those that were fastened in
tenderness upon her, and a corresponding movement on her part brought
the more matronly form of her cousin into close and affectionate
contact with her own.

"Oh, Madeline, what a day is this!" she exclaimed; "and how often on my
bended knees have I prayed to Heaven that it might arrive! Our trials
are ended at last, and happiness and joy are once more before us. There
is the boat that is to conduct us to the vessel, which, in its turn, is
to bear me to the arms of my dear father, and you to those of the lover
who adores you. How beautiful does that fabric appear to me now! Never
did I feel half the pleasure in surveying it I do at this moment."

"Dear, dear girl!" exclaimed Miss de Haldimar,--and she pressed her
closer and in silence to her heart: then, after a slight pause, during
which the mantling glow upon her brow told how deeply she desired the
reunion alluded to by her cousin--"that, indeed, will be an hour of
happiness to us both, Clara; for irrevocably as our affections have
been pledged, it would be silly in the extreme to deny that I long most
ardently to be restored to him who is already my husband. But, tell
me," she concluded, with an archness of expression that caused the
long-lashed eyes of her companion to sink beneath her own, "are you
quite sincere in your own case? I know how deeply you love your father
and your brothers, but do these alone occupy your attention? Is there
not a certain friend of Charles whom you have some little curiosity to
see also?"

"How silly, Madeline!" and the cheek of the young girl became suffused
with a deeper glow; "you know I have never seen this friend of my
brother, how then can I possibly feel more than the most ordinary
interest in him? I am disposed to like him, certainly, for the mere
reason that Charles does; but this is all."

"Well, Clara, I will not pretend to decide; but certain it is, this is
the last letter you received from Charles, and that it contains the
strongest recommendations of his friend to your notice. Equally certain
is it, that scarcely a day has passed, since we have been shut up here,
that you have not perused and re-perused it half a dozen times. Now, as
I am confessedly one who should know something of these matters, I must
be suffered to pronounce these are strong symptoms, to say the very
least. Ah! Clara, that blush declares you guilty.--But, who have we
here? Middleton and Baynton."

The eyes of the cou