women and children, and the beautiful groups into which they fell as they advanced to greet us,--all offered a lovely and interesting sight to the eyes of a stranger. It was one of the pictures of Claude Gelée wakened into life. Every one sprang to the ground, and a thousand welcomes and embraces were exchanged; the sight of which made my heart swell with feelings I cannot describe. There were none to embrace or welcome me! Amongst the foremost of those who came to meet us on our arrival, was a beautiful young woman of the most delicate form and feature I ever beheld; exquisitely lovely in every line; but so slight, so fragile, it seemed as if the very breath of the mountain wind would have torn her like a butterfly. She ran on, however, with a quicker step than all the rest, and casting herself into the gigantic arms of Garcias, gazed up in his face with a look of that tender affection not to be mistaken, while a glistening moisture in her eye told how very, very glad she was to see him returned in safety. She was the last person on earth one would have imagined the wife of the fierce and daring man to whom her fate was united. But Garcias with her was not fierce; it seemed as if to him her tenderness was contagious; and the moment his eye met hers, its fire sunk and softened, and it only seemed to reflect the tender glance of her own. After giving a delicious moment or two to the first sweet feelings of his return, the smuggler appeared suddenly to remember me, and taking me by the hand, he presented me to his wife as a French gentleman, to whom he and his were indebted for much; adding, that all the hospitality she could show me would not repay the kindness and patronage he had received from my house. She received me with a modesty, and a grace, and a simple elegance, I had hardly expected to meet in an insignificant mountain village; and led the way to their dwelling, which was by far the best in the place, not even excepting that of the principal officer of the Spanish customs, who, somewhat to my surprise, came out of his house to welcome back Garcias, with more friendship than I could have supposed to exist between a smuggler and a _douanier_. Our arrival was the signal for feasting and merriment. Some of the youths of the village had been very successful in the chase; and the delicate flesh of the izzard, with fine white bread and excellent wine, were in such abundance, that my poor little follower, Achilles Lefranc, ate, and drank, and sang, and gesticulated, seeming to think himself quite in the land of promise. He busied himself about everything; and though he neither understood nor spoke one word of the language, he was so gay, and so lively, and so well pleased himself, that he won the goodwill of the whole village.