The Potter journal. [volume] (Coudersport, Pa.) 1857-1872, 1864-04-27
A GHOST STORY.

In 1889, I had hired at Verrieres, a
charming village coquettishIy situated
midway on one of the wooded slopes of
the forest which bears its name, a simple
cottage where designed to spend the
summer with my wife and presumptive
heir, a pretty and plump boy of year
old, raised in the country, and who,
thanks to the fresh air, exercise, and
healthy life of the fields, did, assure you,
credit to his nurse. My cottage consisted
of a square pavilion covered with tiles,
composed of basement and one story,
and situated at the extremity of the vii
lage in retired lane leading to the coun
try, as its name indicated 'Road to the
Uineyards."
An ob.ong garden, of about an acre,
inclosed by walls garnished with trellises,
and whose principal entrance was adorned
by an iron gate with pillars, the only am.
bilious decoration Of this modest retreat,
lay before the cottage, which was built at
the extremity Of the inclosure, ,and reached
by gravelled walk, bordered on each side
with fruit trees in full bearing. Before
the house stood group of Bengal roses,
and on the right and left, fronting side
porches, each lighted by two windows
only, were grassy lawns of nearly four
yards square, which had first attracted
me, because I saw there a natural carpet
very we'll calculated for the sports of my
newly weaned baby, just beginning to
learn to use his teeth and limbs.
The whole, furnished comfortably, not
luxuriously, but with everything neces
sary in country life, had been let to me
for FIVE hundred francs, by the proprietor,
NJ. Roux, ex-apothecary, Rue Moutmartre,
the Inventor of celebrated deutri6ce.
The young are not difficult | was young,
then, and had one conclusive reason for
seeing life through my colored spectacles
Unit d to a charming woman whom
idolized and who rendered me happy,
dreamed of perfect love, like an Arcadian
shepherd, and these five words, q cottage
and her heart, the eternal romance of
youth, would have led me to the end of
the world.
When spring came, and the lilacs, of
which there were whole thickets In our
iuclosure, blossomed, arrived fortunate
couple to take possession of our little do
main, my wife having never yet seen the
house or garden; they pleased her, per-
haps for reasons similar to my own. She
was kind enough to find everything to
her taste, and even the gardiner, ex-
pressly included in the inventory of fix.
lures, and who was not, to tell the truth,
the least useful article of furniture.
Paid by the proprietor, all his duties
were comprised in taking care of the gar
den, showing the cottage to visitors, and
airing the apartments by occasionally
opening the windows. If the situation
was not very lucrative. 1T was not diff,
cult to fill. So NJ Roux had confded it
to the first one who came to hand, that is
to say, simple peasant of the neighbor-
hood, the inhabitant of one of the only
two houses which now stood on the road
to the vineyards.
Biondas St. Foy, with an air as clown.
ish as that witty singer, Gilkin, with his
long, straight locks, his pug nose, his
porcelain blue eyes, and fat, projecting
cheeks, slightly ruddy, would have. fig,
ured admirably ON the rustic stage, A
genuine peasant of the opera, he had both
the physique and the character of the
situation. So when, in the intervals of
liberty allowed him by the culture of his
fields, the produce of which he regularly
sent to market, according to the invaria.
BILE custom of farmers in the neighbor-
hood of Paris, he had time to come and
put sticks to our peas, water our straw
berry plants, hoe our potatoes, and weed