ner of using
which I perceived she was blind. The priest invited me to walk in,
informing me that that was Rosina; and adding, that if I liked to rest
myself for half an hour, he would ask her to tell me the rest of the
story. Feeling assured that some strange catastrophe remained to be
disclosed, I eagerly accepted the good man's offer; and having been
introduced to Henriette's former companion, whose memory, in spite of
her great age, I found perfectly clear, I said I feared it might give
her pain to recall circumstances that were doubtless of a distressing
nature.

"Ah, madame," said she, "it is but putting into words the thoughts that
are always in my head! I have never related the sad tale but twice; for
I would not, for my dear mistress's sake, speak of such things to the
people about her; but each time I slept better afterward. I seemed to
have lightened the heaviness of my burthen by imparting the secret to
another."

"You were very much attached to Mademoiselle de Beaugency?" said I.

"My mother was her nurse, madame, but we grew up like sisters," answered
Rosina. "She never concealed a thought from me; and the Virgin knows her
thoughts will never keep me an hour out of Paradise, for there was no
more sin in them than a butterfly's wing might bear."

"I suppose she suffered a great deal when she heard of her cousin's
death?" said I. "How long was it before she married the count? For she
did marry him, I conclude, from what I have heard?"

"Ay, madame, she did, about a year after the--the news came, worse luck!
Not that she was unhappy with him exactly. He did not treat her ill; far
from it; for he was passionately fond of her. But he was
jealous--heavens knows of whom, for he had nobody to be jealous of. But
he loved like a hot-blooded Spaniard, as he was; and I suppose he felt
that she did not return his love in the same way. How should she, when
she had given her whole heart to her cousin? Still she liked the count,
and I could not say they were unhappy together; but she did not like
Spain, and the people she lived among there. The count's place was
dreadfully gloomy, certainly. For my part, I used to be afraid to go at
night along the vaulted passages, and up those wide, dark staircases, to
my bed. But the count doted on it because it had belonged to the family
time out of mind; and it was only to please her that he ever came to her
family home at all."

"But surely this place is very dismal, too?" sa