rrible clatter, and
in a cloud of dust. When Jean, sword in hand, passed before his Colonel,
the images of the two sisters were so confused and intermingled in his
recollection that they melted the one in the other, and became in
some measure the image of one and the same person. Any parallel became
impossible between them, thanks to this singular confusion of the
two points of comparison. Mrs. Scott and Miss Percival remained thus
inseparable in the thoughts of Jean until the day when it was granted to
him to see them again. The impression of that meeting was not effaced;
it was always there, persistent, and very sweet, till Jean began to feel
disturbed.

"Is it possible"--so ran his meditations--"is it possible that I have
been guilty of the folly of falling in love madly at first sight? No;
one might fall in love with a woman, but not with two women at once."

That thought reassured him. He was very young, this great fellow of
four-and-twenty; never had love entered fully into his heart. Love! He
knew very little about it, except from books, and he had read but few
of them. But he was no angel; he could find plenty of attractions in the
grisettes of Souvigny, and when they would allow him to tell them
that they were charming, he was quite ready to do so, but it had never
entered his head to regard as love those passing fancies, which only
caused the slightest and most superficial disturbance in his heart.

Paul de Lavardens had marvellous powers of enthusiasm and idealization.
His heart sheltered always two or three grandes passions, which lived
there in perfect harmony. Paul had been so clever as to discover, in
this little town of 15,000 souls, numbers of pretty girls, all made to
be adored. He always believed himself the discoverer of America,
when, in fact, he had done nothing but follow in the track of other
navigators.

The world-Jean had scarcely encountered it. He had allowed himself to
be dragged by Paul, a dozen times, perhaps, to soirees or balls at the
great houses of the neighborhood. He had invariably returned thoroughly
bored, and had concluded that these pleasures were not made for him. His
tastes were simple, serious. He loved solitude, work, long walks, open
space, horses, and books. He was rather savage--a son of the soil. He
loved his village, and all the old friends of his childhood. A quadrille
in a drawing-room caused him unspeakable terror; but every year, at
the festival of the patron sai