IV. Paralyzed at first by the blow, precious time was lost before active search was be- It is the next afternoon. gun, and then no trace could be found, the On Walter's bed, in the neat little room only thing discovered being that an Irish-off the "library," lies old Mr. Brand, quietly woman, whom Hilda had once discharged sleeping. The rattle of the carts on the from her employ for stealing, had disap-avenue, the heavy grinding rumble of the peared from Washington about the same time as the child. But search for her had proved equally fruitless. Walter's breath came fast as there rushed upon his recollection the memory of Elsie, and of the beldam who wanted to take her away from the police station. “Finally,” Hilda went on, in her weary voice, "our money all gave out, so that we could not pay any more detectives; people became tired of sympathizing with us, and we had to bear our sorrow in decorous silence. Then papa- Oh! I can't tell you all about it. You must know how terrible it was, and I can't explain. I shall cry if I do." Again Walter bade her not to try. Nevertheless she did, telling him, with passiouate earnestness, how her father had changed from the proud, handsome man into the decrepit old drunkard; how she had resorted to stenography-her amusement in earlier years for a livelihood; and what a wretched weight of sorrow she had borne in loneliness and degradation. horse-cars, the screams of the hucksters, the thousand hoarse noises of the city streets, mingle in a subdued roar that is tempered by distance and brick walls into a soothing sound. When Walter entered this quiet room he found Hilda sitting in a low rocking-chair by the bedside. "Has he become clearly conscious?" he asked her, for Mr. Brand had been somewhat delirious during the night. "Yes," she answered, in a whisper; "he knew me, and asked where we were and what had happened, yet seemed to care very little for these things, only begging Elsie to come to him." Walter started. Was his Elsie the lost daughter and sister, the darling of the old man's heart, for lack of whom his weak moral nature had broken down? Elsie was not an uncommon name. It might be only a coincidence. "Hilda," he said, quietly, "what causes your father to think so strongly that your sister-Elsie did you say her name was?is here in New York? Perhaps he had some clew which would help me to look for her. I am a famous detective." Father once 66 "I never could find out. came here, but afterward he denied that he knew any thing about it. So I have always thought it was only a hallucination of his, but one I could never dissipate;" and she sighed wearily. "Tell me what Elsie looked like," he asked, again, and was startled by the resemblance she drew of her to the picture of the little girl he had won from barbarism five years before. When she spoke of her sweet silvery voice as a marked characteristic, and dwelt with loving earnestness on the pretty way in which she sang, ne was almost sure of the identity, and came near blurting out the whole story. "One day last September," Hilda continned, gently withdrawing her forgotten hand from Walter's-for he had taken it in an assuring clasp when once she had been sobbing with the misery of her recollections-said that the Irish woman I told you of "papa came home more like himself, and startled me by telling me that he believed our lost darling was in New York, and that he was resolved to go himself to seek for her. I pleaded with him, but it was of no use, and I could only persuade him to wait a few days until I could go with him. He had obtained some money by selling his last little piece of property. Well, we came to New York without any plans, but by a fortunate accident found a good boarding-place. Papa was hopeful, and said he was on the track of my sister, but I always doubted him. He would stay at home all day, but go out in the evening; and one night he did not come home till morning, and then I could see that he had been drinking again, and had lost all his money. I begged him not to go away the next evening, but he did, so I followed him, and persuaded him to come home. In that way I learned his haunts, where he went to gamble, and often I have been in those dreadful places at midnight when I could not induce him to leave earlier. I am afraid he will never give it up. Oh, father, father, how could you sink so!" Hilda's brave voice was lost in this despairing cry, and she had no more than time to recover her self-possession before the cab stopped. "If Elsie had only lived" (Hilda persisted in thinking her dead), "papa never would have been led away so, I am sure. It is his despair." "Oh, keep up your courage! It's not too late to renew the search. I tell you again I am famous as a detective." The surgeon dropped in before long, and announced Mr. Brand to be feverish and weak, but that his constitution seemed to be good, and all the physician's anxiety was concerning the patient's habit of moaning and muttering in his sleep, as though he had some settled grief or perplexity, which might induce congestion of the brain. Walter thought it all over. He recalled every incident connected with Elsie's history, and recited to himself all that she had told him of her vague recollections. He questioned Hilda once more as to her sister, and the more he studied the resemblance in face, form, and manner, the more firmly he became convinced that his "little sister" was the lost darling of his guests. It was with mingled sensations that he admitted this, and with conflicting hopes that he resolved to put it to the test. If his Elsie was their Elsie, there could be no question as to his duty. But he had been indulging almost paternal anticipations of her future, and had been allowing his love for the little waif to grow beyond his record, until now the prospect of losing her had a bitterness in it akin to the sorrow a father's heart would feel in like circumstances. So his honest hope that he might be able to reunite this broken family was in conflict with his selfish yet irrepressible wish that she might prove, after all, not to be their Elsie, but only his. Doing and thinking thus occupied several days, during which (after the first) Condon went about his work as