ngel to the
girl. Permission could not be given for her to see her father. She had a
home in the modest home of Louise de Seilles on the borders of Dauphins;
and with French hearts at their best in winningness around her, she
learned again, as an art, the natural act of breathing calmly; she had by
degrees a longing for the snow-heights. When her imagination could perch
on them with love and pride, she began to recover the throb for a part in
human action. It set her nature flowing to the mate she had chosen, who
was her counsellor, her supporter, and her sword. She had awakened to new
life, not to sink back upon a breast of love, though thoughts of the
lover were as blows upon strung musical chords of her bosom. Her union
with Dartrey was for the having an ally and the being an ally, in
resolute vision of strife ahead, through the veiled dreams that bear the
blush. This was behind a maidenly demureness. Are not young women
hypocrites? Who shall fathom their guile! A girl with a pretty smile, a
gentle manner, a liking for wild flowers up on the rocks; and graceful
with resemblances to the swelling proportions of garden-fruits approved
in young women by the connoisseur eye of man; distinctly designed to
embrace the state of marriage, that she might (a girl of singularly lucid
and receptive eyes) the better give battle to men touching matters which
they howl at an eccentric matron for naming. So it was. And the yielding
of her hand to Dartrey, would have appeared at that period of her
revival, as among the baser compliances of the fleshly, if she had not
seen in him, whom she owned for leader, her fellow soldier, warrior
friend, hero, of her own heart's mould, but a greater.

She was on Como, at the villa of the Signora Giulia Sanfredini, when
Dudley's letter reached her, with the supplicating offer of the share of
his earldom. An English home meanwhile was proposed to her at the house
of his mother the Countess. He knew that he did not write to a brilliant
heiress. The generosity she had always felt that he possessed, he thus
proved in figures. They are convincing and not melting. But she was moved
to tears by his goodness in visiting her father, as well as by the
hopeful news he sent. He wrote delicately, withholding the title of her
father's place of abode. There were expectations of her father's perfect
recovery; the signs were auspicious; he appeared to be restored to the
'likeness to himself' in the instances Dudley