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THE RESCUE-EDME CHAMPION.

N a cold winter's evening, in the month woman, with apparently a large bundle un

ants of Châtel-Censoir, a village of ancient Burgundy, had nearly all retired to rest, a violent knock was given at the door of a lonely cottage on the banks of the Yonne. "Who is there ?" inquired a soft gentle voice from the interior.

"Open the door quickly! Make haste, I implore you!" cried the person without, in a voice tremulous with emotion.

"Push the door and come in," replied the person within; and instantly a country

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Surprised at seeing only a boy of about eight years old sitting beside an empty fireplace, with a resin candle burning on the hearth, she inquired if he were alone.

"Yes," replied the child, sorrowfully. "My father, mother, and six of my brothers and sisters are all dead; and there is no one left but my eldest brother Marcel, and myself."

"I was directed to this cottage as the residence of a boatman."

"My father was a boatman, and so is my brother," said the boy.

"Then call your brother to take me across the water as quickly as possible; there is not a moment to be lost, for I am pursued:" and as the woman spoke she looked with a terrified countenance toward the door.

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My brother is absent," said the boy. "Then we are lost," she exclaimed, and sunk down exhausted on the stool from which the little boy had risen.

The woman's cloak had fallen from her shoulders in her agitation, and disclosed to view a beautiful child of five or six years old, who, on finding his head liberated, replied to the woman's exclamation, "How lost, Petronille; are the robbers here?"

"Robbers!" repeated the little peasant, laughing, and gazing with astonishment at the child. Are there any in this country?"

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"I do not know where he is," replied the boy; "but if you only want to cross the water, you need not wait for him; I have taken passengers over before now. Edme Champion is well known here; so come along."

"Then make haste," said the woman. And again covering up the child she hurried out of the cottage, followed by the boy, who carefully closed the door after him. At a short distance from the cottage there was a little creek, in which a boat was moored. The woman first stepped in, while Edme unfastened the rope and jumped after her; then giving a stroke to his little craft, it slid gently away upon the smooth and crystal stream.

When the woman found herself at some distance from the shore her courage seemed to revive, and as if forgetting that it was quite a child she was addressing, she said: "My boy, you are saving the son of a great nobleman, and you shall be well rewarded for it."

"Of boys like you, nothing, certainly: but like him! Child, you do not know who you are speaking to."

The tone, the accent, even the appearance of this woman, who was of great height and commanding figure, brought to the recollection of little Champion the tales he had heard the countrywomen relate to the village children when they assembled round them in the evenings. Resting on his oars, he sat staring at her for some time; then remembering the beautiful child, whose velvet dress was richly embroidered, and his beaver hat adorned with feathers, he changed his former familiar mode of address, and said, in almost a tone of terror: "You are not then what you appear to be, madam?"

"A countrywoman?" said the stranger, with a contemptuous smile. "Certainly not, my little friend."

"Perhaps you are a princess," said the little boatman.

"No questions," she replied in a decisive tone; "as the prince said, I want to preserve my disguise.'

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At these words Edme opened his eyes still wider, wondering what it could be that she and the prince were so anxious to preserve; but not daring to ask any more questions, he continued gazing at her in the hope that he might find out something by the search. Suddenly he saw that lofty countenance change; the woman trembled, and pointing with her finger to a distant part of the river, she whispered: "There, there; what is that?"

Edme looked in the direction pointed

out.

"That," said he, "is the boat of Jean Carrouge."

"And who are in it?"

"Jean Carrouge himself, and three other men; but I cannot distinguish them: to be sure the boat is a good way off, and it is not very light."

"Take your oars and row quickly," said the woman, with every sign of extreme terror.

"That will be of little use, madam; they must soon overtake us."

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Boy," said the woman, in a low but

Are you afraid that he will be robbed quick voice, "this child is the son of a of his fine clothes ?" said Edme. nobleman; some villains have conspired to

self," replied the woman.

"I am afraid of being robbed of him- carry him off, in order to be revenged of his father for some supposed injury, which "Why, what could robbers want of little you cannot understand. We must save boys like him, or like me?"

{ him."

"How can we in the middle of the duced the germ of those virtues for which water?" said Edme, much agitated.

"Hide him; O! hide him!"

