see executed. At length toward evening, having for the tenth time finally decided to take her daily drive, she was passing to the car riage, when a young man, stepping quickly forward, arrested her progress with a ' Pardon, madame.' At the sound, Hortense turned with a start to recognize the face she had looked into for a moment on the preceding night, and in that full light which touched into brightness his amber waves of hair she saw the pallor of suffering on his face, and in his eyes, as they met hers, a sort of passionate appeal that almost stirred tears in her own.

' Pardon, madame/ he repeated, and, it

seemed to her, with an almost reproachful accent on the last word; ' this is the property of madame, I imagine,' handing her a fanciful little pocket-book, bound in blue and silver. Hortense opened it, and stood turning over the cards and few tri fles it contained, her eyes cast down, her face flushing. Wholly ignorant of his position,_ she was in doubt what to do. She felt it impossible to offer him money, yet was loath to let him depart with a mere common word of acknowledgment. Obeying a sudden impulse, she drew a ring from her finger, and gave it to him, saying 'Do me the favor to wear this in token of my thanks, monsieur.'

The young man's face kindled with a sudden glow; he poured forth hurried broken words, to which she responded by a grave bow still without looking at him ; then the door was closed, and the carriage rolled off, leaving him standing there with the sunlight flickering over his fair locks and eager, handsome face.

'It must have fallen from one of my wraps,' said Hortense, breaking the silence abruptly; ' but then how could he guess it was mine ?'

Madame Lenormand hesitated. 'If the truth were told, madame,' she said, ' I imagine he caught a glimpse of us as we stole out, and followed us home. I was almost sure there was a carriage following ours all the way, though I would not mention it till now, not to annoy you.'

Hortense sat flushing and paling. ' Fol lowed us P' she repeated, • But that is—'

' Arrant impertinence,' completed Madame Lenormand. ' Doubtless you were right, madame, and he is some romantic tailor, whom all his romance could not teach to be a gentleman.'

Hortense glanced sharply up, but made no response. Madame Lenormand, judg ing her to be vexed with having over-re warded such a man, dropped the subject.

Had this act of presumption been the unknown masquerader's last ? But only the next evening, Hortense, stepping out on the balcony, saw a man move out of the shadow opposite, and recognized the voice that began singing one of the airs she had heard at the masked ball. She retreated instantly, but the figure still held its ground, and when cautiously peeping out, after extinguishing her light; before going to rest, she could dimly discern it keeping its solitary vigil. And this was but the beginning. Day after day sho was pursued by a silent,; distant apparition, till Madame Lenor mand half-jestingly asked if they should call in the aid of a seegent de ville to. exorcise it. Hortense only shook her head. She had chosen throughout to, ignore the meaning of this pursuit, to bo blind to the wistful eyes that sought hers.; Secure in the social barriers that pre-! eluded his near approach, she could afford' to be careless of a passion that could never trouble her pride. j

But at length the climax came one day, when, as she sat alone reading, a servant j entered with hesitation. 'Pardon,; madame,' he said.j deprecatingly, _' but! there is a peasant without who insists; upon seeing Madame la Marquise^ He claims to come from her estate with a; message of importance; so I have yen- j tured to disturb madame—' ' It is well, Etienae,' replied Hortense,; without lifting her eyes from a page. ' Let him enter.' |

'Enter, then, friend Brazenface,'; grumbled the domestic sotto voce, to a man at his elbow, and, closing the door again, retreated, muttering to himself about unmannerly peasants who would; not know their proper place. The man remained in silence by the door, till at Hortense's bidding he slowly, advanced, uncovering his head meantime.,

Then Hortense started, for, with the ; removal of the heavy slouched had and: shock of wild black hair attached, she recognized beneath the peasant's garb the j unknown masquerader of a fortnight j before. She sprang to her feet, dropping, her book ; instinctively both bent to lift it,; and their hands met. The touch seemed to act on her like an electric shock, break ing the silent amazement in which she had stood gazing. ' Monsieur', she half stammered, * what is this disguise ? what is it you mean?' ' Wi ! madame,' he interposed, plead ingly, 'to speak to you for one moment, to be near you —' •To be near me !' she repeated.' Hold! it is for days that you pursue me ; you follow me everywhere abroad, and now — are you mad monsieur ?' 'Truly madame, you say right,' he answered sadly. ' Mad ? was it not your own warning to me on th it night P Since then I am like a child that cries for the moon; and she is so far above me, so far—'

