y encouragement to his demonstrative tendencies, that the
certainty of her newly acquired freedom created a sensation of relief
and well-being. But, hardly had she analyzed and acknowledged this
sensation when she reproached herself for harboring it when she was
about to cause Claudet such affliction.

Poor Claudet! what a cruel blow was in store for him! He was so
guilelessly in love, and had such unbounded confidence in the success of
his projects! Reine was overcome by tender reminiscences. She had always
experienced, as if divining by instinct the natural bonds which united
them, a sisterly affection for Claudet. Since their earliest infancy, at
the age when they learned their catechism under the church porch, they
had been united in a bond of friendly fellowship. With Reine, this
tender feeling had always remained one of friendship, but, with Claudet,
it had ripened into love; and now, after allowing the poor young fellow
to believe that his love was reciprocated, she was forced to disabuse
him. It was useless for her to try to find some way of softening the
blow; there was none. Claudet was too much in love to remain satisfied
with empty words; he would require solid reasons; and the only
conclusive one which would convince him, without wounding his self-love,
was exactly the one which the young girl could not give him. She was,
therefore, doomed to send Claudet away with the impression that he had
been jilted by a heartless and unprincipled coquette. And yet something
must be done. The grand chasserot had been too long already in the
toils; there was something barbarously cruel in not freeing him from his
illusions.

In this troubled state of mind, Reine gazed appealingly at the silent
witnesses of her distress. She heard a voice within her saying to the
tall, vaulted ash, "Inspire me!" to the little rose-colored centaurea
of the wayside, "Teach me a charm to cure the harm I have done!" But
the woods, which in former days had been her advisers and instructors,
remained deaf to her invocation. For the first time, she felt herself
isolated and abandoned to her own resources, even in the midst of her
beloved forest.

It is when we experience these violent mental crises, that we become
suddenly conscious of Nature's cold indifference to our sufferings. She
really is nothing more than the reflex of our own sensations, and can
only give us back what we lend her. Beautiful but selfish, she allows
herself to be courte