Madame haughtily. "If I have anything further to say, I will address you at the Golden Horse." "What fools women are!" thought Monsieur, as he held the door open for Madame.

"Truly vulgar stupidity!" mentally commented Madame, as she went to receive the physician, whose gruff voice was heard in the hall. The doctor was a short, bustling man, attired in a suit of black and white plaid, which gave him the appearance of an animated checkerboard. He refused all offers of refreshment; he was in a hurry, and he knew Madame's vin ordinaire of old. He demanded to see his pa

tient at once.

This patient was a tall, slight girl, apparently about nineteen, with soft, dark-blue eyes, which, from the pallor of her forehead and temples, seemed unnaturally large. A faint blush rose tint shone in her cheeks, a thick mass of smooth, goldenbrown hair was loosely drawn back from her broad, low brow, and knotted at the back of her head. She wore a plain dark dress lent to her by Madame's maid.

She rose from her seat at the window and made a step forward as Madame and the doctor entered. Even in that slight movement there was a nameless grace that bespeaks the gentlewoman.

"I am much better," she said, in a clear, low voice, answering the query of her hostess, "indeed quite well. The tisane which you so kindly sent has completely restored me. With your permission, Madame, I will at once start for Nantes." "But the cabriolet—”

exciting yourself-you've been out in all sorts of weather. If you want to kill yourself, take poison; it's a quicker way than walking in the rain, but no surer."

"You speak truth, doctor," said Madame, "my grandfather walked out, rain or shine, for seventy years, and then died, but if he had taken poison-”

"Your grandfather was a gentleman," said the irritated doctor. "I say that Ma'amselle must have rest and quiet. That's all! I'm

off?"

The doctor wrote a prescription and made his exit.

"You must remain here, Mademoiselle Martin. I will not allow you to go," said Madame, moved in. spite of herself by the fragile beauty of the girl.

"And now tell me how you came to be out last night. Speak freely. Regard me as your own mother."

After a slight hesitation, Adèle complied.

"The story is short, Madame, but very sad. My mother and I started from New York on our way to Brittany.

The voyage was pleasant. When we reached L'Orient, my mother caught a fever, and in a week's time died. She was buried four days ago." The girl's voice broke, but she bravely strove to speak. "She instructed me to continue on the road to Nantes. She gave me a packet, telling me not to open it until I should reach that city., I had but little money, Madame, and I walked whenever I could. A market-woman gave me a seat in her cart part of the way, but by mistake I reached Paimbœuf in

"I will walk."

"No, Ma'amselle, you will not!" thundered the doctor, who had taken possession of her slender wrist. "You'll not leave this room for two days! Do you hear? You want rest and quiet. You've been

steps last night. I had been walking all day, and I was weak. I fainted, I suppose."

"That was sad. You speak French well."

"My mother was born in France."
"And her name?"
"I do not know.

She never

spoke of her family. She had some great object in view when she came hither, but I cannot even guess what it was. She was an invalid

very nervous and reserved, but oh! the best the kindest-" Tears drowned the words.

"Exceedingly mysterious," commented Madame to herself. "But you alluded to a packet?" "Have you seen it, Madame?" asked Adèle, eagerly. "It was wrapped in a white handkerchief. I cannot find it. It must have fallen on the road, or in the cabriolet last night."

told me that you are a merchant, Monsieur," she said, standing just within the long window of the salon.

"Of the firm of Drap et Blanque, Bordeaux, at your service." He bowed profoundly.

With a quick motion she drew the one ring from her finger. "I thought that you might perhaps dispose of this for me."

For an instant Monsieur Blanque's small black eyes rivalled in brightness the brilliant diamond that bore the faintly traced crest of the de Saluces. Then, with affected indiffer

If

Madame de Francheville did not doubt the truth of Adèle's story. A girl with such a face as hers could not tell a lie without betraying it, Madame thought, as she construct ed a little plan. This Mademoiselle Martin was apparently well educated and refined. Now, Madame had been for some time on the look out for a companion who could play, sing, and read to her. Mademoiselle Martin could do all three, she could also teach English, and Madame, old as she was, had a mania for languages. Having no alternative, Mademoiselle Martin would doubtless be glad to accept the position at a very low salary. This was, in Madame's eyes, the crowning recommendation. She was well satisfied with her little plan.

