dead, though the moonlight falls full upon her
face blanching it to the aspect of marble. Even her lashes rest moveless
on her cheek.

But she is not sleeping; she is listening--listening to the sobs, almost
inaudible, which now and then escape from the beloved one at her side. As
they grow fainter and fainter and gradually die away altogether till
stillness reigns through the whole dormitory, she rouses and bending
forward on her elbow, looks long and lovingly at the wet brow of her
sleeping mate. She then sinks back again into rigidity, with a low moan,
ending in the whispered words:

"He does not love,--not yet. A slight thing will turn him. Did I not see
him glance back twice, and both times at her? The look with which she
greeted him was so wonderful."

* * * * *

A village street in Britanny; a parish church in the distance; two women
bidding each other farewell amid a group of wedding-guests, gay as the
heavens are blue.

"_Au revoir!_" was the whisper breathed by the bride into the ear of
the other. "_Au revoir_, my Ermentrude. May you have a happy year in
Switzerland!"

"_Au revoir_! little Madame. _You_ will be happy I know in those United
States to which you are going."

And the tears stood in the eyes of both.

"You will write?"

"I will write."

But the bride did not seem quite satisfied. Glancing about and finding
her young husband busy with his adieux, she drew her friend apart and
softly murmured:

"There is something I must say,--something I must know, before the sea
divides us. You remember the day we all left school and you went home
and I came to Britanny? Ermentrude, Achille tells me that on that day he
sought the whole house over for you till he came upon you in one of the
classrooms; and that you whom I had sometimes seen so sad were very gay
and told him between laughing and crying that you were bidding a solemn
farewell to all the nooks and corners of the old seminary, because your
fiance awaited you at home, and there would be no coming back."

"I meant my music."

"He did not know that, Ermentrude," and here she laid her hands upon the
other's shoulders, drawing back as she did so to look earnestly up into
her face. "Was that done for me?"

They were too near for anything but the truth to pass from eye to eye.
Ermentrude tried to laugh and utter a quick _No, no!_ but the little
bride was not deceived. Again upon her face there appeared that won