pisode in
a poem to Eugenie.

"Well, then, we will bring your breakfast to your own room, so as not to
annoy my father."

She ran to the kitchen with the swiftness and lightness of a bird.

"Nanon, go and do his room!"

That staircase, so often traversed, which echoed to the slightest noise,
now lost its decaying aspect in the eyes of Eugenie. It grew luminous;
it had a voice and spoke to her; it was young like herself,--young like
the love it was now serving. Her mother, her kind, indulgent mother,
lent herself to the caprices of the child's love, and after the room
was put in order, both went to sit with the unhappy youth and keep him
company. Does not Christian charity make consolation a duty? The two
women drew a goodly number of little sophistries from their religion
wherewith to justify their conduct. Charles was made the object of the
tenderest and most loving care. His saddened heart felt the sweetness
of the gentle friendship, the exquisite sympathy which these two souls,
crushed under perpetual restraint, knew so well how to display when, for
an instant, they were left unfettered in the regions of suffering, their
natural sphere.

Claiming the right of relationship, Eugenie began to fold the linen and
put in order the toilet articles which Charles had brought; thus she
could marvel at her ease over each luxurious bauble and the various
knick-knacks of silver or chased gold, which she held long in her hand
under a pretext of examining them. Charles could not see without emotion
the generous interest his aunt and cousin felt in him; he knew society
in Paris well enough to feel assured that, placed as he now was, he
would find all hearts indifferent or cold. Eugenie thus appeared to him
in the splendor of a special beauty, and from thenceforth he admired
the innocence of life and manners which the previous evening he had been
inclined to ridicule. So when Eugenie took from Nanon the bowl of coffee
and cream, and began to pour it out for her cousin with the simplicity
of real feeling, giving him a kindly glance, the eyes of the Parisian
filled with tears; he took her hand and kissed it.

"What troubles you?" she said.

"Oh! these are tears of gratitude," he answered.

Eugenie turned abruptly to the chimney-piece to take the candlesticks.

"Here, Nanon, carry them away!" she said.

When she looked again towards her cousin she was still blushing, but her
looks could at least deceive, and did not betray t