court below, danced, with airy steps, along the gallery, where she was
met by a nun with a summons from the abbess. In the next moment, she was
in the parlour, and in the presence of the Countess who now appeared to
her as an angel, that was to lead her into happiness. But the emotions
of the Countess, on beholding her, were not in unison with those of
Blanche, who had never appeared so lovely as at this moment, when her
countenance, animated by the lightning smile of joy, glowed with the
beauty of happy innocence.

After conversing for a few minutes with the abbess, the Countess rose to
go. This was the moment, which Blanche had anticipated with such eager
expectation, the summit from which she looked down upon the fairy-land
of happiness, and surveyed all its enchantment; was it a moment, then,
for tears of regret? Yet it was so. She turned, with an altered and
dejected countenance, to her young companions, who were come to bid her
farewell, and wept! Even my lady abbess, so stately and so solemn, she
saluted with a degree of sorrow, which, an hour before, she would
have believed it impossible to feel, and which may be accounted for by
considering how reluctantly we all part, even with unpleasing objects,
when the separation is consciously for ever. Again, she kissed the poor
nuns and then followed the Countess from that spot with tears, which she
expected to leave only with smiles.

But the presence of her father and the variety of objects, on the road,
soon engaged her attention, and dissipated the shade, which tender
regret had thrown upon her spirits. Inattentive to a conversation, which
was passing between the Countess and a Mademoiselle Bearn, her friend,
Blanche sat, lost in pleasing reverie, as she watched the clouds
floating silently along the blue expanse, now veiling the sun and
stretching their shadows along the distant scene, and then disclosing
all his brightness. The journey continued to give Blanche inexpressible
delight, for new scenes of nature were every instant opening to her
view, and her fancy became stored with gay and beautiful imagery.

It was on the evening of the seventh day, that the travellers came
within view of Chateau-le-Blanc, the romantic beauty of whose situation
strongly impressed the imagination of Blanche, who observed, with
sublime astonishment, the Pyrenean mountains, which had been seen only
at a distance during the day, now rising within a few leagues, with
their wild cliff