angely approached, and
inexplicably recoiled from, upon the occasion we have just described,
Lucille repulsed her curiosity, or at least evaded it with entire and
impenetrable secrecy. Finding, therefore, that the subject was obviously
distasteful to her, she forbore to return to it, and contented herself
with recording the broken conversation of the night in question among
the other unexplained mysteries of her life.

"Well, Lucille," she said to her one day, as they were walking upon the
terrace together, and interrupting by the remark a long and gloomy
silence, "you do not seem to enjoy the prospect of the gay night which
my uncle has prepared, now that it approaches, half so much as you did
in the distance."

"Enjoy it? no, no."

"But you longed for such an occasion."

"Perhaps, Julie, I had reasons; perhaps it was not all caprice."

"But do you not still enjoy the prospect? surely it has not lost all its
charms?"

"I say, Julie, I had reasons--that is, perhaps I had--for wishing it. I
have none now."

"Well, but it seems to me it positively depresses you. Surely, if it
were merely indifferent, it need not distress you."

"Ah, Julie, Julie, we are strange creatures; we know not ourselves,
neither our strength nor our weakness, our good nor our evil, until time
and combinations solve the problem, and show us the sad truth."

"It seems to me," said Julie, with a gentle smile, "you take a wondrous
moral tone in treating of a ball, my pretty sage; and, notwithstanding
all you say, I suspect you like a fete as well as most young women."

"Julie, when I tell you honestly I hate it--that I would gladly be
hidden in the roof or the cellar of the loneliest tower in the chateau
upon that evening, you will cease to suspect me of so poor a
dissimulation. Honestly, then, and sadly, these crowded festivities, I
expected but a short time since with so much delight, are now not only
indifferent to me, but repulsive. I no longer wish to meet and mix with
people; the idea, on the contrary, depresses, nay, even terrifies me."

"Lucille, you are hiding something from me."

"_Hiding!_--no, nothing--that is, nothing but my own thoughts, the
images of my reflections; nothing, dear Julie, that it would not render
you unhappy to hear. Why should I throw upon your mind the gloom and
shadows of my own?"

"But perhaps your troubles are fantastic and unreal; and, were you to
confide in me, I might convince you that they are so."