rds to this man to prevent any inadvertent remark in the
presence of your grandmother?"

"Well thought of. How do you keep your wits so thoroughly about you,
Madeleine? How do you manage to remember everything that should be
remembered, and at the right moment?"

"If I do,--though I am not disposed to admit that such is the case,--it
is simply through the habit of taking the trouble to _think at all_, to
reflect quietly upon what would be best, what is most needed,--a very
simple process."

"And, like a great many other simple but important processes, rare just
because it _is so simple_," remarked Maurice, with great justice.

During this conversation Maurice and Madeleine had been standing where
she found him on entering the room; but he had not resolution to tear
himself quickly away, and said,--

"Let me sit a little while in your boudoir, and talk to you, Madeleine.
_I_ have not been able to reconcile myself so quickly to my own change
of abode as you seem to have done to our departure from yours."

Was it not surprising that such a noble-minded man as Maurice could make
an observation so ungracious, so ungenerous, and one which in his heart
he knew was so unjust, to the woman he loved? Yet it would be difficult
to find a lover who is incapable of doing the same. Why is it that men,
even the best, are at times stirred by an irresistible prompting,
themselves, to wound the being whom they would shield from all harm
dealt by others with chivalric devotion? Let a woman commit the
slightest action that can, by ingenious torturing, be interpreted into a
moment's want of consideration for the feelings of her lover, and all
his admiration, his tenderness, his reverence, will not prevent his
being cruel enough to stab her with some passing word that strikes as
sharply as a dagger.

"You think me a true philosopher, then?" replied Madeleine, gravely. But
she added, in a lower and less firm tone, while a soft humility filled
her mild eyes, "Do you think _I am reconciled_, Maurice?"

"Do you not think I am a heartless, senseless brute to have grieved you?
Do not look so sorrowful! You make me hate myself! Ah, you did well not
to trust your happiness to my keeping; I was not a fit guardian."

It was far harder for Madeleine to hear him say _that_ than to listen to
an undeserved reproach; but she led the way to her boudoir without
replying, and for the next hour Maurice sat beside her, and they
conversed without any ja