stified beyond expression, but as thoroughly, as suddenly,
relieved from all sense of the spectral and unearthly; scorning also to
wear out my brain with the fret of a trivial though insoluble riddle, I
just bundled together stole, veil, and bandages, thrust them beneath my
pillow, lay down, listened till I heard the wheels of Madame's
home-returning fiacre, then turned, and worn out by many nights'
vigils, conquered, too, perhaps, by the now reacting narcotic, I deeply
slept.

CHAPTER XL.

THE HAPPY PAIR.

The day succeeding this remarkable Midsummer night, proved no common
day. I do not mean that it brought signs in heaven above, or portents
on the earth beneath; nor do I allude to meteorological phenomena, to
storm, flood, or whirlwind. On the contrary: the sun rose jocund, with
a July face. Morning decked her beauty with rubies, and so filled her
lap with roses, that they fell from her in showers, making her path
blush: the Hours woke fresh as nymphs, and emptying on the early hills
their dew-vials, they stepped out dismantled of vapour: shadowless,
azure, and glorious, they led the sun's steeds on a burning and
unclouded course.

In short, it was as fine a day as the finest summer could boast; but I
doubt whether I was not the sole inhabitant of the Rue Fossette, who
cared or remembered to note this pleasant fact. Another thought busied
all other heads; a thought, indeed, which had its share in my
meditations; but this master consideration, not possessing for me so
entire a novelty, so overwhelming a suddenness, especially so dense a
mystery, as it offered to the majority of my co-speculators thereon,
left me somewhat more open than the rest to any collateral observation
or impression.

Still, while walking in the garden, feeling the sunshine, and marking
the blooming and growing plants, I pondered the same subject the whole
house discussed.

What subject?

Merely this. When matins came to be said, there was a place vacant in
the first rank of boarders. When breakfast was served, there remained a
coffee-cup unclaimed. When the housemaid made the beds, she found in
one, a bolster laid lengthwise, clad in a cap and night-gown; and when
Ginevra Fanshawe's music-mistress came early, as usual, to give the
morning lesson, that accomplished and promising young person, her
pupil, failed utterly to be forthcoming.

High and low was Miss Fanshawe sought; through length and breadth was
the house ransacked;