I wish I had lived in France in 1672! It was the age of romances in twenty volumes, and flowing periwigs, and high-heeled shoes, and hoops, and elegance, and wit, and rouge, and literary suppers, and gallantry, and devotion. What names are those of La CalprenÈde, and D'UrfÉ, and De Scuderi, to be the idols and tutelary deities of a circulating library!—and SevignÉ, to conduct the fashionable correspondence of the Morning Post!—and Racine, to contribute to the unacted drama!—and ladies skipping up the steepest parts of Parnassus, with petticoats well tucked up, to show the beauty of their ankles, and their hands filled with artificial flowers—almost as good as natural—to show the simplicity of their tastes! I wish I had lived in France in 1672; for in that year Madame Deshoulieres, who had already been voted the tenth muse by all the freeholders of Pieria, and whose pastorals were lisped by all the fashionable shepherdesses in Paris, left the flowery banks of the Seine to rejoin her husband. Monsieur Deshoulieres was in Guyenne; Madame Deshoulieres went into DauphinÉ. Matrimony seems to be rather hurtful to geographical studies, but Madame Deshoulieres was a poetess; and in spite of the thirty-eight summers that shaded the lustre of her cheek, she was beautiful, and was still in the glow of youth by her grace and her talent, and—her heart. Wherever she moved she left crowds of Corydons and Alexises; but, luckily for M. Deshoulieres, their whole conversation was about sheep.

The two Mesdemoiselles Deshoulieres, Madeleine and Bribri, were beautiful girls of seventeen or eighteen, brought up in all the innocent pastoralism of their mother. They believed in all the poetical descriptions they read in her eclogues. They expected to see shepherds playing on their pipes, and shepherdesses dancing, and naiads reclining on the shady banks of clear-running rivers. They were delighted to get out of the prosaic atmosphere of Paris, and all the three were overjoyed when they sprang from their carriage, one evening in May, at the chateau of Madame d'Urtis on the banks of the Lignon. Though there were occasional showers at that season, the mornings were splendid; and accordingly the travellers were up almost by daylight, to tread the grass still trembling 'neath the steps of Astrea—to see the fountain, that mirror where the shepherdesses wove wild-flowers into their hair—and to explore the wood, still vocal with the complaints of Celadon. In one of their first excursions, Madeleine Deshoulieres, impatient to see some of the scenes so gracefully described by her mother, asked if they were really not to encounter a single shepherd on the banks of the Lignon? Madame Deshoulieres perceived, at no great distance, a herdsman and cow-girl playing at chuckfarthing; and, after a pause, replied—

"Behold upon the verdant grass so sweet,
The shepherdess is at her shepherd's feet!
Her arms are bare, her foot is small and white,
The very oxen wonder at the sight;
Her locks half bound, half floating in the air,
And gown as light as those that satyrs wear."

While these lines were given in Madame Deshoulieres' inimitable recitative, the party had come close to the rustic pair. "People may well say," muttered Madeleine, "that the pictures of Nature are always best at a distance. Can it be possible that this is a shepherdess—a shepherdess of Lignon?" The shepherdess was in reality a poor little peasant girl, unkempt, unshorn, with hands of prodigious size, a miraculous squint, and a mouth which probably had a beginning, but of which it was impossible to say where it might end. The shepherd was worthy of his companion; and yet there was something in the extravagant stupidity of his fat and florid countenance that was interesting to a Parisian eye. Madame Deshoulieres, who was too much occupied with the verses of the great D'UrfÉ to attend to what was before her, continued her description—

"The birds all round her praises ever sing,
And 'neath her steps the flowers incessant spring."

"Your occupation here is delightful, isn't it?" said Madeleine to the peasant girl.

"No, 'tain't, miss—that it ain't. I gets nothink for all I does, and when I goes hoam at night I gets a good licking to the bargain."

"And you?" enquired Madeleine, turning to the herdsman, who was slinking off.

