word) of Adrienne's
behaviour to her cousin, had awakened in him an indefinite consciousness
that his good-humoured notice of the poor little girl, and the kind word
he was ever prompt to speak in her praise when she was absent, were
likely to be anything but advantageous to her in their effect on the
feelings of her patroness. One circumstance, in particular, recurred to
him,--the recollection of a certain _jour de fete_, when la petite
Madelaine (who had been dancing at a village gala, kept annually at the
Manoir du Resnel in honour of Madame's name-day) presented herself,
late in the evening, at St Hilaire, so blooming from the effects of
her recent exhilarating exercise--her meek eyes so bright with the
excitement of innocent gaiety, and her small delicate figure and
youthful face set off so advantageously by her simple holiday dress,
especially by her hat, _a la bergere_, garlanded with wild roses, that
even the old people, M. and Mad. de St Hilaire, complimented her on her
appearance, and himself (after whispering aside to Adrienne, "La Petite
est jolie a ravir,") had sprung forward, and whirled her round the salon
in a _tour de danse_, the effect of which impromptu was assuredly not
to lessen the bloom upon her cheeks, which flushed over neck and brow,
as, with the laughing familiarity of a brother, he commended her tasteful
dress, and especially the pretty hat, which she must wear, and that
only, he assured her, when she wished to be perfectly irresistible.
Walter's sportive sally was soon over, and Madelaine's flush of beauty
(the magical effect of happiness) soon faded. Both yielded to the
influence of another spell--that wrought by the coldly discouraging
looks of Adrienne, and by the asperity of the few sentences, which were
all she condescended to utter during the remainder of the evening. When
la petite Madelaine reappeared the next morning with her cousin (who,
on the plea of a migraine, remained till late in her own apartments),
Walter failed not to remark that her eyes were red and heavy, and that
her manner was more constrained than usual; neither did it escape his
observation when Sunday arrived, that the tasteful little hat had been
strangely metamorphosed, and that when he rallied her on her capricious
love of changes, which had only spoiled what was before so becoming,
she stole a half-fearful glance at Adrienne, while rather confusedly
replying that "it was not her _own_ doing, but that Ma'amselle J