ion."

"Ah! monsieur, then I had better go away to-night," replied the
stranger. "Though--I must tell you--to leave my country once more is
death to me. If I had stayed a day longer in that horrible New York,
where there is neither hope, nor faith, nor charity, I should have died
without being ill. The air I breathed oppressed my chest, food did not
nourish me, I was dying while full of life and vigor. My sufferings
ceased the moment I set foot upon the vessel to return. I seemed to
be already in France. Oh! monsieur, I saw my mother and one of my
sisters-in-law die of grief. My grandfather and grandmother Tascheron
are dead; dead, my dear Monsieur Bonnet, in spite of the prosperity of
Tascheronville,--for my father founded a village in Ohio and gave it
that name. That village is now almost a town, and a third of all the
land is cultivated by members of our family, whom God has constantly
protected. Our tillage succeeded, our crops have been enormous, and we
are rich. The town is Catholic, and we have managed to build a Catholic
church; we do not allow any other form of worship, and we hope to
convert by our example the many sects which surround us. True religion
is in a minority in that land of money and selfish interests, where the
soul is cold. Nevertheless, I will return to die there, sooner than
do harm or cause distress to the mother of our Francis. Only, Monsieur
Bonnet, take me to-night to the parsonage that I may pray upon _his_
tomb, the thought of which has brought me here; the nearer I have come
to where _he_ is, the more I felt myself another being. No, I never
expected to feel so happy again as I do here."

"Well, then," said the rector, "come with me now. If there should come
a time when you might return without doing injury, I will write to
you, Denise; but perhaps this visit to your birthplace will stop the
homesickness, and enable you to live over there without suffering--"

"Oh! to leave this country, now so beautiful! What wonders Madame
Graslin has done for it!" she exclaimed, pointing to the lake as it
lay in the moonlight. "All this fine domain will belong to our dear
Francis."

"You shall not go away, Denise," said Madame Graslin, who was standing
at the stable door.

Jean-Francois Tascheron's sister clasped her hands on seeing the spectre
which addressed her. At that moment the pale Veronique, standing in
the moonlight, was like a shade defined upon the darkness of the open
door-way. Her e