"I'm a little b-b-b-etter off nor hur," said the man, stuttering, "for I gets board and lodging—dasht if I doesn't—but I gets bread like a stone, and s-s-sleeps below a hedge—dasht if I doesn't."

"But where are your sheep, shepherd?" said Bribri.

"Hain't a got none," stuttered the man again, "dasht if I has."

"What!" exclaimed Madeleine in despair, "am I not to see the lovely lambkins bleating and skipping in the meadows on the banks of the Lignon, O Celadon?"

But Madame Deshoulieres was too much of a poetess to hear or see what was going on. She thought of nothing but the loves of Astrea, and heard nothing but the imaginary songs of contending Damons.

On their return to the chateau, Madeleine and Bribri complained that they had seen neither flock nor shepherdess.

"And are you anxious to see them?" enquired Madame D'Urtis, with a smile.

"Oh, very," exclaimed Bribri; "we expected to live like shepherdesses when we came here. I have brought every thing a rustic wants."

"And so have I," continued Madeleine; "I have brought twenty yards of rose-coloured ribands, and twenty yards of blue, to ornament my crook and the handsomest of my ewes."

"Well then," said the Duchess d'Urtis, good-naturedly, "there are a dozen of sheep feeding at the end of the park. Take the key of the gate, and drive them into the meadows beyond."

Madeleine and Bribri were wild with joy, while their mother was labouring in search of a rhyme, and did not attend to the real eclogue which was about to be commenced. They scarcely took time to breakfast.—"They dressed themselves coquettishly"—so Madame Deshoulieres wrote to Mascaron—"they cut with their own hands a crook a-piece in the park—they beautified them with ribands. Madeleine was for the blue ribands, Bribri for the rose colour. Oh, the gentle shepherdesses! they spent a whole hour in finding a name they liked. At last, Madeleine fixed on Amaranthe, Bribri on DaphnÈ. I have just seen them gliding among the trees that overshadow the lovely stream.—Poor shepherdesses! be on your guard against the wolves."

At noon that very day Madeleine and Bribri, or rather Amaranthe and DaphnÈ, in grey silk petticoats and satin bodies, with their beautiful hair in a state of most careful disorder, and with their crooks in hand, conducted the twelve sheep out of the park into the meadows. The flock, which seemed to be very hungry, were rather troublesome and disobedient. The shepherdesses did all they could to keep them in the proper path. It was a delicious mixture of bleatings, and laughter, and baaings, and pastoral songs. The happy girls inhaled the soul of nature, as their poetical mamma expressed it. They ran—they threw themselves on the blooming grass—they looked at themselves in the limpid waters of the Lignon—they gathered lapfulls of primroses. The flock made the best use of their time; and every now and then a sheep of more observation than the rest, perceiving they were guarded by such extraordinary shepherdesses, took half an hour's diversion among the fresh-springing corn.

"That's one of yours," said Amaranthe.

"No; 'tis yours," replied DaphnÈ; but, by way of having no difficulties in future, they resolved to divide the flock, and ornament one-half with blue collars, and the other with rose-colour. And they gave a name also to each of the members of their flock, such as Meliboeus, and Jeannot, and Robin, and Blanchette. Twelve more poetical sheep were never fed on grass before. When the sun began to sink, the shepherdesses brought back their flocks. Madame Deshoulieres cried with joy. "Oh, my dear girls!" she said, kissing their fair foreheads; "it is you that have composed an eclogue, and not I."

"Nothing is wanting to the picture," said the Duchess, seating herself under the willows of the watering-place, and admiring the graceful girls.

"I think we want a dog," said DaphnÈ.

"No; we are rather in want of a wolf," whispered the beautiful
Amaranthe—and blushed.

CHAPTER II.

