,
her cousin's femme-de-chambre, had been permitted by the latter to
arrange it more fashionably." The subject dropped then, and was never
resumed; but Walter _then_ made his own comments on it. And now that
the peculiar tone of Adrienne's letters in referring to Madelaine brought
former circumstances vividly to mind, it is not surprising that he fell
into a fit of musing on the _possibility_, which he yet rebuked himself
for suspecting. It must be confessed that his reflections on the subject
were of a less displeasing nature than those which had suggested
themselves on former occasions, before epistolary correspondence with
his fair betrothed had given him that insight into her character and
feelings which, strange to say, he had failed to obtain during their
personal communication. Now he felt assured, that if indeed she were
susceptible of the weakness he had dared to suspect, it was mingled with
no unkindly feelings towards her unoffending cousin, but sprang solely
from the peculiar sensitiveness of her nature, and the exclusive
delicacy of her affection for himself.

Where ever was the lover--(we say not the husband)--who could dwell but
with tenderest indulgence on an infirmity of love so flattering to his
own self-love and self-complacency? We suspect that Walter's fervour was
anything but cooled by the fancied discovery; and his doubts on the
subject, if he still harboured any, were wholly dispelled by a
postscript to Adrienne's next letter, almost amounting, singular as was
the construction, to an avowal of her own weakness.

In the three fair pages of close writing of which that letter consisted,
was vouchsafed no word of reply to an interrogatory--the last, he
secretly resolved, he would ever venture on that subject--whether his
"little cousin Madelaine," as he had sometimes sportively called her by
anticipation, had quite forgotten her friend Walter. But on one of the
outside folds, evidently an after-thought, written hurriedly, and, as it
seemed, with a trembling hand, was the following postscript:--

"La Petite Madelaine se souvient toujours du bon Walter--Comment
ferait-elle autrement?

"Mais, cependant, qu'il ne soit plus question d'elle dans les lettres de
Mons. Walter."

"A most strange fancy! an unaccountable caprice of this dear
Adrienne's!" was Walter's smiling soliloquy. "Some day she shall laugh
at it with me--but for the present and for ever, be the dear one's will
my law." Thenceforth "il