A FEMININE VIPER.

WHEN Basil Lovel was twenty, his passion was botany. He wandered about ancient forests, as ardent as a knight of romance, although his quest was no beauty in distress, nor mighty giant to lay low, but only to discover some fair flower sleeping in its shady nook, or to drag some cruel, poisonous weed from its lair. One Summer he had turned his steps far to the south of France, where the country was most interesting, botanically speaking, and during one of his long and solitary excursions he met with the adventure I am about to relate.

The day was burning hot, and he had wandered far into the depths of the forest, forgetful, in the rich harvest of choicest plants with which his quest had been Vol. XXV., No. 1-4.

crowned, the directions the people at the inn had given him; and the consequence was that, on reaching the heart of the woods, where innumerable avenues branched off in every direction, he was uncertain which road to take. Not a living soul was visible; no bird nor animal disturbed the profound silence of the spot, where a curious pyramid, squat and broad, marked the central point from which the lonely avenues radiated. As Basil sat himself down on the lower steps of the pile he forgot alike fatigue, hunger or thirst, in that sweet and delicious daydream that charmed and soothed his senses with a soft languor.

How long he had been thus dreaming he did not know, when he heard, in a thicket close by,

a plaintive and not unmelodious whistle. As he started to listen it ceased. Presently it was repeated, accompanied by a slight rustle and wave in the long grass near him. But he could see no creature. The whistle sounded again, this time at some distance. Then it ceased, and he heard it no more.

He was now thoroughly aroused and startled to find that the day was wellnigh spent, and that the sky, hitherto so cloudless, was overcast, as if a storm was not far distant; so taking his staff in hand, he struck into one of the numerous avenues, quickening his pace to get out of the forest before nightfall.

The path in which he found himself was a narrow, winding one, which delved down into a little valley. Here he perceived a cluster of cottages, where lights

were already twinkling. Into the first of these houses he entered. The door was open, and he was spared the trouble of knocking, as he bade its only occupant, an elderly and stupid-looking peasant, a good-evening, asking leave to enter and rest, which request was granted with alacrity, the man adding :

"Perhaps monsieur would like a drink of milk?' Basil thankfully accepted, and his host, without getting up from the fireplace, where he was brewing something in an iron pot, raised his voice, saying:

"Margot, bring the young monsieur some milk." The door of an inner room opened, and Margot appeared with a brass candlestick, in which a tallow candle flared. As she entered, Basil was struck with her appearance, so great a contrast did it present to the rough, coarse, good-humored exterior of her common peasant husband. She was tall, supple and lithe-limbed, wearing a close petticoat and jacket, which set off her slender proportions, and left her feet and ankles bare. They were remarkably small and well made, as were her hands. Her neck, too, was long and slender and flexible, supporting a head remarkably small, but flat and illy shaped. Her face, very narrow, with thin, clear-cut features, was sallow almost to swarthiness, and her small, rather glittering black eyes seemed to chill her visitor to the very marrow of his bones. She wore no cap on her black hair, and though by no means ugly, Basil found her a most repelling-looking person.

"Milk !" she answered, in a soft, hissing voice, that reminded the young man strangely of the mysterious whistle he had heard in the forest-"milk! Yes, monsieur, certainly. And would monsieur like some bread with it ?"

Basil thanked her as she reached down a tin can from the shelf and filled a coarse bowl with rich-looking milk, adding a loaf of black bread to the repast. All her movements were lithe, quick and graceful, yet the young man could barely repress an instinctive horror of the woman as he drank the milk and praised her cow. She smiled, her smile making her more repelling-looking, and said: "But, monsieur, we have no cow. We are too poor for that."

"Yes, yes," interrupted the husband. good league for that milk, rain or shine, every day."

"Then you are very fond of milk ?"

"I tramp a hot or cold,

while Nicole and I can make ourselves comfortable before the fire here."

“Thank you." said Basil. I think I must try to push on."