Not far from the Chateau d'Urtis, the old manor-house of Langevy raised its pointed turrets above the surrounding woods. There, in complete isolation from the world, lived Monsieur de Langevy, his old mother, and his young son. M. de Langevy had struggled against the storms and misfortunes of human life; he now reposed in the bosom of solitude, with many a regret over his wife and his youth—his valiant sword and his adventures. His son, Hector Henri de Langevy, had studied under the Jesuits at Lyons till he was eighteen. Accustomed to the indulgent tenderness of his grandmother, he had returned, about two years before, determined to live in his quiet home without troubling himself about the military glories that had inspired his father. M. de Langevy, though he disapproved of the youth's choice, did not interfere with it, except that he insisted on his sometimes following the chase, as the next best occupation to actual war. The chase had few charms for Hector. It perhaps might have had more, if he had not been forced to arm himself with an enormous fowling-piece that had belonged to one of his ancestors, the very sight of which alarmed him a mighty deal more than the game. He was so prodigious a sportsman, that, after six months' practice, he was startled as much as ever by the whirr of a partridge. But don't imagine, on this account, that Hector's time was utterly wasted. He mused and dreamed, and fancied it would be so pleasant to be in love; for he was at that golden age—the only golden age the world has ever seen—when the heart passes from vision to vision (as the bee from flower to flower)—and wanders, in its dreams of hope, from earth to heaven, from sunshine to shade—from warbling groves to sighing maidens. But alas! the heart of Hector searched in vain for sighing maidens in the woods of Langevy. In the chateau, there was no one but an old housekeeper, who had probably not sighed for thirty years, and a chubby scullion-maid—all unworthy of a soul that dreamed romances on the banks of the Lignon. He counted greatly on a cousin from Paris, who had promised them a visit in the spring. In the meantime, he paced up and down with a gun on his shoulder, pretending to be a sportsman—happy in his hopes, happy in the clear sunshine, happy because he knew no better—as happens to a great many other people in the gay days of their youth, in this most unjustly condemned and vilipended world. And now you will probably guess what occurred one day he was walking in his usual dreamy state of abstraction, and as nearly as possible tumbled head foremost into the Lignon. By dint of marching straight on, without minding either hedge or ditch, he found himself, when he awakened from his reverie, with his right foot raised, in the very act of stepping off the bank into the water. He stood stock-still, in that somewhat unpicturesque attitude—his mouth wide open, his eyes strained, and his cheek glowing with all the colours of the rainbow. He had caught a glimpse of our two enchanting shepherdesses on the other side of the stream, who were watching his movements by stealth. He blushed far redder than he had ever done before, and hesitated whether he should retreat or advance. To retreat, he felt, would look rather awkward: at the same time, he thought it would be too great a price to pay for his honour to jump into the river. And, besides, even if he got over to the other side, would he have courage to speak to them? Altogether, I think he acted more wisely, though less chivalrously, than some might have done in his place. He laid down his gun, and seated himself on the bank, and looked at the sheep as they fed on the opposite side. At twenty years of age, love travels at an amazing pace; and Hector felt that he was already over head and ears with one of the fair shepherdesses. He did not stop to examine which of them it was; it was of no consequence—sufficient for him that he knew he was in love—gone—captivated. If he had been twenty years older, he would perhaps have admired them both: it would have been less romantic, but decidedly more wise.

It is not to be denied that Amaranthe and DaphnÈ blushed a little, too, at this sort of half meeting with Hector. They hung down their heads in the most captivating manner, and continued silent for some time. But at last Amaranthe, more lively than her sister, recommenced her chatter. "Look, Bribri," she said—"DaphnÈ I mean—he is one of the silvan deities, or perhaps Narcissus looking at himself in the water."

"Rather say, looking at you," replied DaphnÈ, with a blush.

"'Tis Pan hiding himself in the oziers till you are metamorphosed into a flute, dear DaphnÈ."

"Not so, fair sister," replied DaphnÈ; "'tis Endymion in pursuit of the shepherdess Amaranthe."

"At his present pace, the pursuit will last some time. If he weren't quite so rustic, he would be a captivating shepherd, with his long brown ringlets. He has not moved for an hour. What if he has taken root like a hamadryad?"

