the
countless associations of every scene; and Isabel, becoming aware of
his amount of knowledge, and tone of deep thought, perceived that she
had done Mr. Frost Dynevor injustice in believing his friendship blind
or unmerited.

They were on most comfortable terms. They had walked all over
Versailles together, and talked under their breath of the murdered
Queen; they had been through the Louvre, and Isabel, knowing it well of
old, found all made vivid and new by his enthusiastic delight; they had
marvelled together at the poor withered 'popular trees,' whose name had
conferred on them the fatal distinction of trees of liberty; they had
viewed, like earnest people, the scenes of republican Paris, and
discussed them with the same principles, but with sufficient difference
in detail for amicable argument. They had thought much of things and
people, and not at all of each other.

Only Isabel thought she would make the Viscount into a Vidame, both as
more quaint and less personal, and involving slight erasures, and Louis
was surprised to find what was the true current of his thoughts. With
Isabel propitious, without compunction in addressing her, with all the
novelty and amusement before him, he found himself always recurring to
Mary, trying all things by Mary's judgment, wondering whether he should
need approval of his theories in Mary's eyes, craving Mary's
sympathies, following her on her voyage, and imagining her arrival.
Was it the perverse spirit of longing after the most unattainable?

He demanded of himself whether it were a fatal sign that he regretted
the loss of Isabel, when she went to spend a few days with her old
governess. Miss Longman had left the Conway family in order to take
care of the motherless children of a good-for-nothing brother, who had
run too deeply into debt to be able to return to England. He was now
dead, but she was teaching English, and obtaining advantages of
education for her nieces, which detained her at Paris; and as she had a
bed to offer her former pupil, Isabel set her heart on spending her
last three days in the unrestrained intercourse afforded by a visit to
her. Louis found that though their party had lost the most agreeable
member, yet it was not the loss of the sun; and that he was quite as
ready to tease his aunt and make Virginia laugh, as if Isabel had been
looking on with a smile of wonder and commiseration for their nonsense.

CHAPTER XX.

THE FANTASTIC VI