siting Madame Bertollon as frequently as before; but she
received me the more joy fully when we met; and I felt now, more than
ever, how sincerely I was attached to her. We never confessed how
indispensable we were to each other; but each of us betrayed it in
every feature, and by the cordiality of demeanour.

At times it seemed to me as if she were more melancholy than she had
been, and then, again, more affable and complaisant; at other times she
appeared to treat me with marked coldness and reserve; and then, again,
as if she wished, with sisterly affection, to quiet my anxiety. This
change of behaviour surprised me, and I vainly endeavoured to discover
the reason of it. I could not help perceiving that she no longer
possessed her former serenity and equanimity. I often found her with
eyes that evinced recent weeping. She sometimes spoke with singular
enthusiasm of the retirement of a convent, and withdrew more and more
from her usual society. A hidden melancholy gnawed the bud of her
youth.

These reflections make me also melancholy, and I in vain endeavoured to
cheer her. The calm sadness of her look, the vanishing bloom of her
cheek, her deep silence, and her efforts to conceal, by an affected
cheerfulness, the grief which was gnawing her heart, added to my
friendship the genial warmth and tenderness of sympathy. How gladly
would I have sacrificed my life to procure happiness for her!

One evening when I accompanied her singing on my harp, a sudden burst
of tears choked her voice. Alarmed, I ceased playing. She rose, and
was on the point of hurrying to her apartment to conceal her grief.

How touching, in moments of quiet suffering, are youth, beauty, and
innocence. I seized her hand, and held her back.

"No!" she exclaimed, "let me go."

"Stay, I cannot possibly let you go in this excited state. May I not
witness your grief? Am I not your friend? Do you not yourself call me
so? And does not this pleasing name give me a right to ask you the
cause of that affliction which you in vain endeavour to conceal from
me?"

"Leave me, I conjure you, leave me," she cried, as she endeavoured,
with feeble efforts, to free herself.

"No," said I, "you are unhappy."

"Unhappy, alas!" she sighed, with unrestrained grief, drooping her
beautiful face on my bosom to conceal her tears.

Involuntarily I clasped my arms around the gentle sufferer. A deep
sympathy seized me. I stammered forth some words of c