the sounds become visible, they must _shine_;
but there was a rich depth in her tones, which imparted to her lightest
words an intonation of feeling, and told the hearer that her vocal
chords were in close communication with her heart. Though her
countenance did not lack the radiance of youthful gladness, there was so
much thought mingled with its brightness that even her mirth conveyed
the impression that she had suffered and sorrowed.

The only daughter of the Duke de Gramont, at eighteen she suddenly found
herself an orphan and wholly destitute. Her father was one of that large
class of impoverished noblemen who keep up appearances by means of
constant shifts and desperate struggles, of which the world knows
nothing. But he was a man of unquestionable intellect, and had given
Madeleine a much more liberal education than custom accords to young
French maidens of her rank.

The accident of his birth the Duke de Gramont regarded as a positive
misfortune, and daily lamented the burden of his own nobility, for it
was a shackle that enfeebled and enslaved his large capacities.

He once said to his young daughter, "You would have been far happier as
a peasant's child; I should have had a wider field of action and
enjoyment as an humble laborer; we should both have been more truly
_noble_. I envy the peasants who have the glorious privilege of doing
just that which they are best fitted to do; who are not forced to
_vegetate_ and call vegetation existence,--not compelled to waste and
deaden their energies because it is an aristocratic penalty,--not doomed
to glide into and out of their lives without ever living enough to know
life's worth."

Such words sank into Madeleine's spirit, took deep root there, and,
growing in the bleak atmosphere of adversity, bore vigorous fruit in
good season.

She had known only the intangible shadow of pomp and luxury, while the
substance was actual penury. But her inborn fertility of invention, her
abundant resources, her tact in accommodating herself to circumstances,
and her inexhaustible energy, had endowed her with the faculty of making
the best of her contradictory position, and the most of the humblest
materials at her command.

Though she had several wealthy relatives, the Countess de Gramont was
the only one who offered her unsheltered youth an asylum. Perhaps we
ought not to analyze too minutely the motives of the noble lady, for
fear that we might find her actuated less by a ch