iere_. The custom is graceful and
poetical; and the world hardly presents a more charming spectacle--at
once so simple and so touching--as the installation of a _rosiere_ in
some sequestered village of France. The associations connected with it
are pure and bright enough for a Golden Age. All who take part in the
little ceremony are humble people, living by their labour; the queen of
the day is queen by reason of her industry and virtue; they who do her
such becoming and encouraging homage, old and young, lead lowly and
toilsome lives, and yet have the innate grace thus to evince their
reverence for the best qualities of human nature. The pageantry of
courts, and pompous crowning of kings and queens, grand and splendid as
they are, have not such spiritual fragrance as these village
queen-makings; soft glimmerings and shinings-through of the light of a
better world--a world with which man, let conventionality disguise him
as it may, always has some sympathies.

For three years, the exemplary Julia had continued to support her
helpless parent and little sister, when, in accordance with this custom,
the good folks of the hamlet determined to shew their appreciation of
her estimable qualities at the next fete, by crowning her with roses,
and enthroning her with the usual ceremony in the Grande Allee. In the
meantime, Victor Colonne, son of the steward of the chateau, happened to
pay a visit to the poor widow's cottage; and thereafter he came again,
and again, and again, courting Julia Gostillon.

But Victor and Julia were not made for each other. He was thriftless,
idle, dissolute--the small _roue_ of the neighbourhood: she was careful,
industrious, virtuous. He was good-looking--of a dark, saturnine beauty,
insidiously impressive, like the dangerous charms of a tempter; she was
radiant and lustrous with the sweet graces of modesty, innocence, and
intelligence. Julia, however, young and susceptible, was for a time
pleased with his attentions. Persuasive powers of considerable potency,
and personal attractions of no mean sort, were not exerted and
prostrated at her feet entirely in vain. Ingenuous, trustful, and
inexperienced, she listened to the charmer with a yielding and delighted
ear, and was happy as long as she perceived nothing but sincerity and
love. It was but for a time, however. The Widow Gostillon liked not her
daughter's lover. Of more mature perception, of sharper skill in reading
character than her child, she