Calmly and tranquilly as the conversation had been carried on up to this period, the mention of France seemed to break down the barrier of reserve within the old lady's mind, and she burst out in a wild flood of reminiscences of the last time she had seen her native village. "The Blues," as the revolutionary soldiers were called, had come down upon the quiet valley, carrying fire and carnage into a once peaceful district. The chateau of her family was razed to the ground; her husband was shot upon his own terrace; the whole village was put to the sword; her own escape was owing to the compassion of the gardener's wife, who dressed her like a peasant boy, and employed her in a menial station, a condition she was forced to continue so long as the troops remained in the neighborhood. "Yes," said she, drawing off her silk mittens, "these hands still witness the hardships I speak of. These are the marks of my servitude." It was in vain the general tried at first to sympathize, and then withdraw her from the theme; in vain her niece endeavored to suggest another topic, or convey a hint that the subject might be unpleasing to me. It was the old lady's one absorbing idea, and she could not relinquish it. Whole volumes of the atrocities perpetrated by the revolutionary soldiery came to her recollection; each moment, as she talked, memory would recall this fact or the other, and so she continued rattling on with the fervor of a heated imagination, and the wild impetuosity of a half-crazed intellect. As for myself, I suffered far more from witnessing the pain others felt for me, than from any offense the topic occasioned me directly. These events were all "before my time." I was neither a Blue by birth nor adoption; a child during the period of revolution, I had only taken a man's part when the country, emerging from its term of anarchy and blood, stood at bay against the whole of Europe. These consolations were, however, not known to the others, and it was at last, in a moment of unendurable agony, that mademoiselle rose and left the room. The general's eyes followed her as she went, and then sought mine with an expression full of deep meaning. If I read his look aright, it spoke patience and submission; and the lesson was an easier one than he thought.