--They were the sweetest notes I ever heard; and I instantly let down the fore-glass to hear them more distinctly--'Tis Maria; said the postillion, observing I was listening--Poor Maria, continued he (leaning his body on one side to let me see her, for he was in a line betwixt us), is sitting upon a bank playing her vespers upon her pipe, with her little goat beside her.
The young fellow utter'd this with an accent and a look so perfectly in tune to a feeling heart, that I instantly made a vow, I would give him a four-and-twenty sous piece, when I got to Moulins----And who is poor Maria? said I.
The love and piety of all the villages around us; said the postillion--it is but three years ago, that the sun did not shine upon so fair, so quick-witted and amiable a maid; and better fate did Maria deserve, than to have her Banns forbid, by the intrigues of the curate of the parish who published them--He was going on, when Maria, who had made a short pause, put the pipe to her mouth, and began the air again--they were the same notes;--yet were ten times sweeter: It is the evening service to the Virgin, said the young man--but who has taught her to play it--or how she came by her pipe, no one knows; we think that heaven has assisted her in both; for ever since she has been unsettled in her mind, it seems her only consolation--she has never once had the pipe out of her hand, but plays that service upon it almost night and day.
The postillion delivered this with so much discretion and natural eloquence, that I could not help decyphering something in his face above his condition, and should have sifted out his history, had not poor Maria taken such full possession of me.
We had got up by this time almost to the bank where Maria was sitting: she was in a thin white jacket, with her hair, all but two tresses, drawn up into a silk-net, with a few olive leaves twisted a little fantastically on one side--she was beautiful; and if ever I felt the full force of an honest heart-ache, it was the moment I saw her----God help her! poor damsel! above a hundred masses, said the postillion, have been said in the several parish churches and convents around, for her,--but without effect; we have still hopes, as she is sensible for short intervals, that the Virgin at last will restore her to herself; but her parents, who know her best, are hopeless upon that score, and think her senses are lost for ever.
As the postillion spoke this, Maria made a cadence so melancholy, so tender and querulous, that I sprung out of the chaise to help her, and found myself sitting betwixt her and her goat before I relapsed from my enthusiasm.
Maria look'd wistfully for some time at me, and then at her goat--and then at me--and then at her goat again, and so on, alternately----Well, Maria, said I softly--What resemblance do you find?
I do entreat the candid reader to believe me, that it was from the humblest conviction of what a Beast man is,--that I asked the question; and that Iwould not have let fallen an unseasonable pleasantry in the venerable presence of Misery, to be entitled to all the wit that ever Rabelais scatter'd--and yet I own my heart smote me, and that I so smarted at the very idea of it, that I swore I would set up for Wisdom, and utter grave sentences the rest of my days--and never--never attempt again to commit mirth with man, woman, or child, the longest day I had to live.
As for writing nonsense to them--I believe there was a reserve--but that Ileave to the world.
Adieu, Maria!--adieu, poor hapless damsel!--some time, but not now, I may hear thy sorrows from thy own lips--but I was deceived; for that moment she took her pipe and told me such a tale of woe with it, that I rose up, and with broken and irregular steps walk'd softly to my chaise.
--What an excellent inn at Moulins!
