coast-rocks. But Elizabeth changed his plan. The time was
good for what she had to say. Instead of expending his enthusiasm on a
flourish of notes, he was called upon to manifest it in a noble
resolution.

When Elizabeth invited her father to a prospect sylvan rather than
marine, to the shady path on the border of the wood between it and the
prison, Montier, easily drawn from any plan that concerned his own
inclination merely, let his daughter lead, and she was responsible for
all that followed in the history of that little family. So love defers
to love, with divine courtesy, through all celestial movements.

After playing a few airs, Montier's anticipated evening ended, and
another set in. The sympathies of a condition, the opposite to that of
which he had been so happily conscious, pressed too closely against
him. The musician could not, for the life of him, have played with
becoming spirit through any one of all the strains of victory he knew.

Near him, under a tulip-tree, sat Pauline, with her knitting in her
hand, the image of peace. Not so Elizabeth. She was doubting, troubled.
But when the bird her father's music moved to sing was still, she
spoke, as she had promised herself she would, asking a question, of
whose answer she had not the slightest doubt.

"Papa, do you know that Mr. Laval is going away?"

"Why, yes, that's the talk, I believe."

"Will they get somebody to take his place?"

"Of course. There's a prisoner on hand yet, you know,--and the house to
look after."

"A big house, too, and dreadful dreary," remarked the mother of
Elizabeth. "Laval's wife used to say, when she came up to see me
sometimes, it was like being a prisoner to live in that building. And
now she's dead and gone, he begins to think the same."

"Suppose we take Laval's place," suggested Montier, looking very
seriously at his wife; but the suggestion did not alarm her. Adolphus
often expressed his satisfaction with existing arrangements by making
propositions of exchange for other states of life, propositions which
never disturbed his wife or daughter. They understood these
demonstrations of his deep content. Therefore, at these words of his,
Pauline smiled, and for the reason that the words could draw forth such
a smile Elizabeth looked grave.

"I wish we could, papa," said she.

"You wish we could, you child?" exclaimed her mother, wondering. "It
looks so pleasant, eh?" and the fair face of Pauline turned to the
priso