words couched in the sweetest tones, the sight
of persons but to think of whom made his heart thrill and quiver to
its inmost core.

And for hours he had wandered through the long echoing corridors, the
stately and superb saloons, feeling their solitude as if it had been
actual presence weighing upon his soul, and peopling every apartment
with the phantoms of the loved and lost.

Thus had the day lagged onward, and as the sun stooped toward the west
darker and sadder had become the young man's fancies; and he felt as
if his last hope were about to fade out with the fading light of the
declining day-god. So gloomy, indeed, were his thoughts, so sadly had
he become inured to wo during the last few days, so certainly had the
reply to every question he had asked been the very bitterest and most
painful he could have met, that he had, in truth, lacked the courage
to assure himself of that on which he could not deny to himself that
his last hope of happiness depended. He had not ventured yet even to
ask of his own most faithful servants, whether Melanie d'Argenson, who
was, he well knew, living scarcely three bow-shots distant from the
spot where he stood, was true to him, was a maiden or a wedded wife.

And the old servitors, well aware of the earnest love which had
existed between the young people, and of the contract which had been
entered into with the consent of all parties, knew not how their young
master now stood affected toward the lady, and consequently feared to
speak on the subject.

At length when he had dined some hours, while he was sitting with the
old bailiff, who had been endeavoring to seduce him into an
examination of I know not what of rents and leases, dues and droits,
seignorial and manorial, while the bottles of ruby-colored Bordeaux
wine stood almost untouched before them, the young man made an effort,
and raising his head suddenly after a long and thoughtful silence,
asked his companion whether the Comte d'Argenson was at that time
resident at the chateau.

"Oh, yes, monseigneur," the old man returned immediately, "he has been
here all the summer, and the chateau has been full of gay company from
Paris. Never such times have been known in my days. Hawking parties
one day, and hunting matches the next, and music and balls every
night, and cavalcades of bright ladies, and cavaliers all
ostrich-plumes and cloth of gold and tissue, that you would think our
old woods here were converted into fairy l