me, the usual time when all
the gayety of the village assembled--butEugene was not there. She
inquired after him; he had left the village. She now became alarmed,
and, forgetting all coyness and affected indifference, called on
Eugene's mother for an explanation. She found her full of affliction,
and learnt with surprise and consternation that Eugene had gone to
sea.

While his feelings were yet smarting with her affected disdain, and
his heart a prey to alternate indignation and despair, he had suddenly
embraced an invitation which had repeatedly been made him by a
relation, who was fitting out a ship from the port of Honfleur, and
who wished him to be the companion of his voyage. Absence appeared to
him the only cure for his unlucky passion; and in the temporary
transports of his feelings, there was something gratifying in the idea
of having half the world intervene between them. The hurry necessary
for his departure left no time for cool reflection; it rendered him
deaf to the remonstrances of his afflicted mother. He hastened to
Honfleur just in time to make the needful preparations for the voyage;
and the first news that Annette received of this sudden determination
was a letter delivered by his mother, returning her pledges of
affection, particularly the long-treasured braid of her hair, and
bidding her a last farewell, in terms more full of sorrow and
tenderness than upbraiding.

This was the first stroke of real anguish that Annette had ever
received, and it overcame her. The vivacity of her spirits was apt to
hurry her to extremes; she for a time gave way to ungovernable
transports of affliction and remorse, and manifested, in the violence
of her grief, the real ardour of her affection. The thought occurred
to her that the ship might not yet have sailed; she seized on the hope
with eagerness, and hastened with her father to Honfleur. The ship had
sailed that very morning. From the heights above the town she saw it
lessening to a speck on the broad bosom of the ocean, and before
evening the white sail had faded from her sight. She turned full of
anguish to the neighbouring chapel of Our Lady of Grace, and throwing
herself on the pavement, poured out prayers and tears for the safe
return of her lover.

When she returned home, the cheerfulness of her spirits was at an end.
She looked back with remorse and self-upbraiding at her past caprices;
she turned with distaste from the adulation of her admirers, and had