Year: 1860

The last number of the French Psyche has
q story of love affair which has deeply moved
the whole population of Marseilles, but will
hardly be credited by persons who do not be-
lieve in supernatural apparitions. However,
here is the story in as few words as possible:


Charles R, born in q wealthy family of
merchants, and an orphan from his childhood,
had been brought up at his uncle's with
cousin whose beauty, sweetness and graces never
failed to produce lasting impression on all
persons of her acquaintance 1t is consequently
not at all surprising that Charles r., who had
grown up in her intimate society, should have
fallen deeply in love with such fascinating
cousin. Nor was his love unrequited; fol, when
the proper time came, she decided, with the
consent of her family, that their marriage
should take place as soon as he was twenty
years of age. Just about that time, bis uncle
having received from Calcutta the news of the
failure of n house with which he was carrying
on an extensive business, sent the young
Charles to that distant port to effect liquids-
tiOn. The marriage was necessarily postponed,
and the young lover left Marseilles, promising
TO write as often as God and the ocean would
allow, and to return as soon as his business
was settled.


Four months passed on and no news came
from the young traveller. His relations, and
more particularly his cousin, began to feel un
easy, and were already accusing him of ofneglect,
when one unhappy day they read in the papers





which they knew that Charles had gone. The
young MarseillaIse was almost mad with grief;
and after a long and dangerous sickness, the
poor girl, disheartened, seeing before her moth
ing but n complete blank, resolved to spend the
remainder of her life in a convent, to mourn,
far from the world, for the only man whom she
had loved 1t was in vain her parents tried to
dissuade her from that resolution. All their
entreaties, their misery, their tears, could not
induce her to change her mind, and she soon
entered q convent in Marseilles as q postu-
lant.n


Six months after that fatal day, Just as the
time for her TO take her vows was approaching,
her family were pleasantly startled by letter
from their daughter, informing them that she
had altered her mind, and wished to go back
TO them. to the world, to pleasure, to happi-
ness. For the last three nights, she had seen
in her dreams her beloved Charles entreating
her, with tears in his eyes and the sweetest
voice, not to fulfill her terrible resolution; not
to complete a sacrifice which would be the
death Of them both. For Charles was yet alive
and would be soon back, to keep his sacred
promise and end all her griefs The nuns Of
the convent had good humoredly laughed at
her, and tried to persuade her TO stay among
them, in that quiet retreat, where she might,
undsturbed, lament all her life the dear COM
panion of her youth. For he was dead, said
they, and it was foolish to believe in those su-
pernatural apparitions. But she was unshaken
in her faith, and to all their entreaties she
would answer that her betrothed would soon be
back, and, of course, she must be at home to
receive him.


Although the parents Of the young "postu-
liant" did not believe any more than the nuns,
that such strange dream would ever be real
lied, they were 50 gladdened by the letter of
their daughter, that they decided not to say
not one word to undeceive her. She might 60
on from day to day, hoping all the time for an
arrival which would never take place, and by
little and little they thought the deep wound
Of her heart might be healed.


Accordingly, on that very day, they went to
the convent, and in less than one hour their
only child was crossing again the Threshold Of
the old family mansion. Her first thought was
for her little room, where she had gathered so
many dear tokens and souvenirs from her cou-
sin. She fastened up stairs, and she goes so
fast that her delighted parents can hardly fol-
low her. But when she is on the landing,
whom does she see, standing in the door of that
room so long shut up? Charles, her afianced,
who looks at her, smiling with happiness, and
opens his arms to clasp her to his bosom.


1t is no longer a dream! Charles holds her
locked in his arms, kissing her and mingling
his tears with her own. But when he opens
his arms again, to receive the caresses Of her
parents, she sinks and drops heavily on the
floor.


She was dead. dead with susprise and hap
piness dead without uttering one cry, without
heaying one sigh!-N. o. PIcayuns.