ened gaily. He stepped back a little
way, leaned against a linden, and sang, in the drawling tone peculiar to
the west of France, the following Breton ditty, published by Bruguiere,
a composer to whom we are indebted for many charming melodies. In
Brittany, the young villagers sing this song to all newly-married
couples on their wedding-day:--

"We've come to wish you happiness in marriage,
To m'sieur your husband
As well as to you:

"You have just been bound, madam' la mariee,
With bonds of gold
That only death unbinds:

"You will go no more to balls or gay assemblies;
You must stay at home
While we shall go.

"Have you thought well how you are pledged to be
True to your spouse,
And love him like yourself?

"Receive these flowers our hands do now present you;
Alas! your fleeting honors
Will fade as they."

This native air (as sweet as that adapted by Chateaubriand to _Ma soeur,
te souvient-il encore_), sung in this little town of the Brie district,
must have been to the ears of a Breton maiden the touchstone of
imperious memories, so faithfully does it picture the manners and
customs, the surroundings and the heartiness of her noble old land,
where a sort of melancholy reigns, hardly to be defined; caused,
perhaps, by the aspect of life in Brittany, which is deeply touching.
This power of awakening a world of grave and sweet and tender memories
by a familiar and sometimes lively ditty, is the privilege of those
popular songs which are the superstitions of music,--if we may use the
word "superstition" as signifying all that remains after the ruin of a
people, all that survives their revolutions.

As he finished the first couple, the singer, who never took his eyes
from the attic curtain, saw no signs of life. While he sang the second,
the curtain stirred. When the words "Receive these flowers" were sung, a
youthful face appeared; a white hand cautiously opened the casement,
and a girl made a sign with her head to the singer as he ended with the
melancholy thought of the simple verses,--"Alas! your fleeting honors
will fade as they."

To her the young workman suddenly showed, drawing it from within his
jacket, a yellow flower, very common in Brittany, and sometimes to be
found in La Brie (where, however, it is rare),--the furze, or broom.

"Is it really you, Brigaut?" said the girl, in a low voice.

"Yes, Pierrette, yes. I am in Paris. I have started to m