, Bertha was so near that she heard her
reply, and it caused her, almost unconsciously, to glance at the card.

"Say that I will be with him directly," said Madeleine.

"It is M. de Bois. I will go with you," murmured Bertha, rising at the
same time as her cousin.

The countess did not move her eyes, but Maurice turned his head to look
after them. Madeleine could never pass from his presence without his
experiencing a sense of loss which inflicted a dull pang.

M. de Bois had been ushered into Madeleine's boudoir. He had not
anticipated the happiness of seeing Bertha. When she entered, his start
and flush of joy, and the gently confident manner in which he took her
hand, and drew her toward him, might well have surprised Madeleine; but
that surprise was quickly turned to positive amazement, for Bertha's
head drooped until its opulent golden curls swept his
breast,--and--and--(if we record what ensued be it remembered that
constitutionally bashful men, stirred by a sudden impulse, have less
control over their emotions than their calmer brothers)--and--in another
second, his own head was bent down, and his lips lightly touched her
pure brow, just where the fair hair parting ran on either side, in
shining waves. Truly was that first kiss

"The chrism of Love, which Love's own crown
With sanctifying sweetness did precede."

Gaston's ideas of what amount of tender demonstration punctilious
decorum permitted a lover, had finally undergone an alarming
modification, through the corrective influence of the social atmosphere
he had inhaled during the last few years. In his own land the limited
privileges of an accepted suitor do not extend thus far until the day
before a wedding-ring encircles the finger of a bride. Is it on this
account that the Parisian _Mrs. Grundy_, dreading some irresistible
temptation, never allows affianced lovers to be left alone?

Bertha's conceptions of propriety must also have been in a very
unsettled state; for, albeit "to her brow the ruby mounted," that first
kiss seemed to her to lie there as softly as an invisible gem, and she
did not withdraw her head, nor look up reproachfully, nor utter one word
of chiding.

Gaston noticed Madeleine's wonder-struck look, and said, "You did not
know, then, Mademoiselle Madeleine, how happy I am?"

Then Bertha escaped from the arm that encircled her, and nestling in her
cousin's bosom, faltered out, "I was so much troubled about Cousin
Tris