usual. Mr. Braud's wounds healed, and he seemed to grow better, yet his mind remained dreadfully morbid, and he chafed because his illness prevented him from searching for his daughter. All knew what his searching would amount to; yet perhaps he did have an idea of her true fate, or he never would have mired body and soul in the slums of the Fourth Ward. At last the surgeon positively declared to Condon that unless the patient ceased fretting he would speedily die. That same evening Walter called Hilda cheerily to come into the library, and when she had presented herself, with a puzzled air, he said, "You are looking well to-night, Miss Brand; I think you are bearing your burden heroically." "You have heard what Dr. Gaines fears. Time, then, is precious. Now to-morrow morning I shall want you to go up the Hudson a little way with me and see this person. We will be back in the afternoon, and can leave your father quite safely. You can decide better than I whether this young lady really knows Elsie, or whether it is some one else she has in mind." "Of course I will go," she said, eagerly, "if you think I can be spared. But tell me, how did you find this persou?" "You shall know to-morrow." The next morning was warm and balmy -one of those earliest spring days that sometimes follow the fiercest storms, suggesting to every heart into which the sap of nature can creep that the light and joy and fullness of summer approach. The city streets were alive to this gentle influence as well as the country lanes. Children crept out of tall dingy tenements and played in the sun; grandfathers marched out to the bit of garden behind the brown-stone houses and examined the swelling buds of the single grape that struggled for existence in the scant soil; middle-aged men in dark counting-rooms turned the pages of their huge ledgers with an indolent and weary air, while younger clerks examined fondly their fishing-rods before going down to business, and talked all the way of trout brooks and snipe-shooting. This strength of hope, this vivifying influence of the growing sun, penetrated even to the sick-room of that quiet house in CStreet, and the wounded man was quite as generously happy in the prospect of his daughter's having a holiday as she was glad of a little relief from her vigil. She was happy and buoyant, but Walter found it hard to disguise his seriousness. Their destination reached, they drove at once to the school on the edge of the pretty town. Some one of the pupils was playing upon a piano and singing in the next room to the reception parlor as they sat down, and the sweet girlish voice at once attract "I am surrounded by so much kindness," she answered, with the brightest smile he had seen for many a day, “that I should be very ungrateful to let my troubles annoyed Hilda's attention in a marked manner. any one. I really do feel more courageous than I did. But why do you ask?" "Because," he said, "I wanted you to be sure of your nerves before I told you something." "Oh, is it bad news?-or-or-have you found out any thing about Elsie ?" "Yes," he answered, so composedly that she became calm also, "I have found a clew -some one who thinks she can tell you about your sister; and if this person is right, Elsie is alive and happy." Hilda did not speak. She sat before him, her delicate hands clasped upon her lap, listening with rapt attention to his words, her face rippling with a new light, full of a tender beauty and sweetness. Condon was regarding her closely, for he had arranged with the principal of the school that Elsie should sing at that time as she was doing, but he did not guess to what arts the music teacher had been compelled to resort to carry out the plan. Now Walter was watching to see whether Hilda would recognize the voice. He had not long to wait. Hilda turned to him with an eager gesture and swimming eyes. ."Oh, Mr. Condon, if I thought it possible, I should say that was Elsie's own voice!" Then a light seemed to break in upon her -a light that irradiated her countenance, and she cried out, “Who is it who is going to tell me about her? Is it-oh, is it she herself?" There was no time for Walter to reply, for Elsie, little thinking who was awaiting her, and little caring, so delighted was she with the thought that her "brother" had come to visit her-Elsie, bright and winning, sparkling with the zest of study and keen enjoyment of existence-came running into the room. She was thinking solely of Walter, but she saw some one else-a lady she could not find a place for in her recollection, yet whom she was intuitively certain belonged there, through whose face swiftly opened a vista into her forgotten childhood, where the landscape of memory was yet dim, truly, but now reached farther than a moment ago. All this was instantaneous, an impression rather than a ratiocination, for before she had half checked her impetuous entry she saw this lady leap up, saw her reach out her arms, heard her cry, "Elsie!" Then she knew her, and only saying, "Hilda!" was folded in her embrace. V. Time swept on. Mr. Brand was won back to life through the inspiration of Elsie's return, as he had been sent astray by the culmination of his misfortunes in her disappearance. And not this only, but won back to sobriety. He seemed to remember only vaguely, as a disturbed chaotic dream, the life that he had led in the gutters of Washington and New York, shedding bitter tears over the ingratitude he had shown to his noble daughter, the disgrace he had brought upon the good old family name, the brutishness and evil he had done. He himself never sought excuse in the plea of insanity, but the more he learned of Mr. Brand, the more Walter became convinced that the unaccountable degradation of the old man -aged in tribulation rather than in years -proceeded from aberration of a brilliant mind unstayed by strong principles and impotent to endure sorrow. voyage on the noble river, and Walter interested her greatly by his graphic accounts of the villages and cultured homesteads that line the banks. But the deepening night and the passengers leaving the deck made her suddenly rise and say, "Shall we not go in ?" "Is it not too pleasant?" he replied. "Besides, I have not finished my cigar." "Very