to find there, received them with much joy and
congratulation. She was concerned to observe, that the Count still
encouraged the hopes of his friend, whose countenance declared, that
his affection had suffered no abatement from absence; and was much
distressed, when, on the second evening after her arrival, the Count,
having withdrawn her from the Lady Blanche, with whom she was walking,
renewed the subject of M. Du Pont's hopes. The mildness, with which
she listened to his intercessions at first, deceiving him, as to her
sentiments, he began to believe, that, her affection for Valancourt
being overcome, she was, at length, disposed to think favourably of
M. Du Pont; and, when she afterwards convinced him of his mistake, he
ventured, in the earnestness of his wish to promote what he considered
to be the happiness of two persons, whom he so much esteemed, gently
to remonstrate with her, on thus suffering an ill-placed affection to
poison the happiness of her most valuable years.

Observing her silence and the deep dejection of her countenance, he
concluded with saying, 'I will not say more now, but I will still
believe, my dear Mademoiselle St. Aubert, that you will not always
reject a person, so truly estimable as my friend Du Pont.'

He spared her the pain of replying, by leaving her; and she strolled on,
somewhat displeased with the Count for having persevered to plead for a
suit, which she had repeatedly rejected, and lost amidst the melancholy
recollections, which this topic had revived, till she had insensibly
reached the borders of the woods, that screened the monastery of St.
Clair, when, perceiving how far she had wandered, she determined to
extend her walk a little farther, and to enquire about the abbess and
some of her friends among the nuns.

Though the evening was now drawing to a close, she accepted the
invitation of the friar, who opened the gate, and, anxious to meet some
of her old acquaintances, proceeded towards the convent parlour. As she
crossed the lawn, that sloped from the front of the monastery towards
the sea, she was struck with the picture of repose, exhibited by some
monks, sitting in the cloisters, which extended under the brow of the
woods, that crowned this eminence; where, as they meditated, at this
twilight hour, holy subjects, they sometimes suffered their attention to
be relieved by the scene before them, nor thought it profane to look at
nature, now that it had exchanged the brilli