nions and
their amusements, to pass whole days with the good widow; listening to
her fond talk about her boy, and blushing with secret pleasure, when
his letters were read, at finding herself a constant theme of
recollection and inquiry.

At length the sudden return of peace, which sent many a warrior to his
native cottage, brought back Eugene, a young sun-burnt soldier, to the
village. I need not say how rapturously his return was greeted by his
mother, who saw in him the pride and staff of her old age. He had
risen in the service by his merits; but brought away little from the
wars, excepting a soldier-like air, a gallant name, and a scar across
the forehead. He brought back, however, a nature unspoiled by the
camp. He was frank, open, generous, and ardent. His heart was quick
and kind in its impulses, and was perhaps a little softer from having
suffered: it was full of tenderness for Annette. He had received
frequent accounts of her from his mother; and the mention of her
kindness to his lonely parent, had rendered her doubly dear to him. He
had been wounded; he had been a prisoner; he had been in various
troubles, but had always preserved the braid of her hair, which she
had bound round his arm. It had been a kind of talisman to him; he had
many a time looked upon it as he lay on the hard ground, and the
thought that he might one day see Annette again, and the fair fields
about his native village, had cheered his heart, and enabled him to
bear up against every hardship.

He had left Annette almost a child--he found her a blooming woman. If
he had loved her before, he now adored her. Annette was equally struck
with the improvement which time had made in her lover. She noticed,
with secret admiration, his superiority to the other young men of the
village; the frank, lofty, military air, that distinguished him from
all the rest at their rural gatherings. The more she saw him, the more
her light, playful fondness of former years deepened into ardent and
powerful affection. But Annette was a rural belle.

She had tasted the sweets of dominion, and had been rendered wilful
and capricious by constant indulgence at home, and admiration abroad.
She was conscious of her power over Eugene, and delighted in
exercising it. She sometimes treated him with petulant caprice,
enjoying the pain which she inflicted by her frowns, from the idea how
soon she would chase it away again by her smiles. She took a pleasure
in alarming his