assiduity so essential to success;
and although the fair object of his regard did not appear insensible to
his silent and gentle homage, he never could collect resolution to
reveal his feelings. His diffidence was increased, too, by the unmeaning
gallantry of two young and lively officers of the garrison, who,
although precluded by their nobility from marriage with the daughter of
a citizen, employed a portion of their abundant leisure in making
skirmishing experiments upon the affections of the lovely Angelique.
While these military butterflies were fluttering round the woman he
loved, poor Florian, daunted by the painful consciousness of his
comparative disadvantages, rarely presumed to enter the villa in which
her father resided, about half a league beyond the city gates, and
endeavoured to console himself by wandering in a pleasant grove
immediately contiguous. Here a majestic elm was endeared to him by the
knowledge that his beloved Angelique often took her work to a turf seat
beneath its spreading branches. Here, too, he sometimes left a flower,
or other silent token of his regard, the ascertained acceptance of which
did not, however, encourage him to any decisive measure. At length
arrived the autumnal vacation, which closed his academic studies; and he
determined to pass the winter in his native province, where he thought
the influence of his guardians, and the favourable testimony of his
Jesuit teachers, would procure for him such recommendations as might
render his extensive legal knowledge available for his future support.
He proposed to return in the ensuing spring to D.; and should his
mistress have stood the test of six months' absence, and still regard
him with an eye of favour, he would then openly declare himself. He
called upon her father at his counting-house, and after explaining to
him the probable advantages of his visit to Normandy, bade him farewell,
and hastened with a beating heart to the villa, where he had the good
fortune to find his Angelique alone. Always timid and irresolute in her
presence, the fear of betraying his feelings on this occasion made him
tremble as he approached her. Her young cheek glowed with unaffected
blushes, as she observed a confusion which led her to anticipate an
avowal of his attachment; and when he merely told her that he was going
to pass the winter in Normandy, and had called to say farewell, her fine
eyes became humid with the starting tears of sudden and uncontr