e all hope away from you, and place in
your path the only barrier which you could not hope to overleap. And may
she not have given you the impression that she loved, that her
affections were engaged, while you drew the inference from her rejecting
your hand that her heart was given to some other?"

The countenance of Maurice grew effulgent with the flood of hope poured
upon it.

"Oh, if it were so!" he exclaimed, in rapture. "Ronald, my best friend,
what do I not owe you? Mrs. Walton, why, why are you silent? Speak to
me! Tell me that you really believe Madeleine loves me!"

Mrs. Walton, alarmed by the violence of his emotion, began to turn over
in her mind the unfortunate results which might ensue if she had made an
error. Maurice still implored her to speak, and she said, at last, with
some hesitation,--

"If Madeleine does not love you, and you only, I have no skill in
interpreting 'the weather signs of love.' I ought not to be too
confident of my own judgment; and yet I cannot force myself to doubt
that, in this instance, it is correct."

"Say that again and again. I cannot hear it too often. _You cannot force
yourself to doubt_,--you are quite convinced then, quite sure that
Madeleine, my own Madeleine, loves me?"

"I am indeed," responded Mrs. Walton, tenderly.

Maurice folded his arms about her, bowed his head on her shoulder, and
his great joy found a vent which it had never known before; for never
before had tears of ecstasy poured from his eyes. That Mrs. Walton
should weep too was but natural. She was a woman, and tears are the
privilege of her sex. Ronald had evidently some fears, that their
emotion would prove contagious; for he walked up and down the room with
remarkable rapidity, and then threw open the window and looked out,
cleared his throat several times, and finally said, in tolerably firm
accents,--

"But, Maurice, what are we to do if the countess is determined to return
to Brittany at once?"

"If Madeleine loves me, I can endure anything! I can leave her, I can go
with my father, or perform any other hard duty. The sweet certainty of
her love will brighten and lighten my trial. Oh, if I could only be
sure!"

"Make yourself sure as soon as possible," suggested Ronald, to whom
promptitude was a second nature.

"I will go to her; I will tell her what I believe; I will implore her to
grant me the happiness of knowing that her heart is mine. But O Ronald,
if I have been deluded,--if you