“Madame de Belmont laughed heartily, and said, ‘she owed me a double obligation.’ Mademoiselle Amelia has given me my recompence for the diamond,’ said I to her;--‘I claim yours also, madame.’ ‘Ask, sir--’ ‘Permission to pay my respects sometimes to you!’ ‘Granted,’ replied she, gaily. I kissed her hand respectfully, that of her daughter tenderly, and withdrew. But I returned the next day--and every day--I was received with a kindness that each visit increased,--I was looked on as one of the family. It was I who now gave my arm to Madame de Belmont to conduct her to the evening parties; she presented me as her friend, and they were no longer dull to her daughter. New-Year’s-Day arrived. I had gone the evening before to a sheepfold in the vicinity to purchase a lamb similar to that I had killed. I collected from the different hot-houses all the flowering rose-trees I could find; the finest of them was for Madame de Belmont; and the roses of the others were wreathed in a garland round the fleecy neck of the lamb. In the evening I went to my neighbours, with my presents. ‘Robin and the rose-tree are restored to life,’ said I, in offering my homage, which was received with sensibility and gratefulness. ‘I also should like to give you a New-Year’s-gift,’ said Madame de Belmont to me, ‘if I but knew what you would best like.’ ‘What I best like--ah! if I only dared to tell you.’ ‘If it should chance now to be my daughter--.’ I fell at her feet, and so did Amelia. ‘Well,’ said the kind parent, ‘there then is your New-Year’s-gift ready found; Amelia gives you her heart, and I give you her hand.’ She took the rose wreath from off the lamb, and twined it round our united hands. ‘And my Amelia,’ continued the old professor, as he finished his anecdote, passing an arm round his companion as she sat beside him, ‘My Amelia is still to my eyes as beautiful, and to my heart as dear, as on the day when our hands were bound together with a chain of flowers.’” [FROM THE GERMAN.] [Illustration: 085] THE MARCH OF MIND.