"Poor fellow!" said DaphnÈ, in the simplest tone in the world; "he looks very dull all by himself."

"He must come over to us—that's very plain. We will give him a crook and a bouquet of flowers."

"Oh, just the thing!" exclaimed the innocent DaphnÈ. "We need a shepherd: and yet, no, no"—she added, for she was a little jealous of her sister—"'tis a lucky thing there is river between us."

"I hope he will find a bridge per passa lou riou d'amor."

Now, just at that moment Hector's mind was set on passing the river of Love. In casting his eyes all round in search of a passage, he perceived an old willow half thrown across the stream. With a little courage and activity, it was a graceful and poetical bridge. Hector resolved to try it. He rose and went right onward towards the tree; but, when he arrived, he couldn't help reflecting that, at that season, the river was immensely deep. He disdained the danger—sprang lightly up the trunk, and flung himself along one of the branches, dropping, happily without any accident, on the meadow of the Chateau d'Urtis. Little more was left for him to do; and that little he did. He went towards the fair shepherdesses. He tried to overcome his timidity—he overwhelmed the first sheep of the flock with his insidious caresses—and then, finding himself within a few feet of Amaranthe—he bowed, and smiled, and said, "Mademoiselle."

He was suddenly interrupted by a clear and silvery voice.

"There are no Mesdemoiselles here—there are only two shepherdesses,
Amaranthe and DaphnÈ."

Hector had prepared a complimentary speech for a young lady attending a flock of sheep—but he hadn't a word to say to a shepherdess.

He bowed again, and there was a pause.

"Fair Amaranthe," he said—"and fair DaphnÈ, will you permit a mortal to tread these flowery plains?"

Amaranthe received the speech with a smile, in which a little raillery was mingled. "You speak like a true shepherd," she said.

But DaphnÈ was more good-natured, and more touched with the politeness of the sportsman. She cast her eyes on the ground and blushed.

"Oh—if you wish to pass through these meadows," she said—"we shall be"—

"We were going to do the honours of our reception room," continued
Amaranthe, "and offer you a seat on the grass."

"'Tis too much happiness to throw myself at your feet," replied
Hector, casting himself on one knee.

But he had not looked where he knelt, and he broke DaphnÈ's crook.

"Oh, my poor crook!" she said—and sighed.

"What have I done?" cried Hector. "I am distressed at my stupidity—I will cut you another from the ash grove below. But you loved this crook," he added—"the gift, perhaps, of some shepherd—some shepherd? —no, some prince; for you yourselves are princesses—or fairies."

"We are nothing but simple shepherdesses," said Amaranthe.

"You are nothing but beautiful young ladies from the capital," said Hector, "on a visit at the Chateau d'Urtis. Heaven be praised—for in my walks I shall at least catch glimpses of you at a distance, if I dare not come near. I shall see you glinting among the trees like enchantresses of old."

"Yes, we are Parisians, as you have guessed—but retired for ever from the world and its deceitful joys."

Amaranthe had uttered the last words in a declamatory tone; you might have thought them a quotation from her mamma.

"You complain rather early, methinks," replied Hector, with a smile; "have you indeed much fault to find with the world?"

"That is our secret, fair sportsman," answered Amaranthe; "but it seems you also live retired—an eremite forlorn."

"I? fair Amaranthe? I have done nothing but dream of the delights of a shepherd's life—though I confess I had given up all hopes of seeing a good-looking shepherdess—but now I shall go back more happily than ever to my day-dreams. Ah! why can't I help you to guard your flock?"

The two young girls did not know what to say to this proposition.
DaphnÈ at last replied—

"Our flock is very small—and quite ill enough attended to as it is."

"What joy for me to become Daphnis—to sing to you, and gather roses, and twine them in your hair!"

"Let us say no more," interrupted Amaranthe, a little disquieted at the sudden ardour of Daphnis; "the sun is going down: we must return to the park. Adieu," she added, rising to go away.

