ety of my seeing Stella,
as her friend and brother--especially when I don't live in the same
house with her, and when she has her mother, on one side, and Madame
Villeray, on the other, to take care of her?

No! the influence that keeps me away from St. Germain is the influence
of Stella herself.

"I will write to you often," she said; "but I beg you, for my sake, not
to accompany us to France." Her look and tone reduced me to obedience.
Stupid as I am I think (after what passed between me and her mother) I
can guess what she meant.

"Am I never to see you again?" I asked.

"Do you think I am hard and ungrateful?" she answered. "Do you doubt
that I shall be glad, more than glad, to see you, when--?"

She turned away from me and said no more.

It was time to take leave. We were under her mother's superintendence;
we shook hands and that was all.

Matilda (Mrs. Eyrecourt's maid) followed me downstairs to open the door.
I suppose I looked, as I felt, wretchedly enough. The good creature
tried to cheer me. "Don't be anxious about them," she said; "I am used
to traveling, sir--and I'll take care of them." She is a woman to be
thoroughly depended on, a faithful and attached servant. I made her a
little present at parting, and I asked her if she would write to me from
time to time.

Some people might consider this to be rather an undignified proceeding
on my part. I can only say it came naturally to me. I am not a dignified
man; and, when a person means kindly toward me, I don't ask myself
whether that person is higher or lower, richer or poorer, than I am.
We are, to my mind, on the same level when the same sympathy unites us.
Matilda was sufficiently acquainted with all that had passed to foresee,
as I did, that there would be certain reservations in Stella's letters
to me. "You shall have the whole truth from Me, sir, don't doubt it,"
she whispered. I believed her. When my heart is sore, give me a woman
for my friend. Whether she is lady or lady's-maid, she is equally
precious to me.

Cowes, March 2.--I am in treaty with an agent for the hire of a yacht.

I must do something, and go somewhere. Returning to Beaupark is out
of the question. People with tranquil minds can find pleasure in the
society of their country neighbors. I am a miserable creature, with a
mind in a state of incessant disturbance. Excellent fathers of families
talking politics to me; exemplary mothers of families offering me
matrimonial oppor