ad endeavoured to attract the
attention of a young man whose heart was fully occupied by another
object. Ill humour, on account of Bertha's secrecy, clouded her
features. She sought excuse for her own conduct, and found it only in
the duplicity of her cousin. If she had but acknowledged, she said to
herself, the feeling which existed between her and the young knight,
she never would have shown the interest she took in him; he would have
been perfectly indifferent to her; she never would have experienced
this painful confusion.

Marie did not deign to give the unhappy young man another look during
the evening, and he was too much occupied with the painful sensations
of his own mind, to be aware of her ill will towards him. He was also
so unfortunate as to be scarcely able to say another word alone and
unobserved to Bertha. The ball ended, and left him in doubt as to what
her future fate, or the intentions of her father were likely to be. She
seized, however, a favourable moment to whisper to him on the
staircase, when she was going home, begging him to remain in the town
on the morrow, in the hope of finding an opportunity to speak with him.

The two girls went home, both ill at ease with each other. Marie gave
short, snappish answers to Bertha's questions, who, whether it was that
she suspected what was passing in her cousin's mind, or whether she was
overwhelmed by grief, became more melancholy and reserved than ever.

But when they entered their room, silent and cold towards each other,
then it was that they both felt how painful was the interruption of
their hitherto affectionate intercourse. Up to this eventful evening,
they had always assisted each other in all those little services, which
unite young girls in friendship. How different was it now? Marie had
taken the silver pin out of her rich light hair, which fell in long
ringlets over her beautiful neck. She attempted to put it up under her
cap, but unaccustomed to arrange it without Bertha's help, and too
proud to let her enemy, as she now called her cousin in her mind,
notice her embarrassment, she threw it away in a corner, and seized a
handkerchief to tie it up.

Bertha, unconscious of having offended her cousin, could not fail
noticing her change of affection towards her, and felt acutely the
apparent sting of her ruffled temper. She quietly picked up the cap,
and came to render her cousin her usual assistance.

"Away with you, you false one!" said the