tha, he urged,
during the absence of Maurice, had probably learned that he was dearer
to her than she imagined; and, if Maurice had reason to believe that she
crossed the ocean for the sake of rejoining him, could he remain
insensible to such a proof of devotion? The countess bowed her haughty
head to a sacrifice which vitally compromised her dignity.

One of the objects of the count's visit to America was to learn
something further of the railroad company with which he was connected.
For a time its operations had been suspended, owing to a financial
crisis,--a sort of periodical American epidemic that, like cholera,
sweeps over the land at intervals, making frightful ravage for a season,
and departing as mysteriously as it came. The elastic nation, never long
prostrate, had risen out of temporary difficulties and depression with a
sudden bound, and prosperity walked in the very footprints of the late
destroyer.

Mr. Hilson had lately announced to Count Tristan that the railway
association was again in full activity, and that the mooted question of
the direction which the road ought to take would, ere long, be decided.
He added that, according to his judgment, the left road was indubitably
the more desirable. Should that road be chosen, it would pass through
the property owned by the Viscount de Gramont. We have already alluded
to the immense difference in the value of the estate which the advent of
the railroad would insure.

Bertha had no difficulty in obtaining the Marquis de Merrivale's
approval of the contemplated trip.

Early in the spring the party embarked upon one of those superb steamers
that sweep across the ocean like floating cities, pulsating with
multitudinous life.

The passage was so smooth that Bertha thoroughly enjoyed the strange,
new existence, and found such ever-varying beauty in the gorgeous
sunsets, and the resplendent moonlight, that she even forsook her berth
to see "Aurora draw aside her crimson curtain of the dawn;" in short she
was in an appreciating mood throughout the voyage, and her happy state
allowed her to ignore all the _desagremens_ of the sea. The countess
also, as she sat upon the deck in a comfortable arm-chair,--which she
occupied as though it were a throne, and received the homage of
fellow-passengers, who were obviously struck and awed by her majestic
deportment,--pronounced the transit more endurable than she anticipated.

Maurice had gone to New York to welcome the vo