The lady who narrated the story went to live in the house, and passed some years without being disturbed; but one night she was lying awake, and distinctly heard the warning shower dripping heavily in the Weeping Chamber. Next day the news came of her mother’s death, and she hastened to remove to another dwelling. The house has since been utterly abandoned to rats, mice, beetles, and an occasional ghost seen sometimes streaming along the rain-pierced terraces. No one has ever attempted to violate the solitude of the sanctuary where Selima wept for the seven little ones taken to the grave, and for the absent one whom she had treated with unmotherly neglect. AN OLD MAID’S FIRST LOVE. I went once to the south of France for my health; and being recommended to choose the neighborhood of Avignon, took my place, I scarcely know why, in the diligence all the way from Paris. By this proceeding I missed the steam-voyage down the Rhône, but fell in with some very pleasant people, about whom I am going to speak. I traveled in the _intérieur_, and from Lyon had no one for companion but a fussy little lady, of a certain age, who had a large basket, a parrot in a cage, a little lapdog, a band-box, a huge blue umbrella, which she could never succeed in stowing any where, and a moth-eaten muff. In my valetudinarian state I was not pleased with this inroad—especially as the little lady had a thin, pinched-up face, and obstinately looked out of the window, while she popped about the _intérieur_ as if she had just taken lodgings, and was putting them in order, throwing me every now and then some gracious apology in a not unpleasant voice. “Mince as you please, madam,” thought I; “you are a bore.” I am sorry to add that I was very unaccommodating, gave no assistance in the stowing away of the umbrella, and when Fanfreluche came and placed his silken paws upon my knees, pushed him away very rudely. The little old maid—it was evident this was her quality—apologized for her dog as she had done for herself, and went on arranging her furniture—an operation not completed before we got to St. Saphorin.