tle heard
Loud 'larums, neighing steeds, and trumpets clang?"

SHAKSPEARE.

The meeting was a singular and a melancholy one. The news from France
had become hourly more fearful. Every packet brought accounts of new
outrages. Paris was already in the power of the populace. The struggle
continued, however hopelessly, in the provinces, just enough to swell
the losses of noble life, and the conflagrations of noble property. To
these wounds of feeling had now to be added sufferings of a still more
pressing nature; their remittances had begun to fail. The property which
they had left in the hands of their Parisian bankers had either become
valueless by the issue of assignats, which no one would take, or
confiscated in the general plunder of the banks, whose principals had
been thrown into prison, on _suspicion_ of being worth robbing. All was
bankruptcy.

The duchess made a slight attempt, evidently a painful one, to explain
to us, as strangers, the purpose of their unusual meeting. It was
simply, that "the emigrant noblesse, who had already experienced so much
heroic hospitality from their English friends, thought that the time was
come when they ought to be burdens on them no longer. The letters from
France are dreadful," said she, "and it will be our duty to show, that
as we have enjoyed prosperity, we can submit to suffering. We must
prepare to earn our bread by those accomplishments which we acquired in
happier times, and, as we once supposed, for happier times."

A general sigh seemed to break from every heart, and Mariamne hung on
the hand of the duchess, and grew pale. There was a silence for a while;
at length she resumed--"We must not return to our own country, at least
until this horrid struggle is at an end; for we should only embarrass
those who have sent us to the protection of this generous land, and for
whose sake we live. Yet, we only do honour to them by avoiding to eat
the bread of dependence, while we can labour for ourselves." Those
words, few as they were, were uttered with many a pause, and in the low
tone of a true mourner. She then called a beautiful girl towards her.
The girl rose, hesitated, and sank again. "Clotilde, my love, here are
none but friends; we must forget every thing but patience and our
country." As she spoke, the duchess took her contribution from her hand;
it was a drawing of some size, and of singular elegance--an Arcadian
festival. It was sent round the room with univ