ppened,
unintelligible to her at the time, but with gradually developing
significance for a mind grown susceptible to religious influences;
something which lately seemed to have degraded her, as it were, in her
own eyes, and according to her own romantic standard. This change in
her demeanor dated from the day of reading Schiller's noble tragedy of
_Wilhelm Tell_ in a new series of translations. Her mother scolded her
for letting the book fall, and then remarked to herself that the passage
which had so worked on Helene's feelings was the scene in which Wilhelm
Tell, who spilt the blood of a tyrant to save a nation, fraternizes in
some sort with John the Parricide. Helene had grown humble, dutiful, and
self-contained; she no longer cared for gaiety. Never had she made so
much of her father, especially when the Marquise was not by to watch
her girlish caresses. And yet, if Helene's affection for her mother had
cooled at all, the change in her manner was so slight as to be almost
imperceptible; so slight that the General could not have noticed it,
jealous though he might be of the harmony of home. No masculine insight
could have sounded the depths of those two feminine natures; the one
was young and generous, the other sensitive and proud; the first had
a wealth of indulgence in her nature, the second was full of craft and
love. If the Marquise made her daughter's life a burden to her by
a woman's subtle tyranny, it was a tyranny invisible to all but the
victim; and for the rest, these conjectures only called forth after the
event must remain conjectures. Until this night no accusing flash of
light had escaped either of them, but an ominous mystery was too surely
growing up between them, a mystery known only to themselves and God.

"Come, Abel," called the Marquise, seizing on her opportunity when the
children were tired of play and still for a moment. "Come, come, child;
you must be put to bed--"

And with a glance that must be obeyed, she caught him up and took him on
her knee.

"What!" exclaimed the General. "Half-past ten o'clock, and not one of
the servants has come back! The rascals!--Gustave," he added, turning to
his son, "I allowed you to read that book only on the condition that you
should put it away at ten o'clock. You ought to have shut up the book
at the proper time and gone to bed, as you promised. If you mean to
make your mark in the world, you must keep your word; let it be a second
religion to you, and