"Adieu, Daphnis!" murmured the tender DaphnÈ, confused and blushing.

Hector did not dare to follow them. He stood for a quarter of an hour with his eyes fixed first on them, and then on the door of the park. His heart beat violently, his whole soul pursued the steps of the shepherdesses.

"'Adieu, Daphnis,' the lovely DaphnÈ said to me. I hear her sweet voice still! How beautiful she is! how beautiful they are, both—Amaranthe is more graceful, but DaphnÈ is more winning—bright eyes—white hands! sweet smiles! and the delicious dress, so simple, yet so captivating! the white corset that I could not venture to look at—the gown of silk that couldn't hide the points of the charming little feet. 'Tis witchery—enchantment—Venus and Diana—I shall inevitably go mad. Ah, cousin! you ought to have come long ago, and all this might never have occurred."

The sun had sunk behind a bed of clouds—the nightingale began its song, and the fresh green leaves rustled beneath the mild breath of the evening breeze. The bee hummed joyously on its homeward way, loaded with the sweets of the spring flowers. Down in the valley, the voice of the hinds driving their herds to rest, increased the rustic concert; the river rippled on beneath the mysterious shade of old fantastic trees, and the air was filled with soft noises, and rich perfumes, and the voice of birds. There was no room in Hector's heart for all these natural enjoyments. "To-morrow," he said, kissing the broken crook—"I will come back again to-morrow."

CHAPTER III.

Early in the following morning, Hector wandered along the banks of the Lignon, with a fresh-cut crook in his hand. He looked to the door of the Park d'Urtis, expecting every moment to see the glorious apparitions of the day before. And at stroke of noon, a lamb rushing through the gate, careered along the meadow, and the eleven others ran gayly after it, amidst a peal of musical laughter from Amaranthe. DaphnÈ did not laugh.

The moment she crossed the threshold, she glanced stealthily towards the river. "I thought so," she murmured; "Daphnis has come back." And Daphnis, in a transport of joy, was hurrying to the shepherdesses, when he was suddenly interrupted by Madame Deshoulieres and the Duchess d'Urtis. When the sisters had returned, on the evening before, Amaranthe, to DaphnÈ's great discomfiture, had told word for word all that had occurred; how that a young sportsman had joined them, and how they had talked and laughed; and Madame d'Urtis had no doubt, from the description, that it was Hector de Langevy. Amaranthe having added to the story, that she felt certain, in spite of DaphnÈ's declarations to the contrary, that he would meet them again, the seniors had determined to watch the result. Hector would fain have made his escape; two ladies he might have faced, but four!—and two of them above thirty years of age! 'Twas too much; but his retreat was instantly cut off. He stood at bay, blushed with all his might, but saluted the ladies as manfully as if he had been a page. He received three most gracious curtsies in return—only three; for DaphnÈ wished to pass on without taking any notice—which he considered a very favourable omen. He did not know how to begin a conversation; and besides, he began to get confused; and his blushing increased to a most alarming extent—and—in short—he held out his crook to DaphnÈ. As that young shepherdess had no crook of her own, and did not know how to refuse the one he offered, she took it, though her hand trenbled a little, and looked at Madame Deshoulieres.

"I broke your crook yesterday, fair DaphnÈ," said Hector, "but it is not lost. I shall make a relic of it—more precious than—than—", but the bones of the particular saint he was about to name stuck in his throat and he was silent.

"Monsieur de Langevy," said Madam d'Urtis kindly, "since you make such a point of aiding these shepherdesses in guarding the flock, I hope in an hour you will accompany them to the castle to lunch."

"I'll go with them wherever you allow me, madam," said Hector. (I wonder if the impudent fellow thought he had the permission of the young ones already.)

"Let that be settled then," said the Duchess. "I shall go and have the butter cooled, and the curds made—a simple lunch, as befits the guests."

"The fare of shepherds!" said Madame Deshoulieres, and immediately set out in search of a rhyme.

