"Monseigneur," he said, addressing the minister, "a terrible deed will speedily be accomplished, if you are not in time to prevent it. Let your agents visit, before daybreak, every carriage gateway in Paris; in the inner angle of one of them will be found a blood-stained handkerchief. The blood is that of a young female, whose murder, already begun, has been miraculously suspended. Her family have condemned their victim to have her veins opened one by one, and thus to perish slowly in expiation of a fault, already more than punished by her mortal agony. Courage, my friend, you have already some hours. May God assist you--I can only pray." That same morning, at eight o'clock, the minister of police entered the curé's room. "My friend," said he, "I confess my inferiority, you are able to instruct me in expedients." "Saved!" cried the old man, bursting into tears. "Saved," said the minister, "and rescued from the power of her cruel relations. But the next time, dear abbé, that you want my assistance in a benevolent enterprise, I wish you would give me a little more time to accomplish it." Within the next twenty-four hours, by an express order from the king, the Duke de ---- and his accomplices were secretly removed from Paris, and conveyed out of the kingdom. The young woman received all the care which her precarious state required; and when sufficiently recovered, retired to a quiet country village where the royal protection assured her safety. It is scarcely needful to say, that next to her Maker, the curé of St. Germais was the object of her deepest gratitude and filial love. During fifteen years, the holy man received from time to time the expression of her grateful affection; and at length, when himself, from extreme old age, on the brink of the grave, he received the intelligence that she had departed in peace. Never until then, had a word of this mysterious adventure passed the good curé's lips. On his deathbed, however, he confided the recital to a bishop, one of his particular friends; and from a relation of the latter, I myself heard it. This is the exact truth. ZOOLOGICAL STORIES. Travelers' tales have a peculiar reputation for the marvelous, and many travelers have been accused of fiction. Whether zoologists' tales are in all cases to be trusted, we have, now and then, a doubt. They are true in the main; but sometimes, possibly, the first narrator of an unusually good story has judiciously abstained from sifting it; and once in the Zoological Story-book, the pleasant tale has stood on its own merits, and been handled tenderly, as is the way with ornaments; no man too roughly scratching at them to find out of what materials they are composed.