she was yet free, to obey an impulse, of whose whole force she was ignorant. It was this imprudence against which her mother warned her.
II. MONSIEUR MAILLEFERT'S FETE.
M. Maillefert's house was situated almost in the heart of the town, but was surrounded by a garden carefully and elegantly cultivated, and containing, perhaps, two acres of land. Overlooking this on three sides was a broad, wooden corridor, which contained more space than lay within the walls; though the omnipresent vine, which hung in masses from the eaves, and clambered, richly laden with the choicest flowers, up every column, and along the balustrade, inclosed it from the sun and rain almost as effectually as the rude carpentry which marked its inner limit. The whole edifice looked as we might imagine a Chinese pagoda, which had been crushed toward the earth by a steady pressure from above; not falling into ruin, but expanding horizontally in proportion as it subsided vertically. Its peaked gables and projecting eaves; its triangular attic windows, and broad, low doors; its "sway-backed" roof and narrow flights of steps, all encouraged the illusion. But the presence of an elegant and ornate taste, everywhere visible in the arrangement of flowers and the training of a thousand creepers, fenced out the idea of decay; while the merry notes of the little Monsieur's fiddle, heard from within, or the cheerful tones of his bird-like voice, banished all gloom, and peopled the rooms with gayety.
In those old days, when a morose and mistaken puritanism had not given dancing to the devil, and then denounced it for belonging to him, the dancing-master was no unimportant personage, at the worst; and on this great occasion—the closing fête until the cooler weather of the autumn—the moral stature of the character was not diminished. When M. Maillefert, proud of his charge, as a young emperor of the conquest of a capital, marched up with Marie to the gate, the little crowd assembled there respectfully gave way for him to pass, but affectionately closed in upon his heels, and followed him within the house.
A narrow hall ran through from front to rear, dividing a large
