e talked, out of sheer
delight at getting back into the world?" said Aigleta to her friend,
while helping her to braid and bind her hair. "Not so, dear heart,"
replied her thoughtful companion, letting her delicate arms drop into
her lap. "I envy you your light-heartedness, I do not censure it. But
my heart is heavy. Oh, Aigleta, I used to have such happy dreams of
returning to my father, of breathing free air, and seeing the world as
it lay beyond the hill of Mont Salvair. And now--"

"Does not the world seem to you fair enough, the sky blue enough, the
meadows green enough, the stream clear enough to reflect back your
beauty?" laughed Aigleta.

"How can you mock at my anxiety and gloom?" returned the Count's
daughter. "Just think--on the very day when I re-enter the world, my
dear father is absent from me. I cannot grasp his hand or hear his
voice. Oh believe me, there is something mysterious, dark, perhaps
appalling, that is kept back from me, the foreboding of which
has--spite of all the sunshine--darkened for me this much longed for
day."

"Nonsense!" said Aigleta. "Shall I tell you where the cloud lay that
threw its dull shadow over you? On the brow and in the eyes of that
simple Sir Jaufret. Deny it as you will I know what I know, and have
not got eyes in my head for nothing. And have you not, indeed, every
right to be offended with his uncourteous, indifferent manner? Fie! To
make such a melancholy face when one has the good fortune to serve as
knight to two sweet young ladies, one of whom, moreover, is a high-born
countess and his own first cousin! And this evening, too, when we
walked round the pastures, could he not have found something more
lively to talk of than the stars above us, and whether we went to them
after death, and horrid subjects of that kind? I think he might have
found some stars nearer at hand, and only to talk about dying we need
not have left Mont Salvair! He is certainly--as one can see--likely to
die of love, but that is no excuse. Such gloom may do very well for
poems when he writes you them, but while you were together and
alone--for as for me, I closed my eyes and pretended to be asleep--"

"What art thou prating about, foolish one?" said Garcinde, trying to
look angry, although a sweet emotion sent the blood tingling to her
cheeks. "Dost thou not know why he is so grave and sad, and never,
indeed, will be quite happy all his life long? Not though that he need
take his birth thus