between father, mother,
and child as to the so-called mysterious love which had paled Modeste's
cheeks,--for this was the first day she had left her bed since Dumay's
departure for Paris. The colonel, with the charming delicacy of a
true soldier, never left his wife's side nor released her hand; but he
watched Modeste with delight, and was never weary of noting her refined,
elegant, and poetic beauty. Is it not by such seeming trifles that we
recognize a man of feeling? Modeste, who feared to interrupt the subdued
joy of the husband and wife kept at a little distance, coming from time
to time to kiss her father's forehead, and when she kissed it overmuch
she seemed to mean that she was kissing it for two,--for Bettina and
herself.

"Oh, my darling, I understand you," said the colonel, pressing her hand
as she assailed him with kisses.

"Hush!" whispered the young girl, glancing at her mother.

Dumay's rather sly and pregnant silence made Modeste somewhat uneasy as
to the upshot of his journey to Paris. She looked at him furtively
every now and then, without being able to get beneath his epidermis.
The colonel, like a prudent father, wanted to study the character of
his only daughter, and above all consult his wife, before entering on a
conference upon which the happiness of the whole family depended.

"To-morrow, my precious child," he said as they parted for the night,
"get up early, and we will go and take a walk on the seashore. We have
to talk about your poems, Mademoiselle de La Bastie."

His last words, accompanied by a smile, which reappeared like an echo
on Dumay's lips, were all that gave Modeste any clew to what was coming;
but it was enough to calm her uneasiness and keep her awake far into the
night with her head full of suppositions; this, however, did not prevent
her from being dressed and ready in the morning long before the colonel.

"You know all, my kind papa?" she said as soon as they were on the road
to the beach.

"I know all, and a good deal more than you do," he replied.

After that remark father and daughter went some little way in silence.

"Explain to me, my child, how it happens that a girl whom her mother
idolizes could have taken such an important step as to write to a
stranger without consulting her."

"Oh, papa! because mamma would never have allowed it."

"And do you think, my daughter, that that was proper? Though you have
been educating your mind in this fatal way, how is it