red person, yet something in
my appearance so terrified the lady that--

_Mon._ Ah, I comprehend; you wear the habit of a soldier, sir, and my
poor Silence never can abide to look upon that dress.

_Flor._ Indeed! that's rather a singular antipathy for a female. May I
inquire--is she a daughter of yours?

_Mon._ Not by blood, sir; but she is the child of misfortune, and as
such may claim a parent in every heart that has itself experienced
sorrow; but come, sir, take a seat, I beseech you; my alarm ceases now I
know the cause of her absence. She is accustomed to wander in the woods
by night when any thing disturbs her mind. She'll return to me anon calm
and passive as before: I have known it with her often thus. You look
fatigued, sir; let me recommend this flask of Rhenish: pray drink, sir;
it will do you good; it always does me good.

_Flor._ Madam, since you are so pressing, my best services to you--a
very companionable sort of old gentlewoman this (_aside_); I protest,
madam, I feel myself interested for this unfortunate under your
protection; there was a wild and melancholy sweetness in her eye that
touched me at our first exchange of looks with awe and pity; is her
history a secret?

_Mon._ Oh, no--not a secret, but quite a mystery, you know nearly as
much of it as I do; but since we are on the subject--another draught of
wine, sir!

_Flor._ Madam, you will pledge me. And now for the mystery.

_Mon._ Well, sir, about sixteen years ago when I lived in Languedoc, for
you must know I am but newly settled _here_, a stranger in Alsace, ay!
about sixteen or seventeen years ago, there came a rumour to our
village, of a _wild woman_, that had been caught by some peasants in the
woods near _Albi_, following quite a savage and unchristian life;
gathering fruits and berries for her food by day, and sleeping in the
mossy hollows of a rock at night. She was brought round the country as a
show. All the world in our parts went to look upon the prodigy, and you
may be sure _I_ made one among the crowd. Well, sir, this wild woman was
the very creature you beheld but now. At that time she was in truth a
piteous object; her form was meagre and wasted, and her wretched garment
hung over it in filthy tatters; her fine hair fell in matted heaps, and
the sun and the wind together had changed her skin like an Indian's. Yet
even in the midst of all this misery, there was a something so noble and
so gentle in her air, that the momen