tering the soul like the passionate sighing of one heart. Sometimes,
seeing the Marquis de Simeuse buried in an arm-chair and glancing from
time to time with deepest melancholy at his brother and Laurence who
were talking and laughing, the abbe believed him capable of making the
great sacrifice; presently, however, the priest would see in the young
man's eyes the flash of an unconquerable passion. Whenever either of the
brothers found himself alone with Laurence he might reasonably suppose
himself the one preferred.

"I fancy then that there is but one of them," explained the countess to
the abbe when he questioned her. That answer showed the priest her total
want of coquetry. Laurence did not conceive that she was loved by two
men.

"But, my dear child," said Madame d'Hauteserre one evening (her own son
silently dying of love for Laurence), "you must choose!"

"Oh, let us be happy," she replied; "God will save us from ourselves."

Adrien d'Hauteserre buried within his breast the jealousy that was
consuming him; he kept the secret of his torture, aware of how little
he could hope. He tried to be content with the happiness of seeing the
charming woman who during the few months this struggle lasted shone in
all her brilliancy. In one sense Laurence had become coquettish, taking
that dainty care of her person which women who are loved delight in.
She followed the fashions, and went more than once to Paris to deck her
beauty with _chiffons_ or some choice novelty. Desirous of giving her
cousins a sense of home and its every enjoyment, from which they had so
long been severed, she made her chateau, in spite of the remonstrances
of her late guardian, the most completely comfortable house in
Champagne.

Robert d'Hauteserre saw nothing of this hidden drama; he never noticed
his brother's love for Laurence. As to the girl herself, he liked to
tease her about her coquetry,--for he confounded that odious defect
with the natural desire to please; he was always mistaken in matters
of feeling, taste, and the higher ethics. So, whenever this man of
the middle-ages appeared on the scene, Laurence immediately made him,
unknown to himself, the clown of the play; she amused her cousins by
arguing with Robert, and leading him, step by step, into some bog of
ignorance and stupidity. She excelled in such clever mischief, which,
to be really successful, must leave the victim content with himself.
And yet, though his nature was a coarse o