"Monsieur could scarcely find his way in the storm and darkness to-night," she replied, "even if he were of the country. His inn, that he mentions, is a good two leagues across the forest, and the men about here are too great poltroons to undertake to show monsieur the way in a storm like this."

This latter remark was accompanied by a quick, scornful glance at her husband, who sullenly shifted in his seat, muttering something about not being afraid, but who, nevertheless, did not volunteer to be Basil's guide.

There was, therefore, no alternative, and despite the repugnance the young man felt at accepting, he did accept. As Margot rose to prepare the bed for him it was a relief to know that he would soon be out of her sight, nor did he linger long when she emerged from the inner room, announcing that everything was ready, but, bidding his hostess a hearty good-night, entered his apartment and bolted the door.

The room was small and clean, and the bed justified Margot's eulogium, for it was both fresh and soft, and Basil, who was young and tired, despite his uneasiness, soon fell fast asleep.

But his slumbers were destined to be disturbed by most fearful dreams, in which he was ever struggling with Margot, who, with her supple, lithe arms, strong and flexible as steel, would embrace him, smiling and tightening her hold until, shrieking for mercy, he would awake, trembling in every limb, his teeth chattering with fear, but to fall asleep again and dream the same fearful dream over in endless succession.

The dreadful monotony of the vision wearied the dreamer as much as the struggle itself, and as the grayness of the early dawn stole in through the little window, he was glad enough to rouse himself by sitting up to look about him. Even at that early hour he recognized Margot's tall form hurrying off toward the forest, and as it was lost in the thick, white mist that vailed everything, his eyes strayed back to the room in which he had passed so uncomfortable a night. The whitewashed walls were bare and cold, no devotional prints breaking their dull sameness. Nothing betrayed the presence of woman in the comfortless apartment. No pincushion graced the

As Basil.did not think it polite to question his hostess as to what she did with the contents of the large tin can -since she could not afford to drink it-he ate and drank in silence. Before he had finished his meal the storm broke over them, and the hope of leaving the cottage and reaching his home that night became slender. A flash of lightning filled the room, a loud thunder-peal followed with a fierce dash of rain. As the man crossed himself piously Margot coolly went and shut the door.

The storm bid fair to be as long as it was terrible. The thunder rolled and muttered, and the rain poured and beat down mercilessly. Margot and her husband each sat down to a plateful of soup, while their unwilling guest paced the floor in vexation-a vexation he could not fathom, unless the restless eyes of Margot were at the bottom of it. In vain he tried to avoid them, they followed, or seemed to follow, him, everywhere. The storm increased instead of lessening, and Margot presently said, with much civility:

"Monsieur had better spend the night here. We have a very good bed, which is at monsieur's disposition,

flowers, or rush-bottomed chair with work-table near. But something caught Basil's eye at the foot of the bed, instantly fixing his attention and petrifying him with horror. Strung on slender reeds, like herrings, and forming festoons on the wall, were rows upon rows of black vipers.

The young man had an instinctive horror of snakes, and a profuse perspiration broke out all over him as he sprang from the bed and hurried on his clothes, and scarcely stopping to unbolt the door, he entered the kitchen in a towering passion.

"How dare you make me sleep in a room full of snakes ?" he asked of his host, who was already up, and busy over the iron pot.

"But, monsieur, they are all dead," said the man, apologetically, at the same time dropping the young man's tin box he had been examining.

"Of course they are all dead; a nice thing if they were all alive and squirming!" said Basil, exasperated. "If they were alive they would bite monsieur, but as they are, they are harmless, and fetch ten sous a piece." The incorrigible stupidity of his host caused Basil to

Margot had the

"I do not kill them, monsieur; it is Margot who has the secret," the peasant replied, in an injured voice. "I have prayed and begged for it again and again, but she will not impart it to me. She says "he paused, lowering his voice and glancing uneasily about" that if two knew it it would cause her death. Now you see, monsieur, that it is hard on me, because if she were to die suddenly I should be left destitute."

