The peasantry of France have, from ancient times, maintained the custom of publicly demonstrating their esteem of any young female member of a community, who, in her progress from childhood to adolescence, or rather to womanhood, may have given evidence of the possession of any unusual amount of amiability and cleverness.  Young girls who are deemed worthy of public recognition as examples of virtue and industry, are waited upon by the villagers on a fete-day, led forth, seated on a throne of flowers, crowned with roses, blessed by the cure, and presented with the honourable title of La Rosiere.  The custom is graceful and poetical; and the world hardly presents a more charming spectacle—­at once so simple and so touching—­as the installation of a rosiere in some sequestered village of France.  The associations connected with it are pure and bright enough for a Golden Age.  All who take part in the little ceremony are humble people, living by their labour; the queen of the day is queen by reason of her industry and virtue; they who do her such becoming and encouraging homage, old and young, lead lowly and toilsome lives, and yet have the innate grace thus to evince their reverence for the best qualities of human nature.  The pageantry of courts, and pompous crowning of kings and queens, grand and splendid as they are, have not such spiritual fragrance as these village queen-makings; soft glimmerings and shinings-through of the light of a better world—­a world with which man, let conventionality disguise him as it may, always has some sympathies.

For three years, the exemplary Julia had continued to support her helpless parent and little sister, when, in accordance with this custom, the good folks of the hamlet determined to shew their appreciation of her estimable qualities at the next fete, by crowning her with roses, and enthroning her with the usual ceremony in the Grande Allee.  In the meantime, Victor Colonne, son of the steward of the chateau, happened to pay a visit to the poor widow’s cottage; and thereafter he came again, and again, and again, courting Julia Gostillon.

But Victor and Julia were not made for each other.  He was thriftless, idle, dissolute—­the small roue of the neighbourhood:  she was careful, industrious, virtuous.  He was good-looking—­of a dark, saturnine beauty, insidiously impressive, like the dangerous charms of a tempter; she was radiant and lustrous with the sweet graces of modesty, innocence, and intelligence.  Julia, however, young and susceptible, was for a time pleased with his attentions.  Persuasive powers of considerable potency, and personal attractions of no mean sort, were not exerted and prostrated at her feet entirely in vain.  Ingenuous, trustful, and inexperienced, she listened to the charmer with a yielding and delighted ear, and was happy as long as she perceived nothing but sincerity and love.  It was but for a time, however.  The Widow Gostillon