What kindness had the Beauforts hitherto shown
him?--Left his mother to perish broken-hearted--stolen from him his
brother, and steeled, in that brother, the only heart wherein he had a
right to look for gratitude and love! No, it must be Madame de Merville.
He dismissed Madame Dufour for pen and paper--rose--wrote a letter to
Eugenie--grateful, but proud, and inclosed the notes. He then summoned
Madame Dufour, and sent her with his despatch.

"Ah, madame," said the ci-devant bonne, when she found herself in
Eugenie's presence. "The poor lad! how handsome he is, and how shameful
in the Vicomte to let him wear such clothes!"

"The Vicomte!"

"Oh, my dear mistress, you must not deny it. You told me, in your note,
to ask him no questions, but I guessed at once. The Vicomte told me
himself that he should have the young gentleman over in a few days. You
need not be ashamed of him. You will see what a difference clothes will
make in his appearance; and I have taken it on myself to order a tailor
to go to him. The Vicomte--must pay me."

"Not a word to the Vicomte as yet. We will surprise him," said Eugenie,
laughing.

Madame de Merville had been all that morning trying to invent some story
to account for her interest in the lodger, and now how Fortune favoured
her!

"But is that a letter for me?"

"And I had almost forgot it," said Madame Dufour, as she extended the
letter.

Whatever there had hitherto been in the circumstances connected with
Morton, that had roused the interest and excited the romance of Eugenie
de Merville, her fancy was yet more attracted by the tone of the letter
she now read. For though Morton, more accustomed to speak than to write
French, expressed himself with less precision, and a less euphuistic
selection of phrase, than the authors and elegans who formed her usual
correspondents; there was an innate and rough nobleness--a strong
and profound feeling in every line of his letter, which increased her
surprise and admiration.

"All that surrounds him--all that belongs to him, is strangeness and
mystery!" murmured she; and she sat down to reply.

When Madame Dufour departed with that letter, Eugenie remained silent
and thoughtful for more than an hour, Morton's letter before her; and
sweet, in their indistinctness, were the recollections and the images
that crowded on her mind.

Morton, satisfied by the earnest and solemn assurances of Eugenie that
she was not the unknown donor of the su