* * *

THE DREAM GIRL.

There is a certain valley in Languedoc, at no great distance from the
palace of the Bishop of Mendes, where to this day the traveller is
struck by some singular diversities of scenery. The valley itself is
the most quiet and delightful that France can boast. A stream wanders
through it, with just rapidity enough to keep its waters sweet and
clear; and, on either side of this line of beauty, some gently swelling
meadows extend--on one side to a chain of smooth green hills, and on the
other, to the base of a mountain of almost inaccessible rocks. The river
is bordered by willows and other shrubs, crowding to dip their branches
in the transparent wave; and here and there in its neighbourhood, groves
of walnut-trees stud the meadows, serving as a rendezvous of amusement
for innumerable nightingales, which at the first dawn of summer assemble
on the branches, and, as if in mockery of the poets, fill the evening
air with their mirthful music.

The village of Rossignol (so named, probably, on account of the
abundance of nightingales in the neighbourhood) was inhabited by
very poor, but very happy people. It is true that, in common with
other cultivators of the fickle earth, they had sometimes to mourn the
overthrow of the husbandman's hopes; and that even their remote and
lonely situation did not always protect them from the exactions of those
whom birth, violence, or accident had made the lords of the domain.
But in such cases, the villagers of Rossignol had a resource, limited,
indeed, and attended by hardship, and even danger, but, to a certain
extent, absolutely unfailing.

It must not be supposed, however, that, even in an Arcadia like this,

"The course of true love _always_ did run smooth."

There was one young girl, called Julie, who was cruel enough to have
depopulated a whole nation of lovers. She was the most beautiful
creature, it is said, that ever skimmed the surface of this breathing
world. Her light brown hair was illumined in the bends of the curls with
gleams resembling those of auburn, and it was so long and luxuriant,
that when, in the ardour of the chase, it became unbound, and floated in
clouds around her, that seemed just touched on their golden summits by
the sun, she looked more like a thing of air than of earth.

Nor was the illusion dissipated when, flinging away with her white
arm the redundant tresses, her face flashed upon the gazer. There
w