Neither the voice nor the accompaniment were of an ordinary musician; and the effect both upon Wentworth and De Vere was peculiar, not indeed so much from the music as the sentiment. In ancient days, they would have thought it a warning, and become superstitious. As it was, they were both much impressed, and confessed they could scarce have thought the coincidence possible.

There discourse (for they were now close to the tent) brought out some of the company, which consisted of a person who seemed the master of the feast, and another, both evidently English; two French gentlemen, and two ladies. One of the latter was also French; but the other, the musician (for she was not yet disengaged from her guitar,) from a mixture of English manner with foreign features, left it doubtful to what country she belonged.

The gentleman who appeared the host, and was dressed in a green coat with short skirts, red waistcoat, and both coat and waistcoat bound with a narrow gold binding, now advanced to reconnoitre, when the travellers began to apologize if they intruded, stating how they came there. The gentleman, who had great good humour as well as vivacity of countenance, said he bad started out thus abruptly from hearing his native language spoken so close to him, "though I might," said he, have supposed that it was some of my countrymen from Barèges, who often do us the honour of a visit. However, you will give us the pleasure of taking some coffee after your walk. I expect my ser

vants with it from a hut close by, which is a sort of cooking place."

Wentworth complimented the gentleman on the agreeableness of his amusements, and in particular on the music they had heard,-looking at the lady, who had by this time untied the ribband which bound her guitar.

"It is a favourite song of mine," said the gentleman, "both for the melody and the thought: the latter particularly; or, perhaps," added he, with a sort of frank significance, "I should not at this moment be here. But come, (observing from the air and manner of both his guests that they were not common persons,) "you ought at least to know who it is that has the pleasure of receiving you. My name is Rivers, of Northamptonshire; and the lady there, who gave us the music, is, luckily for me, my lady, Mrs. Rivers."

He with the same vivacity named his other guests; and then with good-natured politeness, left the travellers to tell their names, or not, as they pleased. Wentworth having shortly recited them, the party now proceeded to a wide spreading elm, which covered them all over like a green tent. Here a man-servant in livery, and a very pretty soubrette, with a head dress formed by a silk handkerchief of many colours becomingly disposed, served up the fuming repast. At the same time, two peasant lads, having climbed into a cork tree, higher up the wood, sounded the French horn and clarionet, which the travellers had seen on their arrival, in a beautiful melody, which was pleasingly echoed from the opposite hill.

The whole of the original party seemed gratified; but somehow or another, both De Vere and Wentworth were grave. They were indeed pleased with the scene; and they were forcibly struck with the animation and intense pleasure which Mr. Rivers seemed to take in it. He also did the honours, if we may so call them, of the valley of St. Sauveur, with all the science of a painter, and all the enthusiasm of a poet; and he wound up one panegyric on a particular piece of scenery made more sublime by the approaching dusk, by saying that it always brought him nearer to heaven.

"But the whole country," said he, "together with the freedom of life which it affords, are such as makes most other modes of living contemptible."

De Vere looked at Wentworth as much as to say he had at last found the man he was in quest of; and the mental employment of both, in applying the scene before them to the subject of their late conversations, produced pensiveness more remarkable from the alacrity and feeling of Mr. Rivers, in every thing he said and did.

His eye, indeed, was generally "in a fine phrensy rolling," which could scarcely escape the most obtuse observer. It certainly was not unheeded by either Wentworth or De Vere, to whom he became more and more a subject of examination. Of this, however, he was wholly unconscious; though, had he been the reverse, it would probably have made no difference; so much did he seem to throw his heart, or at least his imagination, into whatever subject he was upon.

In their walk to the town of St. Sauveur, Wentworth ventured to ask him, if he preferred these mountains to his own country; and if he were not curious to know what was passing there.

"Why, yes!" said Mr. Rivers; "though I have not been in England for some years, I am still, and ever shall be, an Englishman. I love the soil, and the people; though they are slow and not easily kindled to enjoy that taste for natural pleasures, which God has given to all of us, if we knew how to use it."

De Vere watched him, and was struck with the vivacity with which he said this. The contrast, too, between the vehemence of Mr. Rivers's manner and the silent sensibility of his wife, did not escape observation. She seemed to hang on all her husband said, with a pleasure not the less visible, because not expressed in language. It had "an understanding but no tongue." In truth both Wentworth and De Vere were struck with the speaking expression of her countenance, and the elegant tourneur of her shape and mien, which forcibly, and with mixed feelings of melancholy and pleasure, reminded De Vere of one, who was, under every speculation, seldom out of his thoughts.

"I would give something," whispered De Vere. "to know this man's history."

"We may perhaps, obtain it in time," replied Wentworth. "Wilmot, you know, prescribed desultory loitering wherever we choose; and I never felt so disposed to loiter."

In fact the travellers were soon established at the hôtel magnifique of the French serjeant at Lourde, which was, in truth, a comfortable house. Mr. and Mrs. Rivers showed them all attentions; and both Wentworth and De Vere, while studying the characters of their new acquaintance, forgot their late speculations on ambition, and even ambition itself, for many days.

CHAPTER V.

THE MAN OF IMAGINATION TELLS HIS STORY.

Never did young man fancy

With so eternal and so fixed a soul.

SHAKESPEARE.

THERE is no intimacy which grows so quickly as that contracted by fellow countrymen in a stranger land. Mr. Rivers soon found out, without being dazzled by it, the quality of Wentworth, with whose reputation he was familiar, and the high blood and connections of De Vere, with whose accomplishments and opinions he was much struck.

On the other hand, it was discovered, that Mr. Rivers had himself once been intended for public life; and was actually well known to the world as the author of some beautiful sonnets, which had charmed many readers. This awakened the curiosity of the travellers still more; and as he was of a free, warm, imparting disposition, in a few days they obtained from him the history they wanted; if that can be called history, which relates

rather to the workings of a strong imagination than to any activity or usefulness of life.

It was brought about one evening, after Mrs. Rivers had retired from the supper-table. Wentworth having learned that Mr. Rivers was the kinsman of a person of consequence in a former administration, under whom he had actually been initiated in business, expressed his astonishment that he had not continued to pursue that career.

De Vere expressed no astonishment, but was, if possible more earnest than Wentworth himself to know what had induced the change. The French and the English friends who had been of his party, when the travellers first met them, were also of this, and added their wishes to know something of a story which they concluded could not be without interest, though it might be without adventures.

Won by these united intreaties, Mr. Rivers complied, and thus continued the conversation which led to it :

"I have told you that I have not what is called succeeded in the world; to be sure, as far as the hopes of success were concerned, I was even in boyhood, the most unpromising creature that ever lived. As a child, my nurse-maid said, I took every thing by the rule of contrary. I would neither eat, nor sleep, nor learn my letters, except as it suited my fancy; and once, one evening when I was scarcely in breeches, and they wanted to put me to bed, I was found, after a long search, in a nest I had been making for myself under a Portugal laurel. There I had actually intended to pass the night; the birds made nests, and why should not I? My father and mother laughed at it; and I could not comprehend why I was so scolded by Deborah, except that the moss and damp had quite spoiled my clean trowsers.

“It was the same at school; I got my lessons when it suited me, and was flogged when it did not. Evening school (I speak of the first I was at,) I could not bear. We were on the borders of a forest, and I loved so of an evening to walk in a forest.