Several days have passed since the traveller fell into the trap Captain Russell and his companion had set for him, and we must beg the reader to accompany us to a pretty cottage in the little village of Lionville, about four miles from Havre. A bracing and salubrious climate, a country which is at the same time fertile and picturesque, fine trees, luxuriant turf, and a superb view of the ocean, make Lionville a veritable paradise to persons who love peace and quiet and opportunities for solitary meditation. At that time, as in many other towns and villages, great and small, the absence of young men was particularly noticeable, the last wars of the Empire having summoned to the defence of the flag nearly all who were young and able-bodied, until a young man of twenty-five who had remained a civilian, unless he was a hunchback, or crippled, was almost as rare a phenomenon as the phoenix or a white crow. Lionville possessed one of these rarities in the shape of a handsome young man not over twenty-four years of age, but we must make haste to say that he did not seem in the least inclined to take advantage of his position, for he led a very retired life, quite as much from preference as from any other reason. This young man was one of the inmates of the pleasant, cheerful home to which we have already alluded, and several days after the traveller had been victimised by the pretended postilion a middle-aged woman, a young girl, and this young man (the phoenix referred to) were assembled one evening in a pretty, comfortably furnished drawing-room. A good fire was blazing on the hearth, for the evenings were still cool, and a shaded lamp diffused a soft light through the apartment, while the tea-kettle, standing in front of the fire, bubbled softly. A close observer would perhaps have noticed that most of the ornaments and articles of luxury were of English origin, in spite of the stern prohibition against the importation of English goods which then prevailed on the continent. The same might be said of the handsome silver tea-service, no two pieces of which were alike, however, a ducal coronet surmounting the massive hot-water urn and a knight's crest adorning the teapot, while an unpretending initial was engraved upon the sugar-bowl, though it was none the less brilliant on that account. The middle-aged woman had a frank, intelligent, cheerful face. She was at least forty-two years old, but her hair was still black, her complexion fresh, her teeth white, and her eyes bright; in short, this worthy dame still attracted plenty of admiring glances when, arrayed in a handsome bonnet of English lace, a gown of English tissue, and a Paisley shawl of the finest texture, she accompanied her youthful charge to the village church.