were her
assigned ones), she was but too welcome to bestow her companionship on
others; and except Roland, and le petit frere, who was there to miss la
petite Madelaine? And Roland was mostly her escort to St Hilaire; and on
fine evenings, when le petit frere had escaped from his tutor and his
sisters, Jeannette was easily persuaded to take him as far as the old
mill, half-way between the chateaux, to meet her on her way home. Those
were pleasant meetings. Madelaine loved often, in after-life, to talk of
them with that dear brother, always her faithful friend. So time went
on--Time, the traveller whose pace is so variously designated by various
humours, is always the restless, the unpausing--till Mademoiselle de St
Hilaire had attained the perfection of blooming womanhood--the glowing
loveliness of her one-and-twentieth summer--and la petite Madelaine
began to think people ought to treat her more like a woman--for was she
not fifteen complete? Poor little Madelaine! thou hadst indeed arrived
at that most womanly era. But, to look at that small slight form, still
childishly attired in frock and sash, of the simplest form and
homeliest materials--at that almost infantine face, that looked _more_
youthful, and _almost_ beautiful, when it smiled, from the effect of
a certain dimple in the left cheek (Adrienne always insisted it was a
pock-mark);--to look at that form and face, and the babyish curls of
light-brown hair that hung about it quite down the little throat, and
lay clustering on the girlish neck--who could ever have thought of
paying thee honour due as to the dignity of confirmed womanhood?

So it was Madelaine's fate still to be "La petite Madelaine"--still
nobody--that anomalous personage who plays so many parts in society,--as
often to suit his own convenience as for that of others; and though
people are apt to murmur at being forced into the character, many a one
lives to assume it willingly--as one slips off a troublesome costume
at a masque, to take shelter under a quiet domino. As for la petite
Madelaine, who did not care very much about the matter, though it was a
_little_ mortifying to be patted on the head, and called "bonne petite,"
instead of "mademoiselle," as was her undoubted right, from strangers at
least, it was better to be _somebody_ in one or two hearts (le petit
frere et Jeannette) than in the mere _respects_ of a hundred indifferent
people; and as for la belle cousine, Madelaine, though on exc