well, then ;" and quietly resuming her seat, she watched composedly the dancing path of the moon on the river—more composedly, perhaps, than if she had seen the intense, passionate look in the face of the man at her side, his cigar hanging idly from his fingers, his eyes on her countenance. At last, with a half-trembling dread of the silence that had fallen between them, she turns, with downcast eyes, and says, “You have been very, very noble and true to me and mine. How can I ever pay you?" She does not anticipate the answer that comes with startling quickness: "I ask a great price-even the gift of yourself; and having trusted me before, will you not trust me now?" The burning blushes and the sweet eyes raised timidly to his do not say him nay. RAMBLES IN THE SOUTH OF FRANCE. I. ARIS, although one of the most histor PA ical of cities, is, however, in our age, a city of the present in the impression it leaves upon the mind. The past, with all its glories and horrors, does not obtrude itself upon the thoughts of the fascinated visitor; and as for the future, who ever thinks of it in Paris? But one scarcely needs to proceed beyond the outskirts of the city to realize at once the inexhaustible wealth of historical associations and antiquities of France, and the endless variety, picturesqueness, and attractiveness of her scenery. Never did I realize the truth of these reflections more vividly than when I took the evening express train at Paris for the south of France. Hour after hour through the night we sped toward the sunny south, fly His strength restored, Mr. Brand was glad to accept a position as proof-reader on one of the daily newspapers, obtained with Walter's help, while Hilda returned to her reporting. They installed themselves in a cozy little home near Condon's, and Elsie continued her studies. So when the springing the mists and blasts of the north. The had fully passed, and Elsie came home for her summer vacation, affairs were moving quietly and happily every where. September came again, and a year to a day from the time when Hilda Brand came to our office to get some work to do, and Walter had first met and frightened her, those two went up with Elsie to her school, and left her beginning another year of study. They returned to New York by a steamboat in the evening, and sat long on the deck, watching the romantic shores sweeping by them. It was Hilda's first VOL. LVIII.-No. 344.-13 golden flush of dawn revealed a change of climate, scenery, and time. The Lugdunensis of the Romans carried the mind back twenty centuries, and the blue Rhone, shooting with arrowy current by vineyard and chalet, by abrupt cliffs and crumbling castles, all mellowed by the magical touch of southern sunshine, suggested another scenery and a more genial climate than those I had left only a few hours before. I did not stop at Lyons, having been there already, but there are few cities that can vie with it in nobleness of situation, lying as it does partly on a hill at the junction of the Saône | called Aurasio. Orange was the seat of the and the Rhone. duchy of that name, and gave the title to the celebrated William of Orange and his suc There is scarcely a town or hamlet after leaving Lyons that does not invite the trav-cessors, and it was not annexed to France uneller to stop and investigate its objects of antiquarian interest, mediæval towers, like the crumbling castle of Crousol, Romanesque and Gothic chapels, but more especially the remains of the former dominion of Rome. Vienne and Valence are especially opulent in such antiquities. But unless the traveller can include the whole of France in his plans, he will not tarry on his southward route until he arrives at Orange, formerly ARCH OF TRIUMPH AT ORANGE. til the seventeenth century. Orange is now a quiet little town on the Rhone, at the foot of a hill which is crested by a colossal statue of the Virgin. It has for ages modestly had in its possession some very interesting Roman antiquities, and made very little noise about them, for their existence seems to be generally ignored by all but a few antiquarians. The theatre is in a commanding position, the stage, proscenium, and lower tier of seats cut into the rock; the wall sustaining the upper rows soars nearly 100 feet, with a length of 320 feet. The upper tiers are nearly obliterated, but there was room originally for about 7000 spectators. The decorative work of the façade is of a stately simplicity, but the immensity of such an isolated wall is very impressive. The triumphal arch is still in nearly perfect preservation, and with the rich golden hue of its masonry offers one of the most effective antiquities of France. It is probably the finest Roman triumphal arch now existing out of Italy. It is seventy feet in height by sixty-eight in breadth, and is composed of a central arch, whose cornice is supported by Corinthian columns, and a smaller arch on each side. The sculptures, representing battle scenes, are very rich in design, and in excellent preservation. The circus was an enormous structure, although less in size than those of Nimes and Arles, but it is now represented only by a few fragments, a bit of wall, a gate, and an archway. But the mellow musical carillon of the many bells of Avignon seems to float on the soft southern air on this dreamy summer morning, and to bid us no longer linger at Orange, but hasten to the queen city of Provence, seated royally by the Rhone, cinctured with her zone of turrets, chanting the story of Petrarch and Laura, and repeating the legends and pageants of other days, whose memory she holds an inalienable possession while the ages and the generatious pass on to the shadowy land. MAP OF SOUTHERN FRANCE. MEDITERRANEA Avignon was probably founded by the Phocæans, who were also the settlers of Marseilles. It was a city of importance in the time of Cæsar, to whom it gave its support in his war against Pompey, and he proudly declared that he gloried in his city of Avenio, and prized it next to Rome. After various vicissitudes Avignon sided with the Albigenses, and in 1226 was stormed by Louis VIII. after a three months' siege, and many of the inhabitants were put to the sword. Reverting after this to the Counts |