DaphnÈ had walked slowly on, pressing the crook involuntarily to her heart, and arrived at the river side, impelled by a desire for solitude, without knowing why. There are some mysterious influences to which damsels of seventeen seem particularly subject. A lamb—the gentlest of the flock, which had become accustomed to her caresses—had followed her like a dog. She passed her small hand lightly over the snowy neck of the favourite, and looked round to see what the party she had left were doing. She was astonished to see her mother and Hector conversing, as if they had been acquainted for ages, while Madame d'Urtis and Amaranthe were running a race towards the park. She sat down on the grassy bank, exactly opposite the oziers where she had seen Hector the preceding day. When she felt she was quite alone, she ventured to look at the crook. It was a branch of ash of good size, ornamented with a rustic bouquet and a bunch of ribands, not very skilfully tied. DaphnÈ was just going to improve the knot, when she saw a billet hid in the flowers. What should she do?—read it? That were dangerous; her confessor did not allow such venialities—her mamma would be enraged—some people are so fond of monopolies—and besides, she might be discovered. 'Twould be better, then, not to read it—a much simpler proceeding; for couldn't she nearly guess what was in it? And what did she care what was in it? Not to read it was evidently the safer mode; and accordingly she—read it through and through, and blushed and smiled, and read it through and through again. It was none of your commonplace prosaic epistles—'twas all poetry, all fire; her mamma would have been enchanted if the verses had only been addressed to her. Here they are:—

"My sweetest hour, my happiest day,
Was in the happy month of May!
The happy dreams that round me lay
On that delicious morn of May!"

"I saw thee! loved thee! If my love
A tribute unrejected be,
The happiest day of May shall prove
The happiest of my life to me!"

It is quite evident that if such an open declaration had been made in plain prose, DaphnÈ would have been angry; but in verse, 'twas nothing but a poetical license. Instead, therefore, of tearing it in pieces, and throwing it into the water, she folded it carefully up, and placed it in the pretty corset of white satin, which seems the natural escritoire of a shepherdess in her teens. Scarcely had she closed the drawer, and double locked it, when she saw at her side—Hector and Madame Deshoulieres.

"My poor child," said the poetess, "how thoughtful you seem on
Lignon's flowery side—forgetful of your sheep—"

'That o'er the meadows negligently stray!'

Monsieur de Langevy, as you have given her a crook, methinks you ought to aid her in her duties in watching the flock. As for myself, I must be off to finish a letter to my bishop.

'From Lignon's famous banks
What can I find to say?
The breezes freshly springing,
Make me—and nature—gay.
When Celadon would weep;
His lost Astrea fair,
To Lignon he would creep,
But oh! this joyous air
Would force to skip and leap
A dragon in despair!'—&c. &c.

Madame Deshoulieres had no prudish notions, you will perceive, about a flirtation—provided it was carried on with the airs and graces of the Hotel Rambouillet. She merely, therefore, interposed a word here and there, to show that she was present. Daphne, who scarcely said a word to Hector, took good care to answer every time her mamma spoke to her. To be sure, it detracts a little from this filial merit, that she did not know what she said. But if all parties were pleased, I don't see what possible right anybody else has to find fault.

The shepherdess DaphnÈ, or rather Bribri Deshoulieres, as we have seen, was beautiful, and simple, and tender—beautiful from the admirable sweetness of her expression—simple, as young girls are simple: that is to say, with a small spice of mischief to relieve the insipidity—and tender, with a smile that seems to open the heart as well as the lips. What struck people in her expression at first, was a shade of sadness over her features—a fatal presentiment, as it were, that added infinitely to her charm. Her sister was more beautiful, perhaps—had richer roses on her cheek, and more of what is called manner altogether—but if Amaranthe pleased the eyes, DaphnÈ captivated the heart; and as the eyes are evidently subordinate to the heart, Daphne carried the day. Hector accordingly, on the first burst of his admiration, had seen nothing but Amaranthe; but when he had left the sisters, it was astonishing how exclusively he thought of DaphnÈ.