evenings in the sweetest, that is most absurd, reveries.

Revery then was a rest to me, now it is a labor, and a dangerous labor when too often resorted to; good thoughts then came to assist me in my misery; now, vexatious presentiments torment my happiness. Then the uncertainty of my future made me mistress of events. I could each day choose a new destiny, and new adventures. My unexpected and undeserved misfortune was so complete that I had nothing more to dread and everything to hope for, and experienced a vague feeling of gratitude for the ultimate succor that I confidently expected.

I would pass long hours gazing from my window at a little light shining from the fourth-story window of a distant house. What strange conjectures I made, as I silently watched the mysterious beacon!

Sometimes, in contemplating it, I recalled the questions addressed by Childe Harold to the tomb of Cecilia Metella, asking the cold marble if she who rested there were young and beautiful, a dark-eyed, delicate-featured woman, whose destiny was that reserved by Heaven for those it loves; or was she a venerable matron who had outlived her charms, her children and her kindred?

So I also questioned this solitary light:

To what distressed soul did it lend its aid? Some anxious mother watching and praying beside her sick child, or some youthful student plunging with stern delight into the arcana of science, to wrest from the revealing spirits of the night some luminous truth?

But while the poet questioned death and the past, I questioned the living present, and more than once the distant beacon seemed to answer me. I even imagined that this busy light flickered in concert with mine, and that they brightened and faded in unison.

I could only see it through a thick foliage of trees, for a large garden planted with poplars, pines and sycamores separated the house where I had taken refuge from the tall building whence the beacon shone for me night after night.

As I could never succeed in finding the points of the compass, I was ignorant of the exact locality of the house, or even on what street it fronted, and knew nothing of its occupants. But still this light was a friend; it spoke a sympathetic language to my eyes—it said: "Courage! you do not suffer alone; behind these trees and under those stars there is one who watches, labors, dreams." And when the night was majestic and beautiful, when the morn rose slowly in the azure sky, like a radiant host offered by the invisible hand of God to the adoration of the faithful who pray, lament and die by night; when these ever-new splendors dazzled my troubled soul; when I felt myself seized with that poignant admiration which makes solitary hearts find almost grief in joys that cannot be shared, it seemed to me that a dear voice came to calm my excitement, and exclaimed, with fervor, "Is not the night beautiful? What happiness in enjoying it together!"

When the nightingale, deceived by the silence of the deserted spot, and attracted by these dark shades, became a Parisian for a few days, rejuvenating with his vernal songs the old echoes of the city, again it seemed that the same voice whispered softly through the trembling leaves: "He sings, come listen!"

So the sad nights glided peacefully away, comforted by these foolish reveries.

Then I invoked my dear ideal, beloved shadow, protector of every honest heart, proud dream, a perfect choice, a jealous love sometimes making all other love impossible! Oh, my beautiful ideal! Must I then say farewell? Now I no longer dare to invoke thee!...

But what folly! Why am I so silly as to permit the remembrance of an ideal to haunt me like a remorse? Why do I suffer it to make me unjust towards noble and generous qualities that I should worthily appreciate?

Do not laugh at me, Valentine, when I assure you that my greatest distress is that my lover does not resemble in any respect my ideal, and I am provoked that I love him—I cannot deceive myself, the contrast is striking—judge for yourself.

You may laugh if you will, but the whole secret of my distress is the contrast between these two portraits.

My lover has handsome, intelligent blue eyes—my ideal's eyes are black, full of sadness and fire, not the soft, troubadour eye with long drooping lids—no! My ideal's glance has none of the languishing tenderness of romance, but is proud, powerful, penetrating, the look of a thinker, of a great mind yielding to the influence of love, the gaze of a hero disarmed by passion!

My lover is tall and slender—my ideal is only a head taller than myself ... Ah! I know you are laughing at me, Valentine! Well! I sometimes laugh at myself....

My lover is frankness personified—my ideal is not a sly knave, but he is mysterious; he never utters his thoughts, but lets you divine, or rather he speaks to a responsive sentiment in your own bosom.

My lover is what men call "A good fellow," you are intimate with him in twenty-four hours.

My ideal is by no means "a good fellow," and although he inspires confidence and respect, you are never at ease in his presence, there is a graceful dignity in his carriage, an imposing gentleness in his manner, that always inspires a kind of fear, a pleasing awe.

You remember, Valentine, when we were very young girls how we were wont to ask each other, in reading the annals of the past, what situations would have pleased us, what parts we would have liked to play, what great emotions we would have wished to experience; and how you pityingly laughed at my odd taste.

My dream,par excellence, was to die of fear; I never envied with you the famed heroines, the sublime shepherdesses who saved their country. I envied the timid Esther fainting in the arms of her women at the fierce tones of Ahasuerus, and restored to consciousness by the same voice musically whispering the fondest words ever inspired by a royal love.

I also admired Semele, dying of fear and admiration at the frowns of a wrathful Jove, but her least of all, because I am terrified in a thunderstorm.

Well, I am still the same—to love tremblingly is my fondest dream; I do not say, like pretty Madame de S., that I can only be captivated by a man with the passions of a tiger and the manners of a diplomate, I only declare that I cannot understand love without fear.

And yet my lover does not inspire me with the least fear, and against all reasoning, I mistrust a love that so little resembles the love I imagined.

The strangest doubts trouble me. When Roger speaks to me tenderly; when he lovingly calls me his dear Irene, I am troubled, alarmed—I feel as if I were deceiving some one, that I am not free, that I belong to another. Oh! what foolish scruples! How little do I deserve sympathy! You who have known me from my childhood and are interested in my happiness, will understand and commiserate my folly, for folly I know it to be, and judge myself as severely as you would.

I have resolved to treat these wretched misgivings and childish fears as the creations of a diseased mind, and have arranged a plan for their cure.

I will go into the country for a short time; good Madame Taverneau offers me the hospitality of her house at Pont-de-l'Arche; she knows nothing of what has happened during the last six months, and still believes me to be a poor young widow, forced to paint fans and screens for her daily bread.

I am very much amused at hearing her relate my own story without imagining she is talking to the heroine of that singular romance.

Where could she have learned about my sad situation, the minute details that I supposed no one knew?

"A young orphan girl of noble birth, at the age of twenty compelled by misfortune to change her name and work for her livelihood, is suddenly restored to affluence by an accident that carried off all her relatives, an immensely rich uncle, his wife and son."

She also said my uncle detested me, which proved that she was well informed—only she adds that the young