illing it with a pervasive unimaginable grace. A delicately
fair woman, radiant with smiles, a child of love, a young man with the
irresistible charm of youth, a cloudless sky; nothing was wanting in
nature to complete a perfect harmony for the delight of the soul. I
found myself smiling as if their happiness had been my own.

The clocks struck nine. The young man gave a tender embrace to his
companion, and went towards the tilbury which an old servant drove
slowly to meet him. The lady had grown grave and almost sad. The child's
prattle sounded unchecked through the last farewell kisses. Then the
tilbury rolled away, and the lady stood motionless, listening to the
sound of the wheels, watching the little cloud of dust raised by its
passage along the road. Charles ran down the green pathway back to the
bridge to join his sister. I heard his silver voice calling to her.

"Why did you not come to say good-bye to my good friend?" cried he.

Helene looked up. Never surely did such hatred gleam from a child's
eyes as from hers at that moment when she turned them on the brother who
stood beside her on the bank side. She gave him an angry push. Charles
lost his footing on the steep slope, stumbled over the roots of a tree,
and fell headlong forwards, dashing his forehead on the sharp-edged
stones of the embankment, and, covered with blood, disappeared over the
edge into the muddy river. The turbid water closed over a fair, bright
head with a shower of splashes; one sharp shriek after another rang in
my ears; then the sounds were stifled by the thick stream, and the poor
child sank with a dull sound as if a stone had been thrown into the
water. The accident had happened with more than lightning swiftness. I
sprang down the footpath, and Helene, stupefied with horror, shrieked
again and again:

"Mamma! mamma!"

The mother was there at my side. She had flown to the spot like a bird.
But neither a mother's eyes nor mine could find the exact place where
the little one had gone under. There was a wide space of black hurrying
water, and below in the bed of the Bievre ten feet of mud. There was
not the smallest possibility of saving the child. No one was stirring at
that hour on a Sunday morning, and there are neither barges nor anglers
on the Bievre. There was not a creature in sight, not a pole to plumb
the filthy stream. What need was there for me to explain how the
ugly-looking accident had happened--accident or misfortune, wh