and down hill, and which way they can.-Philosophers, with all their ethics, have never considered this rightly how should the poor muleteer, then, in his cups, consider it at all? He did not in the least;'tis time we do. Let us leave him, then, in the vortex of his element, the happiest and most thoughtless of mortal men, and for a moment let us look after the mules, the Abbess, and Margarita. By virtue of the muleteer's last two strokes, the mules had gone quietly on, following their own consciences up the hill, till they had conquered about one half of it; when the elder of them, a shrewd, crafty old devil, at the turn of an angle, giving a side glance, and no muleteer behind them,- By my fig! said she, swearing, I'll go no farther. -And if I do, replied the other, they shall make a drum of my hide. -And so, with one consent, they stopped thus: CHAPTER CCXXIII. Get on with you, said the Abbess. -Wh- - ysh,―ysh,—cried Margarita. Whu-v-w,-whew-w-w,-whuved Mar garita, pursing up her sweet lips betwixt a hoot and a whistle. Thump,-thump,-thump,-obstreperated the Abbess of Andouillets, with the end of her gold-headed cane against the bottom of the calash. -The old mule let a CHAPTER CCXXIV. We are ruined and undone, my child, said the Abbess to Margarita;-we shall be here all night :-we shall be plundered,-we shall be ravished! We shall be ravished, said Margarita, as sure as a gun. -Sancta Maria!-cried the Abbess (forgetting the O!) why was I governed by this wicked stiff joint? why did I leave the convent of Andoüillets? and why didst thou not suffer thy servant to go unpolluted to her tomb?—— O my finger! my finger! cried the novice, catching fire at the word servant,-why was I not content to put it here, or there, or any where, rather than be in this strait? -Strait! said the Abbess. -Strait! said the novice; for terror had struck their understandings:-the one knew not what she said, the other what she answered. -O my virginity! virginity! cried the Abbess. -inity!-inity! said the novice, sobbing. CHAPTER CCXXV. My dear mother, quoth the novice, coming a little to herself, there are two certain words, which I have been told will force any horse, or ass, or mule, to go up a hill whether he will or no: be he never so obstinate or ill-willed, the moment he hears them uttered, he obeys. They are words magic! cried the Ab bess, in the utmost horror.-No, replied Margarita, calmly, but they are words sinful.- What are they? quoth the Abbess, interrupting her. They are sinful in the first degree, answered Margarita ;-they are mortal; and if we are ravished and die unabsolved of them, we shall both-But you may pronounce them to me, quoth the Abbess of Andouillets.They cannot, my dear mother, said the novice, be pronounced at all; they will make all the blood in one's body fly up into one's face. But you may whisper them in my ear, quoth the Abbess. Heaven! hadst thou no guardian angel to delegate to the inn at the bottom of the hill?-Was there no generous and friendly spirit unemployed?—no agent in nature, by some monitory shivering, creeping along the artery which led to his heart, to rouse the muleteer from his banquet?-no sweet minstrelsy to bring back the fair idea of the Abbess and Margarita, with their black rosaries? Rouse! rouse !—but 'tis too late ;—the horrid words are pronounced this moment, -and how to tell them, Ye, who can speak of every thing existing, with unpolluted lips,-instruct me,-guide me! CHAPTER CCXXVI. All sins whatever, quoth the Abbess, turning casuist in the distress they were under, are held by the confessor of our convent to be either mortal or venial: there is no farther division. Now, a venial sin being the slightest and least of all sins,-being halved,-by taking either only the half of it, and leaving the rest, -or, by taking it all, and amicably halving it betwixt yourself and another person,-in course becomes diluted into no sin at all. Now I see no sin in saying, a hundred times together; nor is there any turpitude in pronouncing the syllable, were it from our matins to our vespers.-Therefore, my dear daughter, continued the Abbess of Andouil VOL. II. G lets, I will say - -, and thou shalt say --; and then alternately, as there is no more sin in than in --; -thou shalt say --,—and I will come in (like fa, sol, la, re, mi, ut, at our complines) with :-and accordingly the Abbess, giving the pitch-note, set off thus: Abbess, Margarita, S Margarita, Abbess, * * * The two mules acknowledged the notes by a mutual lash of their tails; but it went no farther.- -"Twill answer by and by, said the novice. Abbess, Margarita, S Quicker still, cried Margarita. Quicker still.-God preserve me, said the Abbess. -They do not understand us, cried Margarita.But the devil does, said the Abbess of Andoüillets. CHAPTER CCXXVII. What a tract of country have I run!-how many degrees nearer to the warm sun am I advanced, and how many fair and goodly cities have I seen, during the time you have been reading and reflecting, madam, upon this story!-There's Fontainbleau, and Sens, and Joigny, and Auxerre, and Dijon the capital of Burgundy, and Challon, and Macon the capital of the Maconese, and a score more upon the road to Lyons; -and now I have run them over, I might as well talk to you of so many market-towns in the moon, as tell you one word about them: it will be this chapter at the least, if not both this and the next, entirely lost, do what I will. -Why, 'tis a strange story, Tristram ! -Alas! madam, had it been upon some melancholy lecture of the cross, -the peace of meekness, or the contentment of resignation, I had not been incommoded; or had I thought of writing it upon the purer abstractions of the soul, and that food of wisdom, and holiness, and contemplation, upon which the spirit of man (when separated from the body) is to subsist for ever, you would have come with a better appetite from it: -I wish I never had wrote it: but as I never blot any thing out,--let us use some honest means to get it out of our heads directly. Pray, reach me my fool's cap ;-I fear you sit upon it, madam;-'tis under the cushion;-I'll put it on. Bless me! you have had it upon your head this half hour. There then let it stay, with a - Fa-ra diddle di and a fa-ri diddle d and a high-dum, dye-dum And now, madam, we may venture, I hope, a little to go on. CHAPTER CCXXVIII. - All you need say of Fontainbleau (in case you are asked) is, that it stands about forty miles (south something) from Paris, in the middle of a large forest :that there is something great in it-that the king goes there once every two or three years, with his whole court, for the pleasure of the chace;-and that, during that carnival of sporting, any English gentleman of fashion (you need not forget yourself) may be |