Mignonette, I have observed, is a special passion with the French exile,
recalling, doubtless, the narrow boxes, fitted to the stone window-sill
of certain former lofty lodgings across the sea, perhaps, situated in
the heart of some great city, and overlooking roofs and court-yards--the
street being quite out of the question in such a view, distant, as it
seems, from them, as the sky itself, though in an opposite direction.

I have used the word "exile" advisedly with regard to Madame Grambeau,
and not figuratively at all. She was, I had been told, a _bourgeoise_,
of good class, who had taken part in the early revolution, but who, when
the _canaille_ triumphed and drenched the land in blood, in the second
phase of that fearful outburst of volcanic feeling, had fled before the
whirlwind with her child and husband to embark for America. At the point
of embarcation--like Evangeline--the husband and wife had been separated
accidentally, and on her arrival in a strange land she found herself
alone and penniless with her son, scarce six years old. Her husband had
been carried to a Southern port, she learned by the merest chance, and,
disguising herself in man's attire, and leading her little son by the
hand, she set forth in quest of him, carrying with her a violin, which,
together with the clothes she wore, had been found in the trunk of
Monsieur Grambeau, brought on the vessel in which she came, but which
depository she had been obliged to abandon, when setting forth on her
pilgrimage.

She was no unskillful performer on this instrument, and solely by such
aid she gained her food and lodging to the interior of Georgia. Reaching
her destination after a long and painful journey and delays of many
kinds, she found her husband living in a log-hut, on the border of
Talupa River, a hut which he had built himself, and earning his bread by
ferrying travellers across that stream.