sed until she had made several
efforts to break his slumber. He looked about him in bewilderment, and
then at the white-robed figure before him as though it were an
apparition.

"It is I, and no ghost," said Madeleine. "The morning has come; go and
lie down for a couple of hours to refresh yourself,--I will do the same.
Mrs. Lawkins will stay with your father."

"Have I really been asleep?" asked Maurice, in a tone of mortification.
"Asleep, while you were waking? What a stupid brute I am!"

"Have brutes easy consciences? for that is said to be man's best
lullaby. You must consider yourself still subject to my orders. Go and
lie down. You shall be called to breakfast at nine o'clock; that will
give you two hours' rest. As for me, I shall fall asleep in a few
moments."

Maurice yielded.

Madeleine did _not_ fall asleep quite as soon as she predicted; but,
after a time, she sank into a refreshing slumber. At nine o'clock the
ringing of the alarum she had taken the precaution to set, awoke her.
She stole to Maurice's door, but had to knock several times before she
could arouse him; he was again enjoying that blessing which he had
lately professed to despise.

"What is it? Who is there?" he cried out, at last.

"It is I, Madeleine. Nine o'clock has just struck. We will breakfast as
soon as you are ready to come into the dining-room."

She returned to her boudoir and made a hasty toilet, substituting, for
her simple white wrapper, another, somewhat richly embroidered, and
trimmed with pale blue ribbons. We reluctantly venture upon the
suggestion, for it would indicate a decided weakness, quite unworthy of
Madeleine's good sense; but there is just a possibility that she
remembered she was to breakfast once more with her lover, and her
artistic eye selected the most becoming morning-dress in her possession.

Ruth had breakfasted some hours before; Madeleine and Maurice sat down
to table alone. In spite of the grief which lay in the depths of both
their hearts, it must be avowed that both experienced a sense of calm
felicity which made them shrink from contemplating the past, or looking
forward to the future; the delicious _present_ was all sufficient.
Maurice wondered at himself,--was almost angry with himself,--and then
he looked across the table and wondered no longer.

Madeleine was less astonished at her own pleasant emotions. Partly
through discipline, and partly through temperament, she always caught up
all