Year: 1859

"What dreadful situation for young
girl to find herself in Perfectly willing
to be married, and with dear, kind
father equally as anxious for her to enter
the glorious state of matrimony, which
would crown her with halo of felicity
and not lover to be met with"


Thus soliluquised a young girl of fifteen,
as she sat looking over the wide domains
of her fathers chateau, apart from the
world of Paris, and oh! most strange to
add, in part of the country as yet virgin
of ANYTHING like railroad. All this sort
of reverie is dellcious-all those dreams
of the halo of felicity crowning marriage
are beautiful at fifteen, but few years
later, and how very like crown of thorns
the halo looks.


Jenny d'Herbecourt was very much 10
be pitied. There was no inexorable faith
er, no cruel guardian, nothing was want
ing: to complete her felicity but mere
trife-the man-and the man sorely
puzzled the young lady's brains. Where
where was he 10 be found IN that isolated
spot, onfY visited by numbering dbl
gence?


The. good father was going to be mar
ried again to cousin of her own, one
Aglae-a nice, good creature-and she
too was anxieas far Jenny. to marry. Was
ever anything so provoking as. all these
consents. without the assent of some dear
unknown g. Aglae was staying at the
chateau, and hard indeed must be the
heart which would not feel for Jenny,
when she beheld the charming tEousseaa
of her future step-mother arrive.


"Some one shall appear" sighed Jenny,
after conversation with her cousin Aglae,
the sort of one TO influence girls head,
| if not her heart-all about laces and
cashmeres, orange flowers, &c. Most
unfortunately there was not young man
in the neighborhood "free and able, "
(Jenny reserved to herself to make him
''willing, ~ until-oh! blessings on minds
given to speculate "a company sent down
young engineer to survey the land, with
the view of commencing a railway
Gostave Delvat was the son of an old
friend of her father, who had met the
young engineer in the country surveying
the land, and discovering who he was,
insisted on his leaving his hotel, and
taking up his lodgings at the chateau.


A month had he been domiciled there,
and assuredly if he was first-class en-
gineer he was third-class gallant. He
didn't seem to know that there was a
young girl within miles of him-his heart
was as hard as the rails he was about tc
lay down, and all this coldness made the
iron enter into Jenny's soul All day
long he was making his calculations, while
she was speculations about him.


One day she pretended TO faint. Gus
tave few to the rescue, he was forced t
look into her face, and discovered tha
she was charming, fresh, and bright a
the land before his horrid railroad cut i
up.


Still he went on with his parchment
So Jenny went into his Office and carried
off all his instruments, &C., and locket
them up. In vain he implored.
"You are looking very ILL.," she said
"and shall insist on your only working
so many hours day..


Again he looked in the face of one S


anxious about him, and yielded. She KEEP
the key of his Office.


This left him several hours day un
i disposed of. What could he do with them
E Jenny solved the difficulty, and togethe
t4hey surveyed the surrounding countr


and its beautiful walks, as yet not cut up


One day the engineer forgot all tn


plans he had laid down on his own roa


of action-not to fall in love with Jenny
= not to be led into path which he i'm
agined would be perhaps harder to CT


through than rock. If itwere but ths