rly handsome, and there was still a character of beauty
in her features, to which her devotional life imparted an expression of
sublimity such as I have never seen even in a "Raphael." Suffering and
sorrow seemed so blended with hopefulness--present agony so tinctured
with a glorious future--that, to me at least, she appeared almost
angelic.

As for "Margot," child as she was, the whole care of the household
devolved upon her. The humblest _menage_ is not without its duties,
and to these she addressed herself at once. It was on the day after my
arrival, and while just meditating a return to Paris, that symptoms
of fever first showed themselves, and a severe shivering, followed by
intense headache, showed me that I was not to escape the consequences of
my unhappy encounter. Ursule, whose experience in hospital life had been
considerable, was the first to see the mischief that threatened, and at
once persuaded me to submit to treatment. The old Marquis was soon at
my bedside, but as quickly did he perceive that the case was beyond his
skill. The surgeon of the village was now sent for; he bled me largely,
dressed my wounds, administered some cooling drink, and then left me
to that terrible interval which precedes mania, and when the enfeebled
intellect struggles for mastery against the force of wandering
faculties.

In my wild fancies, all the incidents of my early days, the little
adventures of boyhood, my mountain ramble, and my life in Paris, came
back, and I talked with intense eagerness to those around me of them
all. Short intervals of consciousness, like gleams of sunlight in a
lowering sky, would break through these, and then I saw beside the bed
the kind faces, and heard the gentle accents, of my friends. "Ursule"
and, "Margot" scarcely ever left me. In the dark hours of the long
night, if a weary sigh escaped me, one of them was sure to be near to
ask if I was in pain or if I needed anything. How often have I turned
away from these gentle questionings to hide my face within my hands and
cry, not in sorrow, but in a thankful outpouring of emotion, that I, the
poor unfriended, uncared-for orphan, should be thus watched, and tended,
and loved!

It was not till after a lapse of weeks that I was pronounced out of
danger, nor even till long after that that I could arise from my bed.
Shall I ever forget the strange confusion of ideas that beset me as
I first found myself alone one morning in the little garden, scarc