rtless. For I am a foolish
woman; I don't know how to be virtuous, yet show a man my heart. But
THEN he will understand me and forgive me. Rose, love, you will write
to him. He will come to you. You will go together to the place where I
shall be sleeping. You will show him my heart. You will tell him all my
long love that lasted to the end. YOU need not blush to tell him all. I
have no right. Then you will give him his poor Josephine's boy, and you
will say to him, 'She never loved but you: she gives you all that
is left of her, her child. She only prays you not to give him a bad
mother.'"

Poor soul! this was her one bit of little, gentle jealousy; but it made
her eyes stream. She would have put out her hand from the tomb to keep
her boy's father single all his life.

"Oh! my Josephine, my darling sister," cried Rose, "why do you speak of
death? Do you meditate a crime?"

"No; but it was on my heart to say it: it has done me good."

"At least, take me to your bosom, my well-beloved, that I may not SEE
your tears."

"There--tears? No, you have lightened my heart. Bless you! bless you!"

The sisters twined their bosoms together in a long, gentle embrace. You
might have taken them for two angels that flowed together in one love,
but for their tears.

A deep voice was now heard in the sitting-room.

Josephine and Rose postponed the inevitable one moment more, by
arranging their hair in the glass: then they opened the door, and
entered the tapestried room.

Raynal was sitting on the sofa, the baroness's hand in his. Edouard was
not there.

Colonel Raynal had given him a strange look, and said, "What, you here?"
in a tone of voice that was intolerable.

Raynal came to meet the sisters. He saluted Josephine on the brow.

"You are pale, wife: and how cold her hand is."

"She has been ill this month past," said Rose interposing.

"You look ill, too, Mademoiselle Rose."

"Never mind," cried the baroness joyously, "you will revive them both."

Raynal made no reply to that.

"How long do you stay this time, a day?"

"A month, mother."

The doctor now joined the party, and friendly greetings passed between
him and Raynal.

But ere long somehow all became conscious this was not a joyful meeting.
The baroness could not alone sustain the spirits of the party, and soon
even she began to notice that Raynal's replies were short, and that his
manner was distrait and gloomy. The sisters saw this too, and trembled