on in the admiration of the loved object to give the mind a
decided and firm purpose, and enough of change in the various devices to
win her praise to impart the charm of novelty.

Now, for all this, my reader, fair or false as she or he may be, must
not suspect that anything bordering on love was concerned in the present
case. To begin--the countess was married, and I was brought up at an
excellent school at Bangor, where the catechism, Welsh and English, was
flogged into me until every commandment had a separate welt of its own
on my back. No; I had taken the royal road to happiness. I was delighted
without stopping to know why, and enjoyed myself without ever thinking
to inquire wherefore. New sources of information and knowledge were
opened to me by those who possessed vast stores of acquirement; and I
learned how the conversation of gifted and accomplished persons may
be made a great agent in training and forming the mind, if not to the
higher walks of knowledge, at least to those paths in which the greater
part of life is spent, and where it imports each to make the road
agreeable to his fellows. I have said to you I was not in love--how
could I be, under the circumstances?--but still I own that the regular
verbs of the Polish grammar had been but dry work, if it had not been
for certain irregular glances at my pretty mistress; nor could I ever
have seen my way through the difficulties of the declensions if the
light of her eyes had not lit up the page, and her taper finger pointed
out the place.

And thus two months flew past, during which she never even alluded most
distantly to our conversation in the garden at Boitsfort, nor did I
learn any one particular more of my friends than on the first day of our
meeting. Meanwhile, all ideas of travelling had completely left me; and
although I had now abundant resources in my banker's hands for all the
purposes of the road, I never once dreamed of leaving a place where I
felt so thoroughly happy.

Such, then, was our life, when I began to remark a slight change in the
count's manner--an appearance of gloom and preoccupation, which seemed
to increase each day, and against which he strove, but in vain. It was
clear something had gone wrong with him; but I did not dare to allude
to, much less ask him on the subject. At last, one evening, just as I
was preparing for bed, he entered my dressing-room, and closing the door
cautiously behind him, sat down. I saw that he was d