' Listen, monsieur,' said Hortense, in a firm voice, though with a face as pale as tbe agitated one she, looked intu, ' this is madness, if you will, but it must end. I am married, and although my husband is not beside me, I know how to uphold the honor, of his name and my own.' The Marquise d'Evrecourt can not suffer this ■pursuit of her, Go ; let it end here !' The young man stood gazing at her in silence, but with a pleading pain in his eyes that could scarce havefailedto move any woman's pity who saw it. But Hortense's eyes never left the floor ; she sat with clasped hands and compressed lips, waiting in a kind of dumb obstinacy for him to depart He seemed at length to comprehend this. 'I go,' he said; and with no other word moved slowly to the door. Five minutes after Madame Lenor mand, entering the room, was frightened

to find HorteWhh^TP —♦ ' white, and shiveS?fackm^il fellowmasauerarlor gy' to sm| laid.atleXtt'CrT/l wd still he'mlde ao ' J^l Lenormand, knowin* Ll gQ' V scene in the ho2r H ofl little over this uSt n^r deredl invented several^ SapPea%l account forT^£», «>* after discussing Sif* 1, shel fancy he will t^ubkffJ? 680'^! TT 'He wiU trouble J n.^ 6-'! Hortense; and om.th m?re''i solicitude. sSreli^^B face had grown B tr a ng e Kfiii t,e;, late, she thought, and vZlttM girls-loneliness, half re_S gl httle rpple of excited 4 J apparition' had made iff dulness. 1U mm It was the end of th P _„,„ I the two ladies w ere S 6 w^ a servant P rSedS e J card, which he delivered Si Lenormand No sooner had hel at it than she started up m a fill foreign to her usual plasty 'I Heavens!' she cried;' he ___ J! Hor ease had learnee ?fJS I handstighttyclaspedonherlpl sherspeatedanavoiee^i wi v i S^BWe a sharp!! fell back white as death S3 cushions Madame LenorSand J running her eye rapidly over?!!! pencilled on the card. 'He ff 1 unexpectedly.and sends to met! you. ?> Madame shall I gi YeVc ad^i 'Admit him,'said Hortense in J low unnatural voice; and 8 Lenormand glided from the room How many moments, how __ m passed, Hortense could not hay before the door reopened; s t 6D towards her; she counted them I one, till they paused close besidl But a leaden weight seemed to Me eyelids down; she leaned back, _£ breathless in her chair till a voice ' Hortense !'

It was the unknown masquerafo again stood before her, his eyes &, her, no longer with the half-defianti ness that had filled them when they gazed into hers, nor the sorrowful re she had once seen in them, but at triumph sobered theiramber briUiai ' What, Hortense, not a word fa as he stretched out his hand, and th she had given him caught the light flashed out suddenly. He drew the from his finger, ana placing it on lifted the trembling hand to Ui ' That is our true marriage ring,' k ' You will not banish me again, my, By-and-by Madame Lenormand et discreetly. i i'»

• So, cousin,' cried Hortense, tun her with a tremulous laugh, 'yon were a conspirator against me ?' 'But, madame,' said the good eagerly, ' I had no choice, indeed, thought of your husband was gt daily a greater pain and dread to and when Monsieur le Marquise i and confides in rae, all eager to subdi with his love, what am I to do but him to conquer a prejudice I know foJ on nothing? And then so opport comes madame's masquerade——' 'Enough, my good cousin,' put i D'Evrecourt, with a laugh; ' I thii must forgive madame her masquer for this once.

' And considering monsieur's sb it said Hortense,' with a saucy del ness that made him laugh again. ' Madame is served,' aunounced Et standing on the threshold in the mi their wonder, and Hortense, on her band's arm, passed out to a repast i the viands seemed all sweatmeats,.s! with the fairy prince.

A new kind of door hingehnbeen mvi Its peculiarity is that the door not only! quickly aud noiselessly, but it bits thep who leaves the door open a fierce blp bis back.

The Parson's Daughter—' I'm glad to that you don't object to a few cand'es placed on the altar these dark evenings, Brown !' The Sextone -s—' Bless you r I Bee they wasn't Roman candles composites !'

A gentleman rode up to a pub!ic hosi the country, and asked : ' Who is the n of this house?' 'I am sir,' replied landlord; 'my wife hu been dead i three weeks.'

The extreme height of misery is a I boy wiuh a new pair of boots tnd no| puddle. 1 The other evening a young lady abiffl turned a corner and very rudely ran ai a boy who was small and ragged! freckled. Stopoing as soon as she couldl tu r ned to him and said :' I beg your pal Indeed, lam very sorry.' The small, ra and freckled byy looked up insf am rzement for an instant; then, takes abo ut threefourfchs or a cap, he bowedl low, smiled until tis face became lost a smile, i?ad answered, 'Yon can hen parding, and welcome, miss; end yer| run agin me and knock me clean dovw, I won't say a word.' Alter the young! pr.-sed on he turned to a compamon anal half apologetically : 'I never had any ask my parding before, and it kinder too off my feet.' . The latest definition of a lover is a with whom one woman deceives ana with who n she deceives herself, ana % she deceives.

Evening gitar Supplement, Jnne V 79 1876