h her. Fortunately, he did not wake, and she resumed
her reading.

When shall I return? I do not know. The climate of the West Indies
ages a European, so they say; especially a European who works
hard. Let us think what may happen ten years hence. In ten years
your daughter will be eighteen; she will be your companion, your
spy. To you society will be cruel, and your daughter perhaps more
cruel still. We have seen cases of the harsh social judgment and
ingratitude of daughters; let us take warning by them. Keep in the
depths of your soul, as I shall in mine, the memory of four years
of happiness, and be faithful, if you can, to the memory of your
poor friend. I cannot exact such faithfulness, because, do you
see, dear Annette, I must conform to the exigencies of my new
life; I must take a commonplace view of them and do the best I
can. Therefore I must think of marriage, which becomes one of the
necessities of my future existence; and I will admit to you that I
have found, here in Saumur, in my uncle's house, a cousin whose
face, manners, mind, and heart would please you, and who, besides,
seems to me--

"He must have been very weary to have ceased writing to her," thought
Eugenie, as she gazed at the letter which stopped abruptly in the middle
of the last sentence.

Already she defended him. How was it possible that an innocent girl
should perceive the cold-heartedness evinced by this letter? To young
girls religiously brought up, whose minds are ignorant and pure, all is
love from the moment they set their feet within the enchanted regions
of that passion. They walk there bathed in a celestial light shed from
their own souls, which reflects its rays upon their lover; they color
all with the flame of their own emotion and attribute to him their
highest thoughts. A woman's errors come almost always from her belief
in good or her confidence in truth. In Eugenie's simple heart the words,
"My dear Annette, my loved one," echoed like the sweetest language of
love; they caressed her soul as, in childhood, the divine notes of the
_Venite adoremus_, repeated by the organ, caressed her ear. Moreover,
the tears which still lingered on the young man's lashes gave signs of
that nobility of heart by which young girls are rightly won. How could
she know that Charles, though he loved his father and mourned him truly,
was moved far more by paternal goodness than by the goodness of his own
heart? M