. There
is no pathos, no bad taste, no inflated description in the workings
of reflectiveness. When we come to compute with ourselves what we
have gained by our worldly successes, and to make a total of all our
triumphs, we arrive at a truer insight into the nothingness of what
we are contending for than we ever attain through the teaching of our
professional moralists.

Colonel Bramleigh had made considerable progress along this peaceful
track since he sat down there. Could he only be sure to accept the
truths he had been repeating to himself without any wavering or
uncertainty; could he have resolution enough to conform his life to
these convictions--throw over all ambitions, and be satisfied with
mere happiness--was this prize not within his reach? Temple and Marion,
perhaps, might resist; but he was certain the others would agree
with him. While he thus pondered, he heard the low murmur of voices,
apparently near him; he listened, and perceived that some persons were
talking as they mounted the zigzag path which led up from the bottom
of the gorge, and which had to cross and re-cross continually before it
gained the summit. A thick hedge of laurel and arbutus fenced the path
on either side so completely as to shut out all view of those who were
walking along it, and who had to pass and re-pass quite close to where
Bramleigh was sitting.

To his intense astonishment it was in French they spoke: and a certain
sense of terror came over him as to what this might portend. Were these
spies of the enemy, and was the mine about to be sprung beneath him? One
was a female voice, a clear, distinct voice--which he thought he knew
well, and oh, what inexpressible relief to his anxiety was it when
he recognized it to be Julia L'Estrange's. She spoke volubly, almost
flippantly, and, as it seemed to Bramleigh, in a tone of half sarcastic
raillery, against which her companion appeared to protest, as he more
than once repeated the word "serieuse" in a tone almost reproachful.

"If I am to be serious, my Lord," said she, in a more collected tone,
"I had better get back to English. Let me tell you then, in a language
which admits of little misconception, that I have forborne to treat
your Lordship's proposal with gravity, partly out of respect for myself,
partly out of deference to you."

"Deference to me? What do you mean? what can you mean?"

"I mean, my Lord, that all the flattery of being the object of your
Lordship's choice