ellent
terms with her, never dreamed of her having a heart,--one cause,
perhaps, of their mutual good understanding; for la petite Madelaine,
actuated by instinctive perception, felt that it would be perfectly
irrational to expect warmth of affection from one constituted so
differently from herself; so she went on, satisfied with the
consciousness of giving pleasure, and with such return as was made
for it.

But la petite Madelaine was soon to be invested with a most important
office; one, however, that was by no means to supersede her character of
Nobody, but, enigmatical as it may sound, to double her usefulness in
that capacity--while, on private and particular occasions, she was to
enact a _somebody_ of infinite consequence--that of confidante in a
love affair--as la belle cousine was pleased to term her _liaison_ with
a very handsome and elegant young officer, who, after some faint
opposition on the part of her parents, was duly installed at St Hilaire
as the accepted and acknowledged lover of its beautiful heiress. Walter
Barnard (for he was of English birth and parentage), the youngest of
three brothers, the elder of whom was a baronet, was most literally a
soldier of fortune, his portion, at his father's death, amounting to no
more than a pair of colours in a marching regiment--and the splendid
income thereunto annexed. But high in health and hope, and "all the
world before him where to choose"--of high principles--simple and
unvitiated habits--the object of the love of many friends, and the
esteem of all his brother officers--the young man was rather disposed to
consider his lot in life as peculiarly fortunate, till the pressure of
disease fell heavy on him, and he rose from a sick-bed which had held
him captive many weeks, the victim of infectious fever, so debilitated
in constitution as to be under the necessity of obtaining leave of
absence from his regiment, for the purpose (peremptorily insisted on by
his physician) of seeking the perfect change of air and scene which was
essential to effect his restoration. He was especially enjoined to try
the influence of another climate--that of France was promptly decided
on--not only from the proximity of that country (a consideration of no
small weight in the young soldier's prudential calculations), but
because a brother officer was about to join a part of his family then
resident at Caen in Normandy, and the pleasure of travelling with him
settled the point of Wa