The house was more still than usual, and all slept to a later hour because of the agitation of the past night.  I had been seated, like old sister Mariette, with my eyes turned rather towards the hills than to the valley, being so deep in my thoughts that I did not look, as it was our constant wont to look, if any change had happened over Semur.  Thus blessings come unawares when we are not looking for them.  Suddenly I lifted my eyes—­but not with expectation—­languidly, as one looks without thought.  Then it was that I gave that great cry which brought all crowding to the windows, to the gardens, to every spot from whence that blessed sight was visible; for there before us, piercing through the clouds, were the beautiful towers of Semur, the Cathedral with all its pinnacles, that are as if they were carved out of foam, and the solid tower of St. Lambert, and the others, every one.  They told me after that I flew, though I am past running, to the farmyard to call all the labourers and servants of the farm, bidding them prepare every carriage and waggon, and even the charrettes, to carry back the children, and those who could not walk to the city.

‘The men will be wild with privation and trouble,’ I said to myself; ’they will want the sight of their little children, the comfort of their wives.’

I did not wait to reason nor to ask myself if I did well; and my son has told me since that he scarcely was more thankful for our great deliverance than, just when the crowd of gaunt and weary men returned into Semur, and there was a moment when excitement and joy were at their highest, and danger possible, to hear the roll of the heavy farm waggons, and to see me arrive, with all the little ones and their mothers, like a new army, to take possession of their homes once more.

M. LE MAIRE CONCLUDES HIS RECORD.

The narratives which I have collected from the different eye-witnesses during the time of my own absence, will show how everything passed while I, with M. le Cure, was recovering possession of our city.  Many have reported to me verbally the occurrences of the last half-hour before my return; and in their accounts there are naturally discrepancies, owing to their different points of view and different ways of regarding the subject.  But all are agreed that a strange and universal slumber had seized upon all.  M. de Bois-Sombre even admits that he, too, was overcome by this influence.  They slept while we were performing our dangerous and solemn duty in Semur.  But when the Cathedral bells began to ring, with one impulse all awoke; and starting from the places where they lay, from the shade of the trees and bushes and sheltering hollows, saw the cloud and the mist and the darkness which had enveloped Semur suddenly rise from the walls.  It floated up into the higher air before their eyes, then was caught and carried away, and flung about into shreds upon the sky by a strong wind, of which down