[Illustration:  “Don’t wring my heart!”]

Buried in eglantine and honeysuckle, soon no one would suspect the home-made character of Joliet’s chateau.  It became the centre of my botanizing excursions.  Francine grew into a fair, slim girl, like the sweetest and most innocent of Gavarni’s sketches, and sold flowers to the passers-by.

* * * * *

Such were the souvenirs I had of this brave tavern-keeper in his old capacity of roadster and tramp.  Now, after an hiatus of years, I found him before me in a different character at the beginning of my roundabout trips to Marly.

But what had become of my favorite little rose-merchant?

“Francine?” asked Joliet briskly, as if he was wondering whom I could mean by such a name.  “You mean my wife?  Poor thing!  She is dead.”

“I am speaking of your daughter, Father Joliet.”

“Oh, my daughter, my girl Francine?  She went to live with her godmother.  It was ten years ago.”

“And you have not seen her since?”

“Yes—­yes—­two years back.  She has gone again.”

“To her godmother?”

“No.”

“Why so?”

“Her godmother would not receive her.  Don’t wring my heart so, sir!”

Edward Strahan.

[To be continued.]

OUR HOME IN THE TYROL.

[Illustration:  View of Taufers valley.]

CHAPTER VII.

We left the Hof one August Friday—­we were not superstitious—­a goodly company, sufficient to freight the rumbling old stage-wagon which jolted daily between Bruneck and Taufers, a distance of nine miles.  At this village the sedater portion of the party were to settle down with books, pencils and drawing-paper until the Alpine visit should have been paid.

The valley of Taufers, running northward with a grand vista to the north-west of the vast Zillerthal snow-fields, suggests at a distance the idea of a stern, joyless district.  When in the broader Pusterthal the sunshine floods upland plain and slope, this important but narrow tributary valley lies steeped in its gloomy shade, the dark sides of the Sambock frowning grimly on the opposite shadowy Tesselberg.  Great, therefore, was the surprise of some of the party to find, as we drove along, instead of melancholy solitude, prosperous villages basking in sunshine, whilst little children skipped merrily, and men and women worked amongst the golden stooks as if enjoying the labor of their hands.  Yes, strange to say, effulgent sunshine everywhere on acre and meadow, and slanting down upon a wayside cottage garden, where a freshly-painted Christ lay drying between tall sunflowers.  This cottage seemed the only shadow in this unexpectedly bright picture, for, occupied by a religious image-maker,