She sent her servants in various directions to search for the missing packet. Monsieur Blanque was standing on the covered terrace waiting for the rain to abate. He chuckled as he saw the servants turning up the mud in the road. He was complacently reflecting on his own astuteness, when he felt a light touch on his shoulder. He turned round and saw Adele"belle comme un ange❞—he thought.

"The femme de chambre has

"Is it valuable?"

"Oh, yes, very valuable. My mother, who gave it to me, said it was worth five thousand dollars." "Dollars?"

"I am not attaché of the Mont de Pieté," he interrupted blandly.

Adèle hesitated. She was penniless in a strange land. It was hard to sacrifice the ring, but it would be still harder to be utterly dependent on the charity of strangers.

"Take it," she said, averting her face as she gave him the ring.

He drew his purse from some hidden portion of his attire, and counted the thousand francs. She followed him into the empty salon at his request. He found pen and paper, and she signed a receipt.

He chuckled jubilantly. Assuredly success seemed all on his side.

The packet first, and now the ring had fallen in his way without any effort of his own. With the ring in his pocket, he started for Nantes in high good humor.

The future seemed very dark to Adèle. She trembled at the thought of the journey homewards. She imagined herself landing alone at New York. There she had neither relatives nor friends, for her mother had kept her rigidly secluded from the world around her. Inexperienced and unskilled as she was, how could she earn a living?

When Madame discovered that Adèle could play and sing, she made her proposal, which was gratefully accepted by the girl. There was one concession that Madame required which gave her great pain. She was not allowed to wear black in her bereavement, for Madame detested black. It reminded her of death, and Madame did not like to be reminded of death. She did not object to a little pleasing sadness now and then a tear over the departed-a wreath of immortelles; but she had a horror of deep grief and deep mourning. When Adèle's trunk came from L'Orient, she endeavored to improvise toilets of white and purple from her slender stock of wearing apparel.

Often in the early morning, when the dim landscape lay in the uncertain but glowing light of dawn, Adèle stole softly down to the village church to pray for her mother's soul.

"That is better than wearing black, my child," the old curé, to whom she had told her trouble, would say, when they met at the clturch door after mass.

Adele's days passed pleasantly. While Madame sewed or embroidered in the latter part of the morning, Adèle played lively galops or stirring marches. In the afternoon she read to Madame in French and gave her lessons in English. In

the long, quiet evenings, she sang opera airs or played Beethoven and Mozart, while Gaston, the doctor, his wife, or perhaps the curé, indulged in a game of chess with Madame.

There was one subject on which Madame was never weary of expatiating, and of which Adèle was heartily tired of hearing. This was the value of the adjoining estate that had belonged to the late Marquis de Saluces.

The heiress to this great estate was in America. Madame, however, daily expected her to arrive with her daughter. This heiress had secretly married a strolling geologist--that might not be the right term, Madame said-however, he was a Bohemian of some kind. This tourist having broken his leg-it served him right!-in trying to climb a rock, in search of worthless pieces of stone, had been taken to the château of the Marquis and thus became acquainted with Mademoiselle de Saluces. On discovering the marriage, the Marquis had disinherited his daughter. But when he came to die, he had forgiven her, and bequeathed all he possessed to her, by way of reparation for his long. years of displeasure.

It never occurred to Madame to mention the name of the "foreign adventurer," or Adèle would have. discovered that he was her father. The name "Yolanthe" might have given her a clue, but Madame always spoke of the heiress as Mademoiselle de Saluces.

Although Yolanthe Moore had never been wholly free from sickness, she had none the less exacted unquestioning obedience of her gentle daughter. Adèle knew that the name of Martin belonged to her father, and when her mother had desired her to assume it, she had complied, showing some surprise but asking no questions, for experience had taught her that they

would be unanswered. And now that the people at the château had got into the way of calling her Mademoiselle Martin, she did not think it necessary to tell her real

name.

Madame de Francheville looked forward to Gaston's marriage with the granddaughter of the Marquis as a certain thing. She had hinted at such a consummation in her letter to Yolanthe Moore, and she

awaited only the arrival of that lady in France, to plunge at once into preliminaries.

"And the name of Gaston's wife will be Adèle, the same as yours, my child," Madame had said.

Adèle caught herself wondering whether this young country woman of hers were pretty or not, and whether Gaston liked the name "Adèle."

