pity; like Chateauneuf, who, in the time of Henri III., I think,
rode his horse at the Provost of Paris for a wrong of that kind,
and trampled him under hoof.

I write, therefore, to say that I shall soon pay you a visit at
Les Touches. I want to stay there, in that Chartreuse, while
awaiting the success of our Gennaro's opera. You will see that I
am bold with my benefactress, my sister; but I prove, at any rate,
that the greatness of obligations laid upon me has not led me, as
it does so many people, to ingratitude. You have told me so much
of the difficulties of the land journey that I shall go to Croisic
by water. This idea came to me on finding that there is a little
Danish vessel now here, laden with marble, which is to touch at
Croisic for a cargo of salt on its way back to the Baltic. I shall
thus escape the fatigue and the cost of the land journey. Dear
Felicite, you are the only person with whom I could be alone
without Conti. Will it not be some pleasure to have a woman with
you who understands your heart as fully as you do hers?

Adieu, _a bientot_. The wind is favorable, and I set sail, wafting
you a kiss.

Beatrix.

"Ah! she loves, too!" thought Calyste, folding the letter sadly.

That sadness flowed to the heart of the mother as if some gleam had
lighted up a gulf to her. The baron had gone out; Fanny went to the door
of the tower and pushed the bolt, then she returned, and leaned upon the
back of her boy's chair, like the sister of Dido in Guerin's picture,
and said,--

"What is it, my Calyste? what makes you so sad? You promised to explain
to me these visits to Les Touches; I am to bless its mistress,--at
least, you said so."

"Yes, indeed you will, dear mother," he replied. "She has shown me
the insufficiency of my education at an epoch when the nobles ought to
possess a personal value in order to give life to their rank. I was as
far from the age we live in as Guerande is from Paris. She has been, as
it were, the mother of my intellect."

"I cannot bless her for that," said the baroness, with tears in her
eyes.

"Mamma!" cried Calyste, on whose forehead those hot tears fell, two
pearls of sorrowful motherhood, "mamma, don't weep! Just now, when I
wanted to do her a service, and search the country round, she said, 'It
will make your mother so uneasy.'"

"Did she say that? Then I can forgive her many things," replied Fanny.

"Felicite thinks only of my