very
retired life, and seldom quitted the place, except to pay an annual
visit to the other side of the Pyrenees, where she had an elder brother
married to a Spanish lady of considerable fortune; but Mademoiselle
Henriette had two companions who seemed to make her amends for the
absence of other society. One was a young girl called Rosina, who had
been her foster-sister, and who now lived with her in the capacity of
waiting-maid; the other was her cousin, Eugene de Beaugency, an orphan,
and dependent on her father; his own having lost every thing he
possessed, in consequence of some political offense previous to the
Revolution. It was even reported that the Beaugency family had been nigh
suffering the same fate, and that some heavy fines which had been
extracted from them had straitened their means, and obliged them to live
in retirement. However this might be, Henriette appeared perfectly
contented with her lot. Eugene studied with her, and played with her;
and they grew up together with all the affection and familiarity of a
brother and sister; while old M. de Beaugency never seems to have
suspected that any other sentiment could possibly subsist between them:
not that they took the slightest pains to disguise their feelings; and
it was their very openness that had probably lulled the father's
suspicions. Indeed, their lives flowed so smoothly, and their
intercourse was so unrestrained, that nothing ever occurred to awaken
even themselves to the nature of their sentiments; while the affection
that united them had grown so gradually under the parent's eyes, that
their innocent terms of endearment, and playful caresses, appeared to
him but the natural manifestations of the relation in which they stood
to each other. The first sorrow Henriette had was when Eugene was sent
to Paris to study for the bar; but it was a consolation that her own
regret scarcely exceeded that of her father; and when she used to be
counting the weeks and days as the period of his return drew nigh, the
old man was almost as pleased as she was to see their number diminish.

"All this harmony and happiness continued uninterrupted for several
years; but, at length, an element of discord, at first slight, seemed to
arise from the appearance on the scene of a certain Count Ruy Gonzalez,
who came here with the father and daughter after one of their annual
excursions into Catalonia. He was an extremely handsome, noble-looking
Spaniard, of about thirty y