WE believe Catholicity to be a distinctive mark of the Church of Christ. It is universal as to time, beginning with its founder and enduring till the dissolution of the world; universal as to space, carrying the light of gospel tidings to every nation; universal as to doctrine, teaching all things which heaven has revealed for the instruction of man. It was thus the Church appeared to the vision of Isaias, 60th chapter, when he exclaimed, "The gentiles shall walk in thy light, and kings in the brightness of thy rising. Thy gates shall be continually open, they shall not be shut day or night, that the strength of the gentiles may be brought to thee and their kings may be brought. For the nation and the kingdom that will not serve thee shall perish; and the gentiles shall be wasted with desolation."

The Saviour predicted this universality when he said (Mark 24): "This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached to the whole world, for a testimony to all nations." A threefold universality was stamped upon the Church in the commission given to her ministry-the Apostles being ordered to teach all nations,

to observe all things, during all days.

The mark of Catholicity is so evidently the peculiar and exclusive property of the Church, bearing the name Catholic in every age and nation, that no other society can reasonably pretend to dispute with her that divine and triumphant title. She holds it by a possession of 1874 years, during which space of time it has been recognized by the voice of every friend and foe. If ever we had one occasion more eligible than another to exult in the honor and security of our Church it is when we call her and her alone Catholic, and find her so as to time and place. You see all other denominations confined to the limits of a kingdom, a province, or a village, and gradually sinking from your sight, until you perceive but one pure family saved from the flood of the world's changeableness, preserved in the ark of the Church, and floating triumphantly on the waves of time which cast the death of oblivion over millions. The Church holding communion with Rome as its centre, and taking the poles and ecliptic circle as the measurement of its extent, has reg

istered its title Catholic in every clime and language of the earth, and has verified the predictions of the Old Testament by thus stretching her wide and ample dominion throughout every land. Animated by the spirit of holy enterprise, she is still engaged in enlarging her spiritual conquests; and to admit those who are pouring into her bosom," she is enlarging the place of her tent, lengthening the cords and strengthening the stakes of her tabernacle." If she has to deplore the loss of nations which were among the earliest of her progeny, she rejoices in the attachment of others whom she clasps in her embrace. If in punishment of their perfidy the kingdom of God has been taken from some people, the prediction of the Redeemer has been fulfilled by its extension to others. "I say to you that the kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and shall be given to a nation yielding the fruits thereof." (Matt. 21.) While the sun of Catholicity was setting upon the vices of the degenerate kingdoms on whom its light first rose, it appeared amongst the young nations of the west, diffusing joy as it ascended in its career, dispelling the ignorance in which they were involved, and giving to their virtues vigor and animation. And as her altars rise and her incense smokes in the distant forests, or wreathes with holy fragrance the summit of the Alps and Andes, she hears an intimation of enduring success from the Psalmist declaring the will of God: "I will give the nations for thy inheritance."

There cannot be a danger of this appearing as a mere effort of declamation, or the presumption of overweening confidence, if we contemplate the great scenery of the Christian world. Unroll the historic page, read the names of nations, trace the occurrences of each revolving century-glance at the

throne, or stoop to the grave of every empire:-stand amid the ashes of Pagan oracles or follow the brilliant illumination of the cross, and then we may discover that there is not one circumstance of time or spot of earth without a striking testimony in favor of the Catholic Church. Let us ascend to heaven, and as St. Augustine expresses it, "Let us contemplate in that delightful garden its roses and its lilies, that is, its martyrs purpled with the blood of persecution, and its hosts of other saints who are clothed with the robes of innocence and purity." We see in one single band thirty-three Roman pontiffs successively put to death for their faith; an immense multitude of priests and prelates, who, in every nation of. the universe, have shed their blood for the name of Christ; countless legions of the faithful of every age and sex and state of life, who proclaimed the virtues and followed the examples of the purest patterns. All these, it will be found, had the happiness to live and the consolation to die in the communion of the Church which has always been Catholic. Yes, ours was the glorious martyr Ignatius, the earliest amongst the martyrs of the Coliseum, who has carefully handed down a variety of apostolical traditions. Ours the holy Bishop Irenæus, who, even in his time, estab"lished the divine institution of the Catholic Church from the circumstance of the succession of pontiffs in the chair of Peter. Ours, the holy martyrs Cornelius and Cyprian, distinguished for their virtues and their learning. Ours an Augustine, Ambrose, Jerome, and Gregory, who stand above the horizon of ages pillars of light to support the chair of Peter. But Catholicity is clear enough, from the fact that I must cease from even glancing over those saintly annals; for the track of universality would