plation, she pressed her second son to her breast, and
murmured sobbing: "You, too! you, too, will desert your mother some
day."

"Yes, mother," replied the boy, "to become a general like my father, or
an aide-de-camp like Roland."

"And to be killed as your father was, as your brother perhaps will be."

For the strange transformation in Roland's character had not escaped
Madame de Montrevel. It was but an added dread to her other anxieties,
among which Amelie's pallor and abstraction must be numbered.

Amelie was just seventeen; her childhood had been that of a happy
laughing girl, joyous and healthy. The death of her father had cast a
black veil over her youth and gayety. But these tempests of spring pass
rapidly. Her smile, the sunshine of life's dawn, returned like that of
Nature, sparkling through that dew of the heart we call tears.

Then, one day about six months before this story opens, Amelie's face
had saddened, her cheeks had grown pale, and, like the birds who migrate
at the approach of wintry weather, the childlike laughter that escaped
her parted lips and white teeth had fled never to return.

Madame de Montrevel had questioned her, but Amelie asserted that she was
still the same. She endeavored to smile, but as a stone thrown into
a lake rings upon the surface, so the smiles roused by this maternal
solicitude faded, little by little, from Amelie's face. With keen
maternal instinct Madame de Montrevel had thought of love. But
whom could Amelie love? There were no visitors at the Chateau des
Noires-Fontaines, the political troubles had put an end to all society,
and Amelie went nowhere alone. Madame de Montrevel could get no further
than conjecture. Roland's return had given her a moment's hope; but
this hope fled as soon as she perceived the effect which this event had
produced upon Amelie.

It was not a sister, but a spectre, it will be recalled, who had come
to meet him. Since her son's arrival, Madame de Montrevel had not
lost sight of Amelie, and she perceived, with dolorous amazement, that
Roland's presence awakened a feeling akin to terror in his sister's
breast. She, whose eyes had formerly rested so lovingly upon him, now
seemed to view him with alarm. Only a few moments since, Amelie had
profited by the first opportunity to return to her room, the one spot in
the chateau where she seemed at ease, and where for the last six months
she had spent most of her time. The dinner-bell alone possess