"So she has promised to tell the secret to you on her deathbed ?"

"Why, assuredly, monsieur; else I would not have married her."

"Perhaps, after all, there is no secret," said Basil, skeptically.

"Pardon me, monsieur, but there is. Margot never meddled with vipers till her mother died, though she always had a pet snake or two about her. You see, she

He had no time to finish the sentence. A hand snatched the herbs from his, and Margot thrust her face, livid with passion, between the two men.

weather to keep her cool. When she was a gay young girl she had a snake that went everywhere with her, and terrified the other young girls. She was very fond of it, but she killed it one day when it did something to offend her."

"Did she ever make a pet of a viper ?"

Her husband, whom she addressed, slunk away like a whipped hound. Her anger was as brief as it was violent, for, giving him a look of contempt, she turned to the young man, and smiling, asked if he had slept well, and proposed giving him a cup of milk for breakfast.

But Basil could not have much milk in Margot's house now without its tasting" viperish," so declining the courtesy with brief thanks, he paid his bill, and securing his host as guide to put him on his homeward road, he left the cottage.

The peasant evidently wished to get away from his wife, whose eyes followed him with a particularly evil expression; but once out of sight of the cottage, he took heart of grace, and began to converse eagerly with Basil.

"You see, monsieur," he said, apologetically, "Margot is a good girl in the main; a little quick, but a good girl, for all that. She was a wonderful match for me. The secret has been in her family for a hundred years or more, handed down from father to son, or daughter, as the case might be, and all these girls have been sought far and wide, and have made any match they chose; and I, you see, monsieur, had not a sou.'

'How came she to marry you?" Basil asked. The man smiled sheepishly as he replied:

in discussing it.

Yet he could not get the woman and her horrible trade out of his mind. Her serpentine grace, her flat head and evil eyes, with deadly look, were now explained to him. She was a feminine viper, and he had no doubt that between herself and her victims there existed an affinity which made them go to their perdition with a kind of pleasure. She imitated its call, and it came as though one of its kind whistled; she fed it to repletion, and when stupefied and torpid, she coolly killed it, stringing it on a reed, and carning ten sous for it. Yet this creature, that seemed so apart from the rest of her sex, could bestow love on her lumpish brute of a husband, who only sought to surprise her secret, and who only contemplated the possibility of her death as a pecuniary loss. Basil's thoughts were interrupted by the buxom hostess of the inn coming in to see if he required anything. "My husband and I were quite anxious about monsieur during the storm of last night," she said.

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"I saved myself from a wetting just in time," he answered, "by taking refuge with Nicole and Margot Dupré, who kindly kept me all night."

Ah, just Heavens !" said the hostess, turning her eyes up; "I would not have slept at Margot's, no, not if the wolves in the forest were waiting to devour me. Does not monsieur know that she is a witch, who talks to

“But why will she not tell you the secret? You could then hunt the vipers in company, and catch double the number."

Margot's husband looked ill-used.

"She will not tell, do what I will to urge her. She says if it is known to more than one person at a time the vipers will sting her and kill her. Now monsieur will allow that this is only an idea, but an idea that possesses her like a devil. Did not monsieur hear her call me a devil, a monster, and ask if I wished to murder her, all because I had a bit of the herb in my hand? But," he added, nodding shrewdly, "I know where it grows, and I will make a tisane of it when she is out-and try it, too.

can kill them, and sell them for ten sous a piece? Ugh! It is well known in the country," she continued, "that Margot uses witchcraft. She takes a drink of a certain kind of tisane known only to herself, and which makes the vipers dance and follow her when she whistles. But you see, monsieur, the drink makes her sallow, and Margot is never in good health. It will all end in some evil. Margot went mad after Nicole Dupré, and forced him to marry her, though she might have made a much better match in my own cousin. But it's all wrong, and Nicole will have no peace till he has found out the secret, and when he has discovered it, the vipers will set upon Margot and sting her to death."

Crude and ignorant as this superstition was, Basil