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Stay," said Edme, putting his hand to his forehead, as if considering some great design; "I am short and slight; let me change clothes with your child: his are loose and will go on me; put mine upon him, and let him sit in my place. Cover me up under your cloak, and let them take me, and do you contrive to get to the other side the best way you can."

While speaking, Edme was undressing himself; the woman, who understood the stratagem, did the same with her child, telling him not to cry, for it was done to save him. When the exchange was completed, she put her charge in Edme's place, and covered the latter up in her cloak, whispering to him as she did so, to come to Paris and to inquire for the Hôtel de Lauzun, rue Tiquetonne, where he would be well received. She had not long finished giving her directions when the boat of Carrouge came alongside that of Champion; one of the men immediately stepped into it, and without even looking at the boy, he tore the cloak, with the child wrapped in it, from the woman's arms, and returned with them into the other boat; after which he called out to her: "You may tell your master, that when he wants his heir, he may go and look for him in the forges of Pont d'Arroux."

The two boats then separated: the one sped its way back to Châtel-Censoir; the other, containing the strange female and the young heir of Lauzun, reached the opposite shore, where a carriage was soon procured and conveyed them away.

The boat of Jean Carrouge was not long in returning to Châtel-Censoir. Edme never stirred from the time of his seizure, but remained perfectly still under the large cloak in which he had been wrapped. The robbers, believing him to be either asleep or overpowered with terror, talked without scruple of the success of their enterprise and of their future plans. Edme was thus made acquainted with the cause of the woman's fears, and though he was endowed with courage and energy far beyond his years, he could not but feel a little uneasy as to his future fate. He had, however, been blessed with a pious mother, who had early instructed him where to put his trust, and the good seed she had sown already pro

he afterward became so conspicuous. Instead of giving way to childish fears, Edme raised his heart in prayer to God, that he would deliver him out of the hands of those wicked men.

From their conversation he learned that the Duke de Lauzun, who had been absent from his country in the service of the King of France, had left his only child at one of his châteaux, near Sens. He had now returned, and desired that his son should be brought to him. These wicked men, who had some enmity to the duke, had entered into a conspiracy to seize his child on the way, and to carry him off to the forges of Pont d'Arroux, near Autun, which was their chief haunt, and then to extort a large sum of money from the duke as a ransom for his son. By one of those interpositions of Providence, which we are too apt to call chance, this conspiracy was discovered. The men met to hold one of their consultations in the village church-yard, where they sat concealed behind some tombstones. A woman had also entered the church-yard, and overheard a part of their discourse; this woman was no other than the nurse of little Lauzun, who, in strolling round the pretty church-yard, and reading some of the epitaphs, was alarmed by the sound of voices, and pausing to listen, was soon made aware of the plot, which was to be put in execution that evening. Without taking time to consider the best means of averting the threatened danger, this woman, who was both strong and courageous, took the child in her arms, and hastened with him across the fields, hoping to reach Châtel-Censoir and cross the river unperceived by the robbers. The remainder has been related; and, by the quick thought and presence of mind of little Champion, the duke's son reached the opposite side of the stream in safety.

When Carrouge's boat came to land, one of the men having lifted Edme, handed him to the boatman to take out, who was not a little surprised at hearing his own name pronounced.

"Who calls me ?" said he, turning his head from one side to the other; for although the voice seemed to proceed from the bundle he held in his arms, yet he could not believe that a child whom he had never seen could know him.

"It is I," said the same voice; and,

throwing off the cloak in which he was enveloped, Edme displayed his well-known features to the boatman.

"Ho! ho!" said he, "what are you doing here?"

Before Edme had time to answer, the men were all landed, and came up close to him.

"Ah!" said one of them, "are you awake now?"

"Do you know this boatman ?" inquired another, surprised at the apparent recognition between him and the child.

"What farce is this? To be sure we know one another," said Carrouge. "And where did you become acquainted with little Lauzun?" inquired the third.

"I know nothing about little Lauzun," replied the boatman.

"Come, no more words," said the first who had spoken, leading up a horse, on which he was going to lift the child.

"Let me alone, will you!" said he, struggling to get away.

"What! you are going to rebel!” said another; "you had better come quietly, I can tell you;" and he approached Edme in a threatening manner, but the boatman Carrouge came between them.

