nly absent; so absent, that of an evening
she would sit for hours, staring into the light, as if she were in a
trance--and I must say these strange ways became her; she grew
handsomer from day to day. We every one of us noticed it. As to the
younger functionaries about the place, there was not a single man of
them, who was not over head and ears in love with her. But she never
seemed to see it--and not one of them had a kinder word to boast of
than the others.

"Summer came, and brought no change. The count was still at the castle;
Mr. Pierre sitting with his bottle before him half the day; and every
body wondering and conjecturing what was likely to come of this new
style of living. The busy tongues had a fresh match ready every week
for my Master. For he had got to be far gayer; he willingly accepted
invitations in the neighbourhood, and even gave little fetes in return,
where he was all politeness. I had never known him to be in such a
humour before, and I thanked God for it; the more, as we expected our
young count to come home in the Autumn, and it would have broken my
heart if they had not met in peace and kindness.

"And oh! Sir, that night, when my Count Ernest came, and his father
rode out to meet him--(he came from Berlin, after having passed his
examination most brilliantly)--I felt--his own mother could not have
felt more. And when I saw him, so tall and handsome, riding beside his
father through the triumphal arch of fir-trees the men had put up for
him across the bridge--and the lovely transparency over the gate, with
the word: 'Welcome!' and Mr. Pierre's rockets whizzing right up into
the sky, I burst into tears, and could not speak a word--I only took
his hand, and kept kissing it again and again.--

"And he was just the same as ever; and he stroked my face, and had his
old jokes with me, that were only between us two. Ah! Sir, that was a
pleasant meeting! The count--I mean the father--walked upstairs with
his son, looking quite pleased and proud; and indeed it was a son to be
proud of. I felt so cross with Mamsell Gabrielle, when I asked her what
she thought of our young count, and found she could not tell me whether
he were dark or fair. But when I came to consider of it, I said to
myself that, after all, this was better than falling in love with
him--for that was what I had always been afraid of.--Poor shortsighted
creatures that we are!

"In the evening I was called upstairs, to help to wait upon