dropped to the ground, the other he did something with which she could not perceive, and replaced in the reticule.  When he was gone, she picked up the fragment which had fallen; and seeing it was part of a love-letter, full of warm protests, &c. she put it into her pocket, intending, she said, to joke him about it.  A few minutes more, Julia came by, took up her reticule, and went home, declining Victor’s company, though he requested permission to escort her.

Hereupon, Victor was immediately submitted to a severe re-examination.  Aghast at the disclosure just made; abashed at the many angry eyes directed towards him; harassed by the searching questions of the magistrate, and the sense of guilt, his assurance and hypocrisy completely deserted him; and, after equivocating and protesting for some time, he sullenly confessed all.  Discarded by Julia:  he had attempted to effect her ruin!

The good little Julia was almost as much overcome by the overwhelming emotions which now possessed her, as she was at the miserable position in which malignity had so lately placed her.  Whilst Victor was being conveyed to the jail, where he was to suffer the punishment due to his villainy, Julia was conducted home to her now rejoicing parent, amidst the congratulations, caresses, and praises, of troops of friends.  The day after her acquittal, the throne was again set up in the Grande Allee, and the ovation to her industry and virtues was completed in triumphant fashion.  The Meurien family, feeling deeply the injury she had suffered, gave their presence at her inauguration, and afterwards did many a friendly act for her.  She is now as industrious and charming, and as much respected as ever, though no more Julia Gostillon, but Madame Vichel—­being the wife of a thriving herbalist of that name.  As for Victor, he has not been seen at Maisons since.

RAMBLES IN SEARCH OF WILD-FLOWERS.

EARLY MONTHS OF THE YEAR.

A ramble in search of wild-flowers in January would be pretty much ‘labour in vain;’ at least so far as that one special object was concerned.  I do not mean to say that all nature is dead at that season, for there are mosses, lichens, and fungi to be found in abundance; but flowers, in the ordinary meaning of the word, are not to be found, unless we consider those brilliant frostwork flowers which we sometimes find as such.  It was a season unusually cold for Devonshire, when, with a merry party of boys and girls, I sallied forth to see how nature looked decked in her robe of virgin white.  Hill and valley were one sheet of ‘innocent snow;’ and every twig, leaf, and blade of grass; every spray of the furze and heath; and every broad, drooping leaf of that beautiful fern the hart’s tongue (Scolopendrium vulgare), was coated with hoar-frost, and sparkling in the rosy sunbeams like the flowers in a magic garden.  At Sherbrook Lake, where a rivulet of clear water usually flows along the bottom of the ravine down to the sea, there was now a hard mass of ice, on which our boys rushed for a passing slide; and above, where the deeper water lies under the shadow of the brushwood, the frost had been busy performing its frolic feats—­