to an
expression of derision.

These personal defects, however, were liberally counterbalanced by
mental attributes of a high order. His constitutional diffidence caused
him to shun society; but he devoted his leisure to books, and was an
erudite scholar, without ever mounting the pompous stilts of the pedant.
All his impulses were noble and generous, though his best intentions
were often frustrated by that fearful self-consciousness which made him
dread the possibility of attracting attention. There was a slight shade
of melancholy in his character. Life had been a disappointment to him,
and he was haunted by a sense of the incompleteness of his own
existence.

His estate joined that of the Count de Gramont, and was even more
impoverished. Gaston de Bois led a sort of hermit-like life in the
gloomy and empty chateau of his ancestors. He chafed in his confinement,
like a caged lion ready to break loose from bondage. But the lion freed
might take refuge in his native woods, while Gaston, if he rushed forth
into the world, knew that his bashfulness, his stammering, his
near-sightedness, would render society a more intolerable prison than
his solitary home.

At the Chateau de Gramont he was a frequent guest, for the countess and
her son held him in the highest esteem.

After saluting his host and hostess, he warmly grasped the hand of
Maurice, and then addressed Madeleine, with but little hesitation
apparent in his speech; but when he turned to Bertha, and essayed to
make some pleasant remark, he was suddenly seized with a fit of hopeless
stammering.

The beaming smile with which Bertha greeted him was displaced by an
expression almost amounting to compassion. Madeleine, with her wonted
presence of mind, came to his aid; finished his sentence, as though he
had spoken it himself; and went on talking _to him_ and _for him_, while
he regarded her with an air of undisguised thankfulness and relief.

Between Madeleine and Gaston de Bois there existed that sort of
friendship which many persons are sceptical that a young and attractive
woman and an agreeable man can entertain for each other without the
sentiment heightening into a warmer emotion. But love and friendship are
totally distinct affections. A woman may cherish the truest, kindliest
friendship for a man whom it would be impossible for her to love; nay,
in whom she would totally lose her interest if he once presented himself
in the aspect of a lover; and we beli