was for ever thinking of
the past now, poor child! How sad, how weary they had been,
those years in the convent--yes, she knew that she had found
them so--and yet how peaceful, how innocent, how sheltered!
Reading her past life in the new light that every day made its
shadows darker, she knew that those years were the only ones
of her childhood which she could look back upon, without the
sudden pang that would come with the memory of those others
which she had found so happy then, but which she knew now
were--what? Ah, something so different from what she had once
imagined! But as for those days at the convent, they came back
to her, softened by the kindly haze of time, with the
strangest sense of restfulness and security, utterly at
variance, one would say, with the restless longing with which
she looked out on the world of action--and yet not wholly
inconsistent with it perhaps, after all. Did she indeed know
when and where she would be happy?

Madge, meanwhile, stood and looked at her. She had fairly
fallen in love with this new cousin of hers; her beauty, and
gracious ways, her foreign accent, and now her experiences of
nuns and convents had come like a revelation to the little
English girl in her downright, everyday life. With a comical
incongruity, she could compare her in her own mind to nothing
but an enchanted princess in some fairy tale; and she stood
gazing first at her and then at the glass, where soft wavy
brown hair and red and white daisies were reflected.

"What are you thinking of?" said Madelon, looking up suddenly.

"I--I don't know," replied Madge, quite taken aback, colouring
and stammering; and then, as if she could not help it--"Oh!
Cousin Madelon, you are so pretty."

"It is very pretty of you to say so," said Madelon, laughing
and blushing too a little; then holding out both hands she
drew Madge towards her, and kissed her on her two cheeks. "I
think you and I will be great friends; will we not?" she said.

"Yes," says unresponsive Madge shortly, looking down and
twisting her fingers in her awkward English fashion.

"I would like you to be fond of me," continued Madelon, "for I
think I shall love you very much; and I like you to call me
Madelon--nobody else calls me so--except--except your Uncle
Horace."

"It was Uncle Horace told me to," cried Madge. "I asked him
what I should call you, and he said he thought Cousin Madelon
would do."

"I think it will do very well," said Madelon,