with all the resolution of his steel
nature into the saddle, and, with one grand wave of his cocked hat to
the tearful group, he spurred away for Egypt.

CHAPTER IX.

The baroness took the doctor a-shopping; she must buy Rose a gray silk.
In doing this she saw many other tempting things. I say no more.

But the young ladies went up to Beaurepaire in the other carriage, for
Josephine wished to avoid the gaze of the town, and get home and be
quiet. The driver went very fast. He had drunk the bride's health at the
mayor's, item the bridegroom's, the bridesmaid's, the mayor's, etc.,
and "a spur in the head is worth two in the heel," says the proverb.
The sisters leaned back on the soft cushions, and enjoyed the smooth and
rapid motion once so familiar to them, so rare of late.

Then Rose took her sister gently to task for having offered to go to
Egypt. She had forgotten her poor sister.

"No, love," replied Josephine, "did you not see I dared not look towards
you? I love you better than all the world; but this was my duty. I
was his wife: I had no longer a feeble inclination and a feeble
disinclination to decide between, but right on one side, wrong on the
other."

"Oh! I know where your ladyship's strength lies: my force is--in--my
inclinations."

"Yes, Rose," continued Josephine thoughtfully, "duty is a great comfort:
it is so tangible; it is something to lay hold of for life or death; a
strong tower for the weak but well disposed."

Rose assented, and they were silent a minute; and when she spoke again
it was to own she loved a carriage. "How fast we glide! Now lean back
with me, and take my hand, and as we glide shut your eyes and think:
whisper me all your feelings, every one of them."

"Well, then," said Josephine, half closing her eyes, "in the first
place I feel a great calm, a heavenly calm. My fate is decided. No more
suspense. My duties are clear. I have a husband I am proud of. There is
no perfidy with him, no deceit, no disingenuousness, no shade. He is a
human sun. He will make me a better, truer woman, and I him a happier
man. Yes, is it not nice to think that great and strong as he is I can
teach him a happiness he knows not as yet?" And she smiled with the
sense of her delicate power, but said no more; for she was not the one
to talk much about herself. But Rose pressed her. "Yes, go on, dear,"
she said, "I seem to see your pretty little thoughts rising out of your
heart like a bubbling f