THE

THE HOMES OF OUR FOREFATHERS. THE list may be soon made-for it was scanty enough—of the household furniture of our forefathers in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. That large class called "cabinet goods" were wholly unknown, and the carpenter supplied the tables-then merely long boards placed on tressels, and the benches and joint-stools. The windows at this period were always made with seats in them, and it is curious to observe how this partiality continued through the era of stone houses, of lath and plaster houses, of the clumsy redbrick houses, even to the days of our grandfathers, who, though well provided with hugh settees and mahogany chairs, and cross-stitched-worked stools, still considered the window seat indispensable to the parlor and dining-room. But our earlier forefathers, if unsupplied with mahogany and rose-wood furniture, did not sit on bare benches, nor eat their meals, "back-wood-fashion," on an unplaned board. The benches were always covered, mostly colored, and the table, even in "upland" villages, displayed its ample folds of napery. Indeed, the indispensability of a tablecloth seems to have been universally recognized among our forefathers. In the curious and suggestive "Rolls of the King's Court," we find napery in the possession of quite the inferior classes; in the Subsidy-roll, too, of the twenty-nine of Edward I., for the city of Colchester, we find tablecloths of

"Stop a moment," said he; "do as you please with little Lauzun; I know nothing about him, and it is no business of mine; but as to this boy, it is quite another affair: he is a neighbor's son, and belongs to this place; any one who touches him will have to fight me and every inhabitant of the village." "What!" exclaimed one of the men, the tradesmen there valued at from ten to "this boy"

"Is the orphan child of Pierre Champion, and his cottage is here, close by."

The sound of the voices had brought out Marcel, who, uneasy at his brother's absence, had sat up watching for him. Edme threw himself into his brother's arms, who looked quite amazed at seeing him dressed out in fine clothes, and surrounded by strangers.

"Let us go home, and I will explain everything to you," said Edme. Then, turning to the robbers, he said: "Thus, gentlemen, your wicked plots have been frustrated; and the good God has made use of one of the weakest of his creatures to baffle the efforts of the strong. Lauzun is now in safety."

Little

fifteen shillings each of the present money, while in inventories and wills of a later period, we meet with household linen, evidently of a superior kind, in great abundance. Few notions have been more ridiculous than the common one, that a feather bed was a luxury almost unknown to our forefathers-a notion which not only the most cursory glance at the homeliest Saxon illumination would disprove, but the mere exercise of common sense. While abundant flocks of wild geese haunted every fen, and scores of tame geese fed on every common-when the goose was the appropriate dish for both Michaelmas and Martinmas days, and the feather of the gray goose winged the shaft of the bowman, is it possible that our forefathers con

Edme went to Paris subsequently; but tented themselves with straw beds and a more hereafter.

log for their pillow?—British Quarterly.

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THE

THE ASTOR LIBRARY.

THE Astor Library opens the present month; our engraving, drawn under the direction of Mr. Saeltzer, the architect, is apropos to the time.. Our readers are doubtless familiar with the chief facts in the history of the institution. We need only refer to a few of them. The bequest of Mr. Astor for its establishment amounted to $400,000; of this munificent sum, $75,000 were appropriated to the erection of the edifice, $120,000 to the purchase of books and other contents of the library, and the remainder, after deducting the expense of the site, was to be permanently invested for its future uses. Mr. Saeltzer's plans for the building are admirable. Its style is Byzantine. It is of brown stone, and is one hundred and twenty feet long, sixty-five feet wide, sixty-seven feet

high. It is said that no other building of the kind in the United States is formed, to so large an extent, of iron; there is hardly any wood in it. A published account of it says:

"The truss-beams, supporting the principal weight of the roof, are constructed of cast-iron pipes, in a parabolic form, on the same plan as Europe, with a view to secure lightness and the iron bridges in France and other parts of strength. The Library Hall, which occupies the second floor, is one hundred feet high, and sixty wide, in the clear. The ascent from the front is by a single line of thirty-eight Italian entrance, by a stone sphinx. Upon nearing marble steps, decorated on either side, at the the summit of these steps, the visitor finds himself near the centre of this immense alcove, surrounded by fourteen brick piers, plastered porting iron galleries, midway between the and finished in imitation of marble, and sup floor and the ceiling. The side walls form one

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