Page:The Continental Monthly, Volume 5.djvu/226

216 De Meyrau descended the ladder, and seated himself at the stern of the boat. As the sailor he had just addressed was handing down his bag, a face with a red cap looked over the bulwarks.

'Hullo, my man!' cried De Meyrau, 'is this your boat?'

'Yes, sir, at your service,' answered the red cap, coming to the top of the ladder, and looking hard at the gentleman's stick and portmanteau.

'Can you take me to town, to Madame Bernier's, at the end of the new quay?'

'Certainly, sir,' said the boatman, scuttling down the ladder, 'you're just the gentleman I want.'



An hour later Hortense Bernier came out of the house, and began to walk slowly through the garden toward the terrace which overlooked the water. The servants, when they came down at an early hour, had found her up and dressed, or rather, apparently, not undressed, for she wore the same clothes as the evening before.

Tiens! exclaimed Josephine, after seeing her, 'Madame gained ten years yesterday; she has gained ten more during the night.'

When Madame Bernier reached the middle of the garden she halted, and stood for a moment motionless, listening. The next, she uttered a great cry. For she saw a figure emerge from below the terrace, and come limping toward her with outstretched arms.





the evening of the thirtieth of November last, the large hall of the Cooper Institute—that forum of public opinion in the city of New York, which has so often been the theatre of interesting manifestations—witnessed a scene almost entirely novel. Flags, decorated with emblems unknown, were unfolded over the platform; young girls, daughters of a distant land, or at least of exiles from it, appeared in their national costume, and sang melodious strains in a foreign tongue, which charmed tears into the eyes of those who understood them; a straightened scythe, fixed to the end of a pole, was exhibited, not as a specimen of the agricultural implements of the country from which those homeless men and children had sprung, but as a weapon with which its people, in absence of more efficient arms, was wont to fight for liberty and independence; the bust of the father of the American republic was placed prominently in face of the large gathering, and at its side that of a man bearing the features of a different race, and apparently not less revered. 