anxious about them, she said. Then her kindness gave
these happy souls a pang it never gave them before.

Since the above events scarce a fortnight had elapsed; but such
a change! Camille sunburnt and healthy, and full of animation and
confidence; Josephine beaming with suppressed happiness, and more
beautiful than Rose could ever remember to have seen her. For a soft
halo of love and happiness shone around her head; a new and indefinable
attraction bloomed on her face. She was a wife. Her eye, that used to
glance furtively on Camille, now dwelt demurely on him; dwelt with a
sort of gentle wonder and admiration as well as affection, and, when
he came or passed very near her, a keen observer might have seen her
thrill.

She kept a good deal out of her mother's way; for she felt within that
her face must be too happy. She feared to shock her mother's grief with
her radiance. She was ashamed of feeling unmixed heaven. But the flood
of secret bliss she floated in bore all misgivings away. The pair were
forever stealing away together for hours, and on these occasions Rose
used to keep out of her mother's sight, until they should return. So
then the new-married couple could wander hand in hand through the thick
woods of Beaurepaire, whose fresh green leaves were now just out, and
hear the distant cuckoo, and sit on mossy banks, and pour love into
one another's eyes, and plan ages of happiness, and murmur their deep
passion and their bliss almost more than mortal; could do all this and
more, without shocking propriety. These sweet duets passed for trios:
for on their return Rose would be out looking for them, or would go and
meet them at some distance, and all three would go up together to the
baroness, as from a joint excursion. And when they went up to their
bedrooms, Josephine would throw her arms round her sister's neck, and
sigh, "It is not happiness, it is beatitude!"

Meantime, the baroness mourned for Raynal. Her grief showed no decrease.
Rose even fancied at times she wore a gloomy and discontented look as
well; but on reflection she attributed that to her own fancy, or to the
contrast that had now sprung up in her sister's beaming complacency.

Rose, when she found herself left day after day alone for hours, was sad
and thought of Edouard. And this feeling gained on her day by day.

At last, one afternoon, she locked herself in her own room, and, after a
long contest with her